Sociologists from the California Institute of Technology in the United States have found that it takes six months to form the habit of exercising at the gym. It also takes just a few weeks to get used to washing your hands. The results of the research study were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In the study, the scientists used a neural network to analyze data on more than 30,000 gym-goers and more than 3,000 hospital workers in 100 shifts over four years.
According to the authors, the time it takes for a habit to form depends on many factors, and the idea that it only takes 21 days for a habit to form lacks scientific evidence. Thus, the time of day did not affect the exercise habit. Here everything depended on the frequency of visiting the gym: the less visitors came, the less likely it was to become a habit.
The scientists also noticed that most people hit the gym on the same days, with Monday and Tuesday being the most popular.