Making and Breaking Habits

 Our lives are made of habits. They’re our daily routines, our behaviors, our way of living. Whether we are aware of them or not, habits encompass all of our lives. Understanding how habits are formed and broken is an essential first step for us to improve ourselves! Let’s explore the science behind habits, the types of habits, and various strategies for building and breaking them.

Habits are not hardwired reflexes, but learned behaviors that are stored in our nervous system. They can be both consciously and unconsciously acquired at all stages of our lives. Neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to rewire itself, lets us form new pathways for habits to occur. This plasticity decreases as we age, thus it’s crucial for us to get our habits into order early in life. Habits can be broadly categorized into two types: goal-based habits and identity-based habits. Goal-based habits are designed to achieve specific outcomes, such as a fitness goal, while identity-based habits involve attaching a larger picture of oneself to the habit, like aspiring to become an athlete. However, habit formation varies from person to person. Some of us develop a habit in as little as 18 days, while it may take others more than 200 days. It sucks, I know, but we work with what we got.

Building a new habit involves overcoming what we call "limbic friction." Limbic friction is the conscious effort and energy required to override the existing state, be it anxiety, lack of motivation, or fatigue, to do the thing you want to do. The amount of activation energy needed to overcome limbic friction varies from person to person; this is why some people seem “more motivated” than others. It isn’t motivation; it’s either a predisposition to handle limbic friction, or it’s consistency and discipline to override it. Habit strength is determined by two factors: how context-dependent a habit is (whether it can be executed in various situations) and the amount of limbic friction required to perform the habit. If you can overcome context dependence and limbic friction, congrats! You’ll continue to do the habit. Our final goal here is automaticity, where the habit becomes a reflexive action. Let’s look at some ways to work on this.

Visualization plays a crucial role in building habits by leveraging two types of memory: episodic and procedural. Episodic memory recalls specific events, while procedural memory involves sequences of actions necessary to achieve a particular outcome, such as following a recipe. Visualizing the steps to execute a specific habit lets us prepare and shift our mindset, reducing anxiety related to limbic friction and increasing the likelihood of making that habit automatic. Next is task bracketing, which is when you associate a habit with a specific time of day. For example, you probably brush your teeth at a certain part of your morning and night routine. You don’t feel like it’s necessarily difficult to brush your teeth; you just do it (unless you’re depressed, which makes it hard to brush your teeth. If so I’m sorry dude that’s a hard situation to be in). By task bracketing, we can create a framework in our nervous system for the habit to occur naturally, as you begin to associate the habit with that time of day. This reduces the habit's dependency on external circumstances and promotes context-independent execution. Finally, let’s think about the phases of the day. I’ve totally written about this before so we’ll be quick on this. The body's natural brain and body rhythms, which change throughout the day, can be leveraged for habit-building. Different phases of the day invoke shifts in mood and mindset that are conducive to building and maintaining habits.

• Phase 1 (0-8 hours after waking): Characterized by alertness and high levels of norepinephrine, epinephrine, and dopamine, this phase is best for tackling challenging habits with high limbic friction.

• Phase 2 (9-15 hours after waking): Dopamine, epinephrine, and cortisol levels decrease and serotonin rises, promoting relaxation. This phase is good for less challenging habits or activities that do not require much override of limbic friction.

• Phase 3 (16-24 hours after waking): Preparing the body for sleep, this phase requires a dark environment and lower room temperature. Don’t do any hard habits now- deep sleep in this phase is essential for brain health and healthy habit formation.

Another thing to consider is the reward-prediction error system, which I literally just wrote about in the last article. So, overall, reward-prediction error is governed by dopamine and is key to our habits. It tells us whether rewards will come and reinforces behaviors associated with generating rewards. So, rewards are even better when you’re not expecting them, essentially. To promote habit formation, you want to trigger anticipatory dopamine release by associating positive events before and after the habit. This creates a positive feedback loop, increasing the likelihood of habit execution.

No matter what you use to start a new habit, you may want to center it around the 21-day system. The 21-day system is a structured approach that involves engaging in several new habits for 21 days, with the expectation that most of them will be performed each day. Once you finish this period, you will want to have incorporated at least one or two of them into your routine. Then you can begin again, attempting to add new habits into this routine.

But what if you want to break a habit? This may be even harder than starting a habit, since you’ll need to rewire your neural circuits. Rather than relying on rewards or punishments, it’s better for you to dismantle the bad habit by consciously acknowledging its occurrence and engaging in a replacement behavior immediately. So, for example, maybe you binge eat late at night. Instead, you can distract yourself with something fun, such as spending time with friends, starting a new show, or doing some self care. This changes the nature of the neural circuits (task bracketing to a new habit), allowing for the rewriting of the script associated with the bad habit.

With all of these techniques in mind, I hope you can use some of them to fix some bad habits and make new good ones. It’s been helpful for me over the years, and even helps me continue to uphold good habits when I don’t feel like doing them. Good luck :)

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• “A lot of habit formation has to do with being in the right state of mind and being able to control your body and mind.” ­– Dr. Andrew Huberman

• Habits take different lengths of time to adapt depending on the person and the habit – a habit might take one person 18 days and another person 200+ days

• The goal of building habits is to overcome limbic friction (level of energy needed to engage in a habit) and enter it automaticity

• Leverage natural rhythms of brain & body hormones to make it more likely that you will engage or maintain habits

• In the first 0-8 hours after waking, your brain and body are more action and focus oriented – you can more easily overcome things with high limbic friction

• In the 9-15 hours after waking, leverage high serotonin and keep stress low by engaging in habits that don’t require a lot of limbic overrides

• A test of whether you’ve truly formed a habit is if you can perform that habit or behavior at any point in the day without thinking too much about it – e.g., exercise whenever you can fit it in

• The strength of a habit is dictated by how much limbic friction there is and how much context dependence there is

• Breaking a bad habit is more than just rewarding yourself if you don’t do it or punishing yourself if you do it – you want to change the neural circuitry involved

• To break a habit: bring conscious awareness to the fact that you participated in the habit you are trying to break – at that moment, capture the events and engage in positive replacement behavior immediately after