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This is exactly the number of days a person needs to acquire absolutely any habit. But few people know that this discovery was made by the American cosmetic surgeon Maxwell Molz (10.03.1899-07.04.1975), who was also a writer, and at the same time, the founder of psychocybernetics.
How did he make the discovery? First of all, he really was a plastic surgeon and only in the second-a psychologist. In his book, he writes that he was convinced from his own experience that exactly 21 days pass before a person comes to terms with a new face. Similarly, 21 days pass before a person ceases to feel the missing limb (amputated arm, leg). Hence, Molz concluded that it also takes 21 days to rebuild something in the brain.
This stereotype originates in the 50s of the last century, presumably with the work of plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz, who calculated that it takes approximately 21 days for a patient to get used to a change in appearance or to amputation of limbs. Largely inspired by this theory, NASA conducted an experiment in which participants (astronauts) had to wear special glasses for 30 days without removing them, which turned the image upside down. Starting at about day 20, participants got used to seeing the world in this projection, meaning that their brains adapted so much that the new reality became familiar, with the peak of the upheavals occurring on day 21.
However, it should be borne in mind that both in the case of Maltz and in the NASA experiment, participants were in the new reality continuously (excluding sleep, they got 250 – 300 hours), and not for several minutes a day, so for some useful habit this rule may not apply at all.