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Habits: A Blessing and a Curse

  • Writer: Patricia Faust
    Patricia Faust
  • Jan 8, 2019
  • 4 min read

Have you ever been accused of being a ‘creature of habit’? What exactly does that mean? Dr. Sarah McKay defines the common characteristics of all habits:

1. Habits involve an ordered, structured sequence of actions that are triggered by a particular cue, situation, or event.

2. Habits are learned over time by being repeated over and over.

3. Habits are persistent and fixed – once formed they are very hard to break.

4. Habits are performed almost automatically.

(Neuroscience Academy, Dr. Sarah McKay)


What Are Habits?

What kind of actions in your daily life are actually habits? Well, brushing your teeth, taking a shower, getting ready for work or getting the kids ready for school might be habits that you experience everyday. Habits allow you to work on ‘autopilot’ so that you can be efficient and release your brain from actively thinking about absolutely everything you do. In these actions

and most of your routine daily actions you have established good habits.


What Are Bad Habits?

What then, are bad habits? Bad habits are defined the same way as good habits but they are not benefitting your quality of life or helping your brain. Perhaps you have a habit of smoking, eating snacks before bed, or staying up too late and not getting enough sleep. Negative self-talk is a bad habit that can sabotage our everyday decisions and how we feel about ourselves. There are many habits in our daily life we would love to change. But trying to break these bad habits is difficult at best. Let’s take a look at the neuroscience of habit formation and then maybe you can see how our brain functions and why it is so hard to override a habit.


The Neuroscience of Habit Formation

The area of the brain for habit formation is the Basal Ganglia. One area of the basal ganglia that oversees primary habit formation is the Striatum. The striatum is responsible for habit learning. There are three steps to learn and lock-in habits:

1 Explore a new behavior.

2 Form a habit.

3 Imprint it into the brain and monitor. (Neuroscience Academy, Dr. Sarah McKay)


When you form a habit you repeat thoughts and/or actions over and over. This causes the neurons (brain cells) in the prefrontal striatal-midbrain circuit (where habits are formed) to fire together and eventually wire together. Your brain has stored your habit as a chunk of behavior or brain activity. You have changed your brain. Good news - if it benefits your life – bad news if it causes problems in your life (alcoholism, drug abuse, obesity to name a few).


So you decide to eliminate your bad habits. You are going to exercise, eat nutritiously, stop having those after work drinks. You are motivated and ready to go. Easy, peezy right?! Well if you are depending on willpower alone to initiate a life change – then you may be setting yourself up for a huge, relapsing disappointment. There is a hormone/neurotransmitter in the brain called dopamine. This neurochemical is released when you experience something that makes you feel good. Dopamine keeps you motivated to keep going to get that feel-good sensation. Every time you see or experience something that is related to your bad habit – your brain shoots off some dopamine and that feel good sensation overrides your willpower. Your brain wears out trying to avoid caving into the feel good response. Relapse happens.


How to Break Bad Habits

There are some brain suggestions to help you break that bad habit.


· Habits are triggered by a particular cue, situation, or event.

· Habits are persistent – once formed, they are very hard to break.

So,

· Learn to recognize the trigger for your bad habit.

· Wire a new, healthy or positive habit to override the bad-habit trigger.


If you understand that old habits are ingrained and hard-wired, it will be easier to understand that relapses will happen. Instead of being discouraged and give up – you need to be persistent and keep moving forward to create the new behavior. You need to be mindful of the the actions that you take and the change you want to accomplish. This takes time. There has been a lot of information about habit formation that states that 21 days is the optimum amount of time to create that new neural pathway. It is a myth that it takes 21 days to create or break a habit. Remember you are hardwiring a new pathway. You are creating a new behavior that your brain and you will do automatically. One careful study revealed that it takes 20-254 days (average 84 days) to reach automaticity (Dr. Sarah McKay).

Repetition and consistency will result in you brain rewiring itself. It is a process and you are again changing your brain. It is definitely worth the effort in the long run.


References:

Goldstein, E. (October, 2014). Neuroscience of bad habits and why it’s not about will power. Retrieved May 2, 2016 from http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2014/10/the-neuroscience-of-bad-habits-and-why-its-not-about-willpower/

McKay, S. Neuroscience insight: how to break bad habits. Retrieved May 2, 2016 from http://www.chropa.com/cci/neuroscience-insight-how-to-break-bad-habits

McKay, S. The Neuroscience Academy (2016). Session: Change. What are habits? The Neuroscience of Habit.

 
 
 

Comments


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March was an unusual month for me.  Normally I work on articles, give presentations and generally just stay tuned to what is going on in the field of aging.  This month I “learned” a lot.  Last year I learned how to write a book.  At the time I took the course I thought it would just be a natural extension of all the writing I had done over the years.  WRONG!!  The actual writing of the book was the easy part.  Putting it together into a book was difficult for me.  The course gave me step by step lessons on constructing a book.  Then editing and formatting were just as challenging.  On June 7 last year the book was published!  It was one of the most satisfying days of my writing career. 

Naturally, when you self-publish, you do not have a publisher promoting the book and getting it in the right categories for best sales on Amazon.  That was crushing because I really didn’t know to appropriately market it.  I am a brain health person!  In December of last year, I purchased a marketing program that is based on statistics.  I am technical minded and so this approach made sense to me.  The course is almost completed.  Can’t wait to see if it improves sales!

The next step I am looking at is recording an audiobook.  This is another venture I knew nothing about.  But I am already tagged on Facebook for marketing of audio book programs.  Facebook picks up everything.  Now my husband was creative director for an advertising agency and when I told him I purchased another class – he couldn’t believe it.  “This was my business.  I know how to do recordings, why didn’t you ask me?” Well, I knew he was an expert in that business, but this audiobook needs to meet all the criteria that Amazon requires for publication.  So, he can take care of the recording part of this audiobook, and I will navigate the process of meeting Amazon’s requirements.  We worked on the book together like this. 

Then I talked with some coaching experts on the viability of starting group teaching programs.  Reading The Boomer Brain book and implementing the Brain Healthy Lifestyle have two entirely different outcomes.  This lifestyle is important to maintaining high cognitive function throughout the later years of our lives.  Look for updates as to when I will roll this program out.

My last learning endeavor was attending a two-day bootcamp for Speakers.  I am really excited about what I learned there.  That is a late this year or next year project, but it is one I am really looking forward to.

 

What Is Happening in April?

The American Society on Aging is having their annual conference in Orlando Florida April 21-24.  This is the largest multidisciplinary conference on aging and the annual conference for Members of ASA.  I have attended a number of these conferences throughout the years, and it is consequential.  Keynote speakers and special events are focused on combating ageism in our society.  Although this is a professional meeting, the attendees come from all aspects of aging services.  They have their work cut out for them this year!

April is Stress Awareness Month.  We should be aware of stress every month and understand how we can break the stress cycle.  These are stressful times, and we need to protect ourselves

Here is a positive one “April is National Volunteer Month”.  When I am working with new retirees who don’t know what to do, I talk to them about volunteering. It is important to have a purpose after you leave the workforce.  There are so many nonprofits who need help in all aspects of their organizations.  It is a perfect way to give back.

Finally – It was Opening Day for the Cincinnati Reds – the oldest major league team in the nation.  Cincinnati takes that responsibility seriously.  There is always an Opening Day Parade through downtown to the Ball Park.  Huge crowds line the streets and every year there is talk of making it an official holiday.  Schools and employers look the other way when there is an empty desk.  No matter what the outcome of the game is, there is so much joy, and you can feel that energy.  I am fortunate that I get to experience that.  We all need some joy right now. 

Enjoy your April.

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