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• Changing habits requires identifying the cue that triggers them and replacing it with a new behavior |
• The brain's ability to respond automatically to cues is both beneficial and limiting, as it can lead to addiction and make change difficult |
• The role of dopamine in reinforcing habits and behaviors |
• The difficulty of changing bad habits due to the feeling of comfort and familiarity |
• The concept of "repeal and replace" to change habits by introducing new, feel-good behaviors |
• The importance of acknowledging the reward associated with a habit and finding ways to hack or modify it |
• The social component of habits and how being around others who engage in certain behaviors can make it harder to break them |
• Barriers to exercise in a gym environment |
• Embedding new habits into existing routines |
• The concept of "hacking" one's behavior to make change more manageable |
• Overcoming internal conflicts and rationalizations when introducing new habits |
• The importance of finding enjoyable activities that can be used as motivation for healthy behaviors |
• Willpower and its limitations in building new habits |
• Using external rewards and social pressures to support habit formation |
• A research study was conducted where college students were recruited to participate in a testing session after fasting for 4 hours |
• The participants were divided into three groups: one allowed to eat both radishes and cookies freely, one only allowed to eat radishes, and one not allowed to eat anything |
• Results showed that the group that had to abstain from food gave up quickly on puzzles due to lack of willpower |
• The study highlights the importance of considering factors such as hunger, anger, loneliness, and tiredness when trying to change habits |
• The HALT acronym (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired) was discussed as a reminder to be aware of one's internal state before attempting to make changes |
• Self-awareness is crucial in understanding one's habits and making successful changes |
• Timing and context are important factors to consider when trying to establish new habits |
• The conversation also touched on the idea that feelings, not just rewards, can drive behavior change |
• Vulnerability and control: lack of control can lead to feeling vulnerable |
• The brain's tendency towards binary thinking (good/bad) vs shades of gray |
• Recognizing internal resources and tools to manage habits |
• Preferable vs non-preferable habits, or adaptive/maladaptive behaviors |
• Optimizing oneself without comparing to others' optimized selves |
• Awareness: does a habit work for me and move me closer to my goals? |
• Identifying one's unique strengths and weaknesses |
• The importance of social relationships and accountability in achieving goals |
• The importance of considering how one's behavior affects others and taking that into account when making changes |
• The role of accountability in habit formation and change, including having an accountability partner or creating forced choice options to increase motivation |
• The concept of replacing old habits with new ones, rather than just stopping the old ones |
• The idea of testing and rehearsing desired behaviors through visualization, planning, and scripting out scenarios |
• The importance of making changes achievable and repeatable in order to build new neural pathways and make lasting change |
• The building process of anything can be painful or uncomfortable but is necessary for growth. |
• It's okay to start with small goals and incrementally work towards bigger changes. |
• Be patient and don't get discouraged if progress isn't immediate, as repetition and persistence will eventually lead to success. |
• Focus on holding onto your desired outcome rather than specific goals. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Mireille, habits are something we all deal with, right? We all have good and bad habits, and these habits allow us to do things like behavior change when we are doing something we like, or dislike we just wanna change that... Sometimes it enables or inhibits burnout if you don't do life well and you... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** \[01:39\] So habits, i mean from a science perspective, just a neural network that's been built repeatedly over time. I don't know if you're familiar with the neurochemicals, but what I mean by that is sort of like the messengers that are specific to the brain. There's a key neurochemical ... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** "That's a positive thing." |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, it's a payout. So we are apt to repeat things that pay, very simply. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So how it pays for you, and how it pays for me, and how it pays for anybody else is going to differ, because who has the same brain? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So we are going to be more prone to repeat things, to do things over and over again that feel good to us, for one reason or another. And those things that we do usually have a cue; that cue is highly tethered to an environment. There's also a significant role of social, community as a part... |
So habits, fundamentally, are - there's a cue, then there is some anticipated response that goes with it, and then a reward that comes from that. This is why they're hard to break. Because remember that - and I think we've mentioned this in other episodes, but we are electrochemical beings... And that means that we hav... |
\[04:02\] There's a lot more research around this, even within the field of sports psychology, in terms of training... Because you want to practice training the way you wanna play, because your brain doesn't know the difference, whether it's a game or it's practice. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Michael Phelps is a famous example of that recently in the Olympics, with his training methodology... How he wanted to execute his run, his swim, whatever it was, his meet or whatever term they use for that... So his daily routine was as if it was a winning day every single day. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly, and there's been athlete upon athlete... I'm totally blanking, for whatever reason, but there's also a football player who always trained the exact same way. He was a running back and he would catch it, and run it to the goal as though it were an actual game... Because what you're... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** No. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** He was the coach for the Indianapolis Colts for a number of years, but his whole methodology of coaching was based on this habituation, wherein he would train the player to respond or react without actually thinking; they would simply be faster in running a reaction, repeated over time, ov... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah, this idea of "Don't make me think", or having to put that -- I mean, if you even just think about it in terms of latency, in terms of executing something... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yes. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** ...if there's a measure of time in there, this latency buffer of a decision, if you can remove that, the timeline between cue-routine-reward is faster if you remove the thinking part. If you remove that buffered time for a thought pattern, or a new change, or a new choice. That might even be why it'... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Exactly. So if you can even think of the acronym, CAR - Cue, Anticipated response, and reward. It's like, you're just getting in your car and running, all the time. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yeah. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** So the more that you cue yourself up in order to do a certain behavior, you're just going to repeat that over and over and over again, which is exactly why it's so hard to change them. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Yes. Gosh... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Right? So even thinking like "Why do I continue to do the things that I don't want to do...?!" |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Let me ask you potentially an Inception-level question - can a habit be a habit, so to speak? Are my bad habits actually habits as well? Am I prone to execute bad habits because that's my habit? |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Precisely, yeah. We all are. It's not an Adam thing or a Mireille thing. It's a fundamental human thing, because we just practice them over and over again. You've heard of even muscle memory... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Which is very interesting. Muscle memory is super-interesting to me. |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Yeah, your brain is running a play according to what's practiced. There ironically was a research study done around building thumb strength, and what they did is actually had people just practice moving their thumb or visualize moving their thumb, and whether or not it actually built stren... |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Is that right...? |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** Researcher - they're crazy, right? |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Wow... |
**Mireille B. Reece, Psy.D:** They're just curious. The curiosity is endless. |
**Adam Stacoviak:** Right. |
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