10 Science-Backed Bad Habits That Are Surprisingly Good For You!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you 15 bad habits that are absolutely good for you. 

Shocker! 

Bad Habits that are surprisingly and absolutely good for you? How can that be! I hear you. Hear me out. Keep an open mind and let’s dissect this properly.

Who knows? You may thank me later.

Meanwhile, check out my post on good habits and help a girl out here, check some other posts after checking out those good habits you should be practicing.

Thank you! 

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Good habits have the power to greatly improve the quality of your life, enhance productivity and ensure effective time management skills. Recent research by University College London has shown it takes an average of 66 days to develop/create a habit in a 2009 study involving 96 participants. 

So if good habits can improve your life positively, how can bad habits be any good for you?

Well, bad habits are habits that will inhibit your life in several ways and as such reduce the quality of life one may have.

However, these 10 bad habits are surprisingly good for you.

Check them out!

The 15 Bad Habits That Are Surprisingly & Absolutely Good For You.

1. Farting

How many times have your kids and partner berated you for farting and polluting the air? Well, my cute little nephew of ”almost 3 years” does it each time his momma farts.

I can’t deal. Seriously? Farting is a good ”bad habit”?

Yes, it is. 

The reason you fart is that there is accumulated gas in your stomach, leading to bloating. This may be due to eating some kind of food group especially legumes.

It happens to me when I eat beans. No, I didn’t just say that! Oh well! 

Farting is good because it helps you release gas and gives some form of relief to bloating symptoms. 

So, go ahead and fart.

But in a civilized manner! Thank you! 

2. Eating Chocolate

How many times have you heard or been told that eating chocolate is bad for your health and will make you pile on weight?

Well, I don’t know about you but I have heard it a zillion times and read it about a gazillion times!

Chocolate, the very dark type has several health benefits. It is a powerful source of antioxidants and may improve brain function.

Healthline a well-trusted resource on healthy practices has some juicy bits about the health benefits of eating chocolate.

As with everything in life, too much of everything is bad.

Indulge but don’t overdo it! 

3. Chewing Gum

I won’t deny it. Chewing gum, makes you come across as being loud. What with those popping sounds?

Well, I love chewing gum but I try to be quiet when I do. It focuses me. If you know what I mean. Like now, as I am writing this blog post, I am seriously yearning for a piece of gum to pop in my mouth. I’d finish it in a lesser time than now that I am not chewing gum. 

Unfortunately, I don’t have any right about now so I just have to slave away. But I digress! 

So, why would chewing gum be a good ”bad habit”?

Aside from improving concentration and memory, it fights nausea, relieves ear pain during flights and also combats stress and anxiety.

Check out WiseBread to get the full scoop on the health benefits of chewing gums! 

Who has a pack of Mentos? Please throw one or two and you will be my BFF! While you are at it, see this post on 10 Super Interesting Cool Facts You Didn’t Know!

4. Having A Lie In

Oh, the guilt we feel when we have a lie in and having huge bouts of FOMO (fear of missing out). You have a one and million tasks to complete.

Welcome, to a typical day in the life of a blogger! 

You have to take care of social shares, network, complete threads, write blog posts and ensure they are SEO’ed, promote, go crazy about ranking on Google, network with bloggers and brands, and every other thing in between.

Then get the feeling you are not doing much to push out your blog or making enough money and you stay up all night, crafting strategies for monetization and growing the blog.

Then start the cycle all over again. Sleep? Nahhh. I will pass. 

No wonder, you wake up cranky! 

Having a lie in does not mean you are lazy or not productive (well except if you are the type that is naturally lazy. I am not talking about you, thank you). 

Having a lie in boosts and improves your mood. Research has it that sleep will improve your metabolism, live longer, boost memory and reduce stress.

Not getting enough sleep, on the other hand, will lead to weight gain, cause stress, lead to accidents (mistakes are bound to happen) and increase your risk of heart disease.

Which would you rather choose? I thought so! Go on, indulge in this good ”bad habit”!

5. Drinking Coffee

I am seated here in my PJs having a cup of coffee and penning this blog post, I hope will be loved and shared by you all. 

I love coffee but I love green tea more. The debate about coffee is a huge one. 

Most things I do in life are from the realization and knowledge that they are actually good for me in the great scheme of things.

When I was growing up (I am a full grown woman now in case you didn’t know), I used to detest onions with a passion. Make soups and stews with onions? Jennifer will gladly remove them before digging in. I would rather blend onions in stews and soups than see them physically in food.

My hate relationship with onions was overcome (well to an extent in 2004 when I decided to eat raw onions with a local meat delicacy known as SUYA after knowing the health benefits of eating onions). My relationship with onions is still a love-hate one just like my love-hate relationship with MONDAYS.

It is the same narrative with coffee. While it is true that coffee may lead to some health risks, the fact is that drinking coffee in moderate amounts (about 3 cups a day) will increase your metabolism, reduce risk of kidney stones and gallstones. 

By the way, women who drink two or three cups of coffee a day are less like to be prone to depression and also reduce the risk of age-related diabetes according to several studies.

Cheers to having a cup of coffee. 

6. Being Messy

Hmmm, this one caught me unawares because I much prefer my environment being neat. Not in an obsessive manner though.

You pile up plates in the kitchen, your closet is in disarray,  you don’t make your bed when you wake up. In fact, it is as untidy as the pile of rubbish across the street. No skin off my back sugar. Your choice.

Well, a STUDY has linked being messy to improved Creativity. It was proven in the study that your creativity suffers if you are in a clutter-free environment. 50 research subjects were invited into two laboratory settings. You guessed right, one tidy and the other messy. They were given a task to brainstorm on a Ping Pong factory that wanted to promote new uses for its products.

You guessed right again you genius! The study subjects in the messy room came up with ideas that were highly creative.

My former boss always had an untidy desk. He would always tell me ”clean that desk and you ruin my thought process! Go figure! 

Go on, throw a pillow there, a magazine here. Be messy and improve your creativity! 

7. The Bad Habit of Biting Nails

Seriously? Like seriously? Are you shitting me right now? Just after thinking my nail-biting years are over, I get hit by this bad habit? As being good?

I have always been an avid reader (went through almost all James Hadley Chase books by the time I was 18) and could finish reading a 40,000 words book in two hours provided I was indulging in a combination of these bad habits, biting my nails, twisting my back hair and/or using my fingers to cut my feet nails.

Yours truly, only just recently beat the habit of nail biting and now this! 

Well, while biting nails may introduce germs into your system, Dr. Hilary Longhurst, a consultant Immunologist with Bart’s NHS Trust has this to say about nail biting. 

‘Unless your hands are filthy, the bugs we encounter when biting our nails could boost our immune system.’

She says that regular nail-biting exposes us to small amounts of potentially immune boosting bugs. The result? You are less likely to fall sick. You can get more scoop on this HERE. 

If this is what you indulge in, go on. Your immunity will thank you for it.

Jennifer will pass on this though. I just ditched this habit so I am not going back to it. My immune is up to par! 

But do you darling! 

8. Burping As A  Good Bad Habit

Well, I don’t see why burping will be a bad habit in the first habit. I mean, I see mothers feed their babies, put them on their shoulders while patting their backs so they could burp. 

Then voila, baby burps and settles. 

See? It is a good bad habit. It does come with a loud noise I know but then burps gas as it is called is a mixture of gases as well as the air we swallow when eating. It also contains Carbon dioxide and we know that isn’t good from our Chemistry days in school.

The natural gas we give out in the form of belching is a very normal part of the digestion process and suppressing it may lead to other problems. Burping protects you against damage from stomach acid. 

Dr. Nick Read, a consultant Gastroenterologist has THIS to say about Burping.

Next time you belch after eating, don’t feel guilty. Just say excuse me. 

Manners, darling. 

9. The Bad Habit Of Cracking Your Knuckles

This one gives me shivers when I hear people cracking their knuckles. I would cringe in fear and a little irritation. 

I believed wholeheartedly that it is harmful and could even break one’s bones! 

I just tried it out now. Not bad LOL. I didn’t get that loud cracking sound some persons get when cracking their knuckles though. A sound that is thought to emanate the synovial fluid that surrounds each joint. 

Who better to talk about the effects of cracking your knuckles than a Rheumatologist? Check out what Dr. Chris Edwards has to say about this bad habit that is surprisingly good for you HERE.

It is believed that cracking your knuckles can make a joint feel more flexible. Who wouldn’t want some flexibility in their bones?

I do! Go cracking. But, hey! Don’t do it near me. 

10. Spitting

I love football. I really do. But at times I get a little pissed and irritated while watching this favorite sport of mine. 

Who else has noticed footballers has this habit of spitting indiscriminately on the football pitch? And, then someone falls on top of it! Arghhhhh.

I still love them though. Sigh. 

Well, it is said that when exercising (playing football is one great exercise but I leave it to the men), the body produces more saliva and spitting it out, helps you breathe easier. The same with runners. 

No wonder! 

Spitting may be filthy but it is good to spit out all the saliva while you are exercising so you could breathe easier.

Don’t just do it in front of people. Excuse yourself and do it privately where no one can see.

You are not a footballer on a football pitch. That we can forgive! 

11. Fidgeting

I have a friend who fidgets so much just right before a presentation that it gets very worrisome and then he goes on stage and wow the hell out of everyone by delivering engaging and excellent presentations! 

What the heck? That is always my reaction after his presentations but I have become kinda used to it.

If he is so brilliant, why fidget? Beats me! But he did say, fidgeting helps him focus on the task at hand, that it centers him. 

Well, fidgeting is a form of exercise. It burns calories. Yes, that is right. There are researches that claim that fidgeting can help you lose up to 350 calories and help keep weight gain off. 

So, if you are the type that fidgets a lot, I reckon you have a really nice BMI! 

12. Gossiping

This one is deep! So the other day, I saw a babe with a horrible combination of eyeshadow and brows from hell wearing a very ill forming dress! I had wanted to take pics but didn’t but I am not that cruel but the look is etched in my eye’s mind! 

There I just gossiped! 

How did it feel reading that? How many conversations did you have in your mind while reading that juicy bit? I bet you grinned, laughed or whatever! 

How did it feel for me, writing and telling you all about it? We all love to gossip. Our spouses, partners, colleagues at work, family members, and friends are all our subjects and victims of our gossips. Gossips are not always malicious.

Well, gossiping releases feel-good hormones that in turn reduce stress.

Who knew?!

13. The Bad Habit Of Eating On Your Bed

Who doesn’t want breakfast in bed? You should demand it more often from boo because trust me, it is a good bad habit.

Do you know all those stories momma and papa told you about why eating on your bed is bad? Well, they are all ”lies”.

Eating in bed may actually aid digestion contrary to popular belief! The best way to eat a meal is by being relaxed and what better way than eating on your bed?

Just prop yourself up with enough pillow so you can sit upright instead of hunching your back and then trigger indigestion.

Dear future husband, please bring me breakfast in bed. I would love you more! 

14. The Bad Habit Of Giving In To Your Cravings

I can’t count the number of times I fell off the bandwagon of healthy eating. Having a soda when it is so hot, it seems the only solution to the dehydration is having one or eating chicken skin (please no one should tell me I shouldn’t eat it. I do), having ice cream and a bar of chocolate.

But then, I go back to eating healthy.

While it is not actually good to give to your cravings for junk food all the time (it will surely sabotage your health goals and of course pack on the weight), it is ideal to give and have small portions instead of constantly bingeing.

Giving in to your cravings from time to time may actually curb your intake instead of going on a really strict diet. 

Discipline is key here.

So you had a soda yesterday? So what? The world won’t come to an end and certainly not your life!

15. That Bad Habit of Losing Your Temper

The people that are close to me know that I am wary and suspicious of people who never lose their cool! It is all well and good but I strongly believe that people like that tend to bottle up a lot and when they do let up, it would be tantamount to hurricane Katrina.

Excuse my pun! I have been proven right a couple of times but don’t take my word for it! 

Read up this article ”Why Getting Angry Is Good For Your Health”

Bottling up your anger leads to stress, depression, and anxiety. These are feelings that are tied to feeling worthless, and frustrated. 

Of course, no one is suggesting that you lose your cool at every turn, shouting and breathing down people’s necks every day and every time someone annoys you! 

The gist is, do not bottle up! 

Final Take On The 15 Bad Habits That Are Good For You.

There are a lot of bad habits that are ultimately detrimental to your health like smoking, excessive intake of unhealthy food, emotional shopping and a host of others, these habits here actually in one way or the other, improve your wellbeing, generally.

If biting your nail is your thing and you are comfortable with it, then, by all means, do it. If you are a coffee lover and has benefitted from drinking it over the years, then don’t let anything hold you back.

Belch or burp, fidget, gossip, have breakfast in bed, sleep in when you feel like it (you are not missing out) but remember, moderation is key when it comes to most things in life.

So what bad habits do you indulge in? You already know some of mine, so let’s share. Don’t be shy! 

Kinging Queen