"Breaking the Habit" is an electronica-influenced song by the nu metal band Linkin Park, from their 2003 album Meteora. It was released as the sixth and final single from the album in 2004. It became the fifth consecutive single from Meteora to reach #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, a feat unmatched by any other artist in the history of that chart. It was also the third single from the album to reach #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. It was a pop hit, peaking at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Breaking the Habit features many electronics, live strings and guitar. There are no distorted guitar riffs and it features no backing vocals from Mike Shinoda.

A common misconception about this song is that it was written by lead singer Chester Bennington, when in fact, band member Mike Shinoda was the original writer. The song was based on a close friend's drug addiction.[citation needed] It is a common idea that it was written about Bennington due to his extended drug abuse issues, although Shinoda began writing the song before he met Bennington.[citation needed] The rumour has its roots in Bennington's reluctance to play the song at early live shows, because he was able to relate to it so closely.

In the album notes, it was said that the song was originally going to be an instrumental track lasting a little over three and a half minutes, but was convinced by the band to change it. The instrumental was later released on the Underground 9.0 Fan Club as a demo track entitled Drawing.
The music video for "Breaking the Habit" was directed by Joe Hahn and uses an anime-style animation which was supervised by Kazuto Nakazawa, who had previously directed the animated segment of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 among other things. The video was shot of the band performing the song and was later rotoscoped. The video has gone on to be a favorite amongst MTV viewers, going as far as winning the 2004 MTV VMA Viewer's Choice Award.