You have seen these come and go: New Year’s resolutions to create healthy habits and discard unhealthy ones. Often these become efforts in futility. If we understand how habits work we can get a grip on how to improve them.
You wake up in the morning and go through a sequence of behaviors before you realize that you have begun a new day. You roll out of bed, shuffle to the bathroom, squeeze toothpaste on to the toothbrush…. you know the rest.
Brushing your teeth, backing your car out onto the driveway, putting on your work clothes, or snacking while watching TV are all habitual behaviors often without conscious thought.
“Habit kicks in, organically” says Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit: Why we do What we do in Life and Business. Duhigg describes the habit loop: how habits form, the structure of habits and their connection to the brain.
In the early 1990’s MIT researchers performed experiments placing rats in a maze with probes attached to their brains. At first, the rats were wandering, scratching, sniffing, finding their way to the reward of chocolate. Probes showed furious activity in the brain. As the experiment was repeated several times, the rats stopped meandering and zipped through to get to their reward. Activity in the brain changed too: grey matter in the frontal lobes (decision making and critical thinking centers) grew quiet; just the basal ganglia (tiny structure of cells in the center of the brain) were active. The rats did not need to think; they were on auto-pilot. “Basal ganglia are integral to habit” says Duhigg.
Like the rats we too have evolved. We are wired to be effort efficient. Our brain falls asleep, while the basal ganglia which stores habit takes over. This process of the brain converting a sequence of actions into an automatic routine is called ‘chunking’. It is at the root of how habits form.
Habits emerge because the brain is constantly trying to save effort. This instinct has a huge advantage of making for an efficient brain. Conserving mental effort on daily behaviors will open it up to be used for bigger, nobler purposes such as complex problem solving, creating, and inventing. At first the brain is highly active to determine safety (is it safe to back out on to the driveway?) or appropriateness (is it time to brush teeth?). In time, that activity diminishes.
This is a 3 step process:
1) Cue: a trigger or signal of sight, smell, taste, sound or feel. Brain decides if it’s safe/proper to use a particular behavioral pattern.
2) Routine: a series of repetitive responses which can be emotional, mental or physical.
3) Reward: an incentive or payback at the end of the behavior makes the pleasure centers in the brain light up. The brain decides if this is worth remembering for the future.
Repeating this sequence of cue-routine-reward several times causes the same neural pathway in the brain to be used over and over, strengthening it. Eventually cue and reward become intertwined. Exposure to the cue creates anticipation of the reward. An urge or craving is created. Decision making goes dormant. Habit emerges. Brain can’t tell the difference between good and bad habits. “Basic truth: brain stops functioning in decision making when habit emerges” states Duhigg.
Why do we get into an accident? Because the brain powers down into auto-pilot mode before it can identify danger. Why can’t we kick a smoking habit? Because the craving is so strong that rushing to the reward becomes the focal point while the rest of the brain sleeps.
Good news is that habits can be ignored, changed or replaced. Start by recognizing your own cues and rewards before looking at your routines. First, get to know your habit loops.