Down to our very core, we are wired to work as efficiently as possible. Habits are the manifestation of that truth. As Charles Duhigg writes in The Power of Habit, "When a habit emerges, the brain stops fully participating in decision making. It stops working so hard, or diverts focus to other tasks, So unless you deliberately fight a habit--unless you find new routines--the pattern will unfold automatically."
As Duhigg explains, habits are stored in the basal ganglia, a primitive part of our brain responsible for basic bodily functions. Rather than having to think, remember, or decide, the basal ganglia enables us to save energy by simply doing tasks without thinking when they are a repeated activity. For example, we don't really think when we reach to turn on the light switch, we just automatically know where it is in the room and how high up the wall it is located. When we move, sometimes we reach for the wrong spot before we realize that we're not in the same house any more. This is our basal ganglia at work. But as Duhigg points out, "Habits aren't destiny... habits can be ignored, changed, or replaced." Just as in the light switch example, we can train our basal ganglia to record a new pattern.
Why spend all this time talking about habits? Because habits are the reason you turn into Starbucks in the morning. They become automatic behaviors that we do just because we've trained ourselves to do them. Sometimes we don't stop to think if we're tired and need coffee or if we're actually hungry, we just pour our cup of joe and reach for a croissant. Think about it, how many times have you reached for a snack when you actually weren't hungry at all? Christina, a friend of mine in college told me that every time she studied she craved M&Ms. When she thought about it, she realized that she used to keep a jar of M&Ms on her desk in high school. Every time she studied, she snacked on M&Ms. Over time her basal ganglia created a habit. M&Ms and studying were storied together as one activity. So as a freshman living in the dorms, she found herself walking to the snack machine to buy a bag of M&Ms every time she sat down to study. In truth she didn't REALLY want the M&Ms, she just thought she did. When she realized what was happening she decided to replace M&Ms with baby carrots. It took some time, but before she knew it, if she didn't have her baby carrots, she could barely focus on her studies. The brain is strange sometimes, but it does what it does to save us the extra effort of having to think about things too much. The problem is that it can be dangerous to stop thinking about what we're feeding our bodies. So what's the best way to stop a habitual pattern? Well rather than struggle with trying to stop it entirely, we should look to try to change it. The same concept applies to training a dog. If a dog barks when a stranger comes to the door, you will wear yourself out trying to STOP her from doing it (trust me, I know!) However, if you introduce a new behavior such as to sit or shake and a reward, a new habit will form, and hopefully for your own sanity the old habit will cease.
So how do we form a new habit? Habits are formed in what Duhigg calls "The Habit Loop". The loop consists of a cue, a routine, and a reward. Remember the famous Pavlov's Dog experiments? Pavlov rang a bell and gave the dog food. He repeated this routine several times, and over time, Pavlov could trigger conditioned response, salivation in the dog, without ever presenting the reward (food). Essentially, Pavlov created a habit in the dog.
The consumer industry works to play off of our habit formation, using cues to trigger certain automatic routines without us ever even realizing it! So the first thing to do, is to recognize what our habits are. Then we can work to adjust those habits over time, but we'll actually need to train our brains to do so. Each morning when you wake up, what do you do? Push the snooze alarm? Stumble out of bed to start a pot of coffee? Brush your teeth? All of these things are habits that we've trained ourselves to do. They all start with a cue (the alarm clock), a routine (push snooze, brush teeth, make coffee), and a reward (extra sleep, clean teeth/feeling of confidence, cup of coffee/caffeine buzz). To change some of these habits we need to make a mental commitment to a new activity. And we need to be very careful about how we reward ourselves. All too often we use food as a reward. Find something that you like that can be an alternative reward to food. For example, treat yourself to a nice hot foot soak, allow yourself a nap in the middle of the day, paint your nails, or go on a nice drive. Something. Anything that works in a healthy way for you, but remember, this will become a habit so be careful what you choose as your reward. Eventually you can remove the reward, but if the reward is chocolate, I find that too often it gets stuck as part of the habit (at least it does for me!) If you must use food as a reward, that is OKAY, but make sure you choose something healthy. We will talk soon about what foods actually ARE healthy (they may not be what you had imagined), and which foods the industry tries to convince you are healthy (milk, for example).
So this week, try to focus on recognizing your habits. Even if you don't work on changing them just yet, start thinking about possible new habits we can replace the old habits with and how we can train our brains to store the new activities as habits (remember the Habit Loop: cue, routine, reward).
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