The Psychology of Habit

I’ve been interested in habits lately. It started with a desire to change some of my own behaviors; I knew that I could spend less time on social media, for example, and I wanted to get back into the routine of doing yoga consistently every morning. I started getting really into the psychology of habits when I realized just how hard it can be to change them. I knew that I felt better when I did twenty minutes on the mat before work, so why couldn’t I stop snoozing my alarm? I began tearing through books and articles on cravings, habits, and behavior change theory. As I dove deeper, I started to think more about how I could apply what I was learning to help my nutrition clients.

Anatomy of a habit

One of the more influential books that I read was called The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. In this book, author Charles Duhigg breaks down habits into three parts: cues, routines, and rewards. The cue is the trigger; the thing that makes you want to start the behavior. If you’re in the habit of getting a soda in the afternoon as a pick-me-up, for example, the cue might be when the clock hits 3 pm. Next comes the routine: drinking the soda. Finally, there’s the reward: that little caffeine buzz that gets you through the rest of your day.

Habits aren’t a bad thing — they’re a way for our brains to automate behavior so that we don’t waste energy on mundane tasks. Consider some of the things that you do automatically every day: putting toothpaste on your toothbrush before you brush your teeth, for example, or tying your running shoes after you put them on. If you had to really think about all of these things before you did them, you’d be exhausted. The problem comes when your brain starts to automate unhealthy behaviors, like eating a sugary snack at the same time every afternoon or drinking in response to stress.

The trick to successfully changing a bad habit is to identify the cue, routine, and reward, and then substitute a different behavior for the routine. In the example above, a brisk walk around the block in the mid-afternoon might be all you need to power through the rest of the day. One way to do this is to jot down notes about what your physical and mental environment is like when you are triggered to perform a habit. Where are you? What time is it? Who is around you? How are you feeling — tired, stressed, happy, sad, bored?

Let’s look at an example. I have a sweet tooth, and I like to eat dessert after dinner — specifically, chocolate.  Sometimes I feel a physical craving for something sweet and I really enjoy it, and other times I eat it just because I was used to the routine. I started to become more mindful of my actions. I became aware that I usually thought about chocolate either immediately after dinner (if I ate at home), or soon after arriving home at night before going to bed. I realized that I really do like having a treat to end my day with, but that it doesn’t have to be food. For example, taking a bath and using some nice lotion fulfills the same desire. So does listening to fifteen minutes of music in bed on my good headphones. The more I practiced identifying the triggers and rewards that sandwiched my routines, the easier it became to change them.

Keystone habits and the power of self-efficacy

Certain healthy habits called keystone habits affect more than one area of your life and improve your overall wellbeing. A keystone habit is one that, once initiated, drives the development of other related routines. One of the most prominent health-related keystone habits is exercise. Exercising regularly can help you sleep better, which can improve your productivity at work. It can motivate you to eat more healthfully, because you feel better or don’t want to negate the progress that you’ve made. It can also reduce your stress levels, which makes it less likely that you’ll over-indulge in unhealthy coping behaviors such as smoking or drinking.

One final piece of the puzzle is the concept of self-efficacy. Simply put, self-efficacy is an individual’s belief in his or her power to achieve a goal. It is an essential part of successful behavior change. I’m a big proponent of the power of positive thinking — it may sound corny, but if you believe in your ability to accomplish something, you’re a lot more likely to do so. Uprooting habits is hard. Just because you know what triggers your behaviors or why you crave certain rewards doesn’t mean that you can automatically create healthy routines overnight. Start small: if you want to eat more healthfully, focus on one change at a time rather than trying to overhaul your entire diet at once. Try having hummus and veggies for an afternoon snack instead of chips, for example, or baking your chicken instead of frying it. Each small success will boost your self-efficacy and set you on the path to achieving your goals.

References

Aarts, Henk, Theo Paulussen, and Herman Schaalma. “Physical Exercise Habit: On the Conceptualization and Formation of Habitual Health Behaviours.” Health Education Research 12.3 (1997): 363-374.

Ashby, F. Gregory, Benjamin O. Turner, and Jon C. Horvitz. “Cortical and Basal Ganglia Contributions to Habit Learning and Automaticity.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 14.5 (2010): 208-215.

Beeken, R. J., et al. “A Brief Intervention for Weight Control Based on Habit-Formation Theory Delivered Through Primary Care: Results From a Randomised Controlled Trial.” International Journal of Obesity 41.2 (2017): 246.

Berridge, Kent C., and Morten L. Kringelbach. “Affective Neuroscience of Pleasure: Reward in Humans and Animals.” Psychopharmacology 199.3 (2008): 457-480.

Brewer, Judson. The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smart Phones to Love — Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2017.

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. New York, Random House, 2014.

Kabat-Zinn, Jon, and Thich Nhat Hanh. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. Delta, 2009.

Tamir, Diana I., and Jason P. Mitchell. “Disclosing Information About the Self Is Intrinsically Rewarding.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109.21 (2012): 8038-8043.