Tag: habit

Changing Habits

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close up of mouth eating macaron

In the previous post I explained how the brain develops ‘habit loops’ to conserve energy. A habit loop consists of 3 steps: a cue, the routine, and a reward.  Being aware of what is triggering your habits and routines is the first step to making a change. 

A habit develops when you repeat the same choices.  So in order to change the habit we need to make different choices until a new or different habit is formed.

In the example below, every morning after you arrive at work you go to the cafeteria first, buy a coffee and take it back to your desk.  But this is getting expensive, and you’re trying to cut down on caffeine.  You want to change the habit, but it’s automatic.

diagram of the habit loop

Cues

If you want to change a habit, you need to identify the cue.  What is triggering this behaviour? Research suggests that there are five possible categories for the cue, which are:

  • Location – where are you when the urge hits?  What can you see?
  • Time – does it happen at a regular time?
  • Emotional State – does it happen when you are tired? Angry? Sad?
  • Other People – who else is around?
  • Immediately preceding action – do you always do this after something else?

So in the current example, you can see several possible cues.  You always go to the cafeteria for a coffee:

  • at work (location)
  • when you arrive (immediately preceding action), which is usually
  • at 8.30am (time)

So if you want to change your habit, you need to look at these more closely.  Do you go for a coffee if you don’t arrive till later in the day? What happens at the weekend or if you work from home?  Is it time or location?

Reward

It’s also worth experimenting with the reward.  What is the actual reward you’re getting?  What happens if you still go to the café but buy a green tea instead? Or what if you bring in a flask of coffee, avoid the café and go direct to your desk. Are you trying to avoid starting work?  Do you want to chat to colleagues in the café before you start? Is it the taste of the coffee? Or something else?

Once you better understand the cue and reward, try keeping the cue, but changing the routine or reward.

Have a look at this video to see how Charles Duhigg changed his afternoon cookie habit.

Starting a new habit.

You can also use the idea of cues and rewards to create a new, good habit.

Set the cue and reward and make a plan. For example:

  • At 9am (cue)
  • I will put on my trainers and go for a 20-minute run (routine). 
  • When I get back I’ll have a piece of chocolate (reward). 

And actually, you only need the chocolate reward while you’re developing the habit.  After lots of repetitions, the chocolate reward will no longer be needed.  The routine is reward itself.

Your turn

Give it a try. Think of one thing you’d like to change, or a new habit you’d like to start. Let me know how you get on!

Further Reading

How Habits Work – excerpt from the book ‘The Power of Habit’ by Charles Duhigg

It’s just habit

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cup of coffee on a time line

In the previous post I explained that, in order to conserve energy, the brain turns things we do repeatedly into habits, so we can do the actions without having to think.

It’s worth pausing here and learning a bit more about habits, as so much individual and organisational change involves us changing our behaviour and habits in some way. 

Researchers have shown that 40-45% of the decisions we make every day are actually habits – we don’t make a conscious decision at all.  And anyone who’s tried to start a new positive habit (like exercising, healthy eating or meditating) or change an existing habit, will know just how easily we can slip back into our usual way of doing things.

Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit explains how researchers have identified the habit process as a 3-step loop:

  • A cue, that tells the brain to go into automatic mode, and which habit to use
  • The routine – which can be physical, mental or emotional
  • A reward – which helps the brain decide if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future.
Diagram showing loop of cue, habit and reward
© Charles Duhigg

In this example, the cue could be ‘arriving at work’, the routine is you ‘go to the cafeteria to get a coffee’, and the reward is you get to chat to your colleagues in the cafe before you start the working day.  (In the brain, the actual reward is the dopamine that is released.)

Over time, and with repetition, the loop becomes more and more automatic.  And over time, the brain begins to anticipate the reward, releasing dopamine at the thought of it, and therefore there is a craving for the reward, which keeps the habit going.

Change requires people to concentrate until they have adapted to new cues and routines, and this takes energy. So knowing about habit loops can help us change our habits or develop new ones.

More on this in the next post…

References

Duhigg, C (2013) The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do and how to change, London: Random House

Don’t Make me Think!

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mechanical brain

Our brain works against when we go through change. It’s not just that change feels threatening.  Change also takes extra effort.  Changing requires us to overcome our usual habits and learn and do things differently.  This means we have to stop and consciously think about what we’re doing, which requires the brain to use more energy. 

Our brain uses a lot of energy;  about 20% of the body’s energy requirements are taken up by the brain.  In particular, the pre-frontal cortex (the ‘thinking’ part of the brain) needs a lot of fuel.  So, in order to save energy, the brain takes what we do regularly and stores them as habits in the basal ganglia, which is more energy-efficient.

Take a look at this video for a brief explanation:

Much of what we do every day is habit – we do things automatically, without thinking.  It’s easy – we don’t have to think. Even complex things, like driving, or riding a bike. Remember how much you had to concentrate when you were learning? And now you can do it so easily, you often get to where you want to go without realising how you got there.

At the beginning of the Covid19 pandemic as we went into lockdown, many people seemed to be complaining about tiredness and about not being able to get much done as they did before.  But this is not surprising.  Our daily routines were interrupted and we all had to use our thinking brains more to figure out what to do and learn new routines.

We need to remember that, and give ourselves and others a break, when going through change.