CAN’T HELP MYSELF. BAD HABITS
“All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.”
- William James, 1892.
Can you change your bad habits? The bad ones that see you smoke, overeat, drink too much alcohol and coffee and take no exercise?
Can you create new habits that will get you off the couch or away from the wretched computer and doing the things you know you should be doing?
Well, there is good and bad news… but, happily, the latest research confirms that anything’s possible. Read on.
We humans are habitual creatures. Think of how many habits we have in any given day.
The time we like to wake; when we take a shower; in what order we prefer to dress, do our hair and makeup; when we drink that first cup of coffee; what we eat for breakfast; which road we take to drive to work…
All of these rituals may seem like well-considered decisions but they’re merely habits, says award-winning New York Times investigative journalist Charles Duhigg in his new best-selling book, The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do and how to change.
The book is a compendium of the latest from neurologists, psychologists, sociologists and marketers and makes for a fascinating read.
We need habits to function otherwise we would be paralysed by myriad decisions every waking moment.
In fact, the hallmark of a habit is that our brain activity decreases when we engage in routine. It “powers down” to save energy.
Habit means we do things automatically. We think less. We go to screensaver.
However, Duhigg says, by directing our attention to these habitual behaviours, we can break them – even the bad ones – and replace them with new ways of going about our business. No-one, he argues, should have to be perpetually in the grip of a bad habit.
The secret is to understand and observe the “habit loop”.
This is hardly a ground-breaking observation, and there have been detractors that say this advice is of limited use in the damaged brains of serious substance abusers, however, Duhigg analyses a habit this way:
“First there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use.
Then there is the routine, which can be physical, mental or emotional.
Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering.
Over this time, this loop – cue, routine, reward; cue routine, rewards – becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become intertwined until a powerful sense of anticipation and craving emerges. Eventually… a habit is born.”
By breaking down a habit into its component parts, you can fiddle with the gears, says Duhigg.
But here’s the thing.
In forming any new habit we have to build a new neural path in our brains and this takes concentration and repetition.
The bad news is that those old habit pathways never go away. They are now encoded in the actual structure of our brains.
That’s why it’s so hard to break old habits. They’re just lurking there waiting for the old cues and rewards.
Duhigg says that to form new habits you have to become your own psychotherapist – stand back and monitor your behavior, then change it. And sometimes that may take some ingenuity.
You have to outsmart yourself. There are five ways we stay stuck, he says.
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9 Responses to this article
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Rachel @ The Kids Are All Right May 2, 2012
Wow. That’s fascinating. I have some bad habits that are more to do with my thinking. Oh, and alcohol at the end of the day. I’m going to look into this book and think about this some more. I love anything that shakes up my ingrained patterns.
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Lisa Aherne May 2, 2012
Bad habit – continually checking computer for emails, tweets, etc. I need to send lots less time with technology. So what am I doing? Reading articles on computer as to how to change the habit. Aaaaaaargh!!
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JJ King May 2, 2012
Ooops…. Yes, bad habits. I am with Rachel and Lisa already! Wine at the end of the day, addiction to the computer and then there is the procrastination. Thanks for the article. I am going to have me a nice ole cup of tea tonight, followed by one square of chocolate as my reward.
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Susila May 2, 2012
Can you imagine just how many bad habits it took to become 65 or so kgs overweight? Well that’s how many I had to tackle. I’ve lost the weight and kept it off for a long time with many MANY strategies to overcome the ingrained habitual nueral pathways the author speaks of. It’s so true. Every day of my life – no matter how thin and healthy I am now – my mind continuously turns to thoughts of food. Some days it’s all day long. Almost every minute. Every moment I feel stress or hurt or anxiety, food is the first thing I think about. Instantaneously. It’s so interesting reading about the ingrained brain pathways, as it’s not about getting rid of them, in the end it’s about defeating them, tricking them, trying to replace the rewards with healthier options, all of that and more. And building new habits that you can feel so great about, they help you fight the old ones. But it is never easy, and I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I will wage this battle, every day, forever. And battle the physiology I still have, of the overweight former body, that wants the weight back! But it’s worth it. Is it any wonder though, why most people who are obese cant lose weight and keep it off?? This info on habits makes the case even clearer. Thanks Wendy! Very interesting.
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Sharon May 2, 2012
I’m about 4 weeks into my attempt to quit smoking. My cue for smoking is drinking wine, which like the others is an end of day habit. The smoking I’ll be glad to kiss goodbye, but there is so much positive reinforcement with the wine I can’t imagine finding something else to replace it
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John Roach May 2, 2012
This is a very convoluted set of instructions. Try doing, or not doing something 22 times consecutively. If you miss, even on the 21st occasion, you start back at one. Call it Catch 22 if you like. If you succeed, you’ve got yourself or lost yourself a habit. No need to buy or read a whole book. Try it!!
