Module 4 · Change & break habits · Emerging

Noticing an urge without obeying it

Awareness of the early signs, and riding out an urge until it passes.

6 min read · Level: Intermediate · Free — no account needed to read

The problem it solves

What can you do in the moment an urge arrives?

The concept

Urges rise, peak and fade, often within minutes. Noticing an urge — naming it, feeling where it sits in your body, watching it change — creates a small gap between the urge and the action.

Awareness training, part of habit-reversal methods, teaches people to catch the earliest signs of a habit. Vigilant monitoring — thinking “don’t do it” and watching closely in a high-risk moment — has helped people control strong habits in diary studies.

Urge surfing, borrowed from mindfulness-based approaches, means riding the urge like a wave without acting on it. The evidence is still emerging, but many people find it useful to learn that an urge passes.

Why it matters

These techniques don’t remove the cue, so they are best used alongside cue removal and substitution. Their value is the gap they create — the moment where a different choice becomes possible.

Emerging: Early or small studies look promising. Worth testing on yourself; too soon to rely on.

See it happen

Nia feels a strong urge to check her phone every time she sits down to write.

The ordinary first approach

The urge is too strong; she’ll check quickly and then write.

With the idea

She notices the urge, names it (“there’s the itch”), takes three slow breaths and watches it fade before starting.

What changed

The urge became something she observed, not an instruction she followed.

Easy to get wrong

• Expecting urges to stop appearing — the aim is to not be ruled by them.
• Using noticing alone for a very strong habit without changing the environment.
• Judging yourself for having the urge at all.

Different perspectives

Where the field genuinely disagrees. None of these is presented as the answer.

Watch the urge pass

Mindfulness-based approaches suggest curious attention to an urge weakens its hold over time.

Be vigilant

Diary research on strong habits found that actively watching for slips and telling yourself “don’t do it” was the most effective strategy in the moment. Different moments may suit different approaches.

Try it now: One urge, observed

1. Next time an urge arrives, pause and name it silently.
2. Notice where you feel it and whether it grows, peaks or fades.
3. Wait until it softens before deciding what to do.

Apply it to one of your habits

For one habit you want to change, what are the earliest signs that it’s about to start?

Reflect

• How long did the urge last when you watched it?

Go deeper — evidence & sources

• Quinn, Pascoe, Wood & Neal (2010). Can’t Control Yourself? Monitor Those Bad Habits. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. doi:10.1177/0146167209360665
• Azrin & Nunn (1973). Habit-reversal: A method of eliminating nervous habits and tics. Behaviour Research and Therapy. doi:10.1016/0005-7967(73)90119-8
• The Craving Mind — Judson Brewer (2017)