How To Build Habits And How To Break Habits

Well today we are going to discuss about habits. how to build good habits and how to break bad ones.

we all have experienced that we need to do better. we need better habits and of course we do somethings that we re embarrassed by them and we try to stop them. Maybe we are successful to some points but after a while we tend to get back on those bad track and start doing them again. Habits organize our actions so we can perform better without thinking too much and consume too much energy just to start doing things

In today's article we are going to talk about the science behind habit building and habit breaking. There are tons of information out there which are false. but there are some real gems about habit formation and habit breaking.

habits equal nervous system learning something and it is not always consciously. sometime we develop habits that we are not even aware of. here is something crazy, Our actions during the day can be made up to 70% just habit. Habits are learnt. what is learning ? Learning in biology means neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the change of our nervous system because of an experience. change in connection of neurons and chemical and forming new neuron pathways.

There are two areas around habits.

1- immediate goal oriented habits : these habits are designed to get something when you do them. like doing exercise 3 or 4 times per week

2- Identity based habits : if you are trying to achieve a larger picture and larger goals over a long period of time. like becoming an athlete or becoming fit.

We also are going to talk about the molecule of Dopamine and it's association with reward and how different schedule of dopamine release predict how well we stick to a habit. but first let's see how long it takes to form a new habit. there are lots of false information about this. some says 21 days some say 40 days. But a study published in 2010 by Phillippa Lally ,(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3505409/ ) shows that it takes from 18 days to 254 days for different individuals for developing habits on different subjects such as taking walks after dinner which is very beneficial to our bodies. it took individuals 18 to 254 days to 1- do the habit 85% of the times and 2- not be required to put too much mental effort into doing it.

People are different, they have different mental resistance over different activities. they show resistance on two different states within our bodies. 1- anxiousness 2-feeling too tired or lazy or not motivated. This mental resistance needs overcoming and energy is required to overcome this resistance. (Professor of Neurobiology Andrew Huberman calls it Limbic Friction.

I am going to use Huberman's method to measure this limbic friction to get into a habit or get out of certain habits. The other thing we need to know is Linchpin habit. It refers to habits that you enjoy doing them. You can use them as leverage. for example, if you want to build the habits of being alert at work or going to bed early at nights, if you enjoy exercising, you can start doing them early in the morning so you can be in bed early at nights. (I wrote about how to optimize sleep and when to exercise to get better and high quality sleep here: https://www.silver-shine.ca/post/how-to-self-improve-by-optimized-sleep )

Linchpin habits can control other habits, positive habits or negative ones.

Habit strength

We are incredibly habitual habits. We take certain route to go to work, we do specific workout that we are accustomed to or we even sleep on one side of our bed. We are going to evaluate habit strength with two factors

1- How context dependent a habit is:

If you go to another environment you do the same habit at more or less the same time. like you go a trip and you still brush your teeth at the same time or have breakfast almost at the same time. this is context independent, but if you go on a trip and you stop working out, that is a context dependent habit.

2- How Much limbic friction it takes to perform a habit

How much energy you need to overcome the resistance before performing. If you are in the early stages of building a habit, you experience a greater deal of limbic friction.

These two contexts will determine how deeply that habit is ingrained in you. The goal is to do the habit automatically.

How nervous system works around habits

Wendy wood and Dennis Ruengar did an excellent article on psychology of habits( https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-122414-033417 ) They talk about the various ways of building a habit. they mention with each repetition of a habit, small changes happen in procedural memory ( Procedural memory is like a recipe, Specific steps are hold in mind to achieve a goal). getting into the mindset of Procedural memory is very beneficial to build a habit how ?

1-Thinking about very specific steps of that is required to be done . example: If you want to workout, you actually think about each steps. like put on your clothes, get into the car and ... it turns out just this simple mental exercise can shift people toward perform a habit with a much higher likelihood.

2-We need to understand a concept to help solidify the next tool to fully grasp it. This method is Called Task-Bracketing. The Neural circuit that involves in task bracketing. also involves in habit building and allow you to adopt a new habit. This neuro circuit is involved in action execution and action prevention. This neuro circuit( Dorsolateral striatum (dorso = up, lateral = side striatum = a part of our brain)) becomes active before performing a habit and after it is done.( Brackets the habit) This circuit frames the habits. this task bracketing determine if a habit is context related or not. The stronger this circuit is, the more likely we are going to repeat that habit.

How to make this bracketing stronger? Before telling this , I have to break something to you, the idea that you must do a task at a specific time to build a habit is not correct. It does not work in the long term. Our brain generate kinds of behaviors based on its state not the time. It is not a specific time of a day.

Now lets get to the tool : Particular phases of the day are associated with particular biological chemicals in our brain.

divide 24 hours of the day into 3 phases

1) 0-8 hours after waking up:

- Norepinephrine, Epinephrine and Dopamine and cortisol hormone tend to be elevated in the first 8 hours. These hormones alongside with other activities such as viewing sunlight, exercise to increase the core body temperature. Consume food rich in Tyrosine. ( L-Tyrosine as supplementation ). all of those, places your body in a state in which you can overcome the task with higher limbic friction, easier.

your whole system is action oriented and focused and you are more likely to overcome the limbic friction related to a specific habit.

Take the habit which has the highest limbic friction for you and put it in the first phase.

By placing a task in this phase you are creating a bracket for that task. Do not say: " I am going to run exactly at 12 or study between 10-12". People who do that and are rigid in their plan become context dependent and they will fail according to the literature .

2) 8-16 hours after waking up:

Let's talk about Phase 2 of the day. there are certain activities that can be turned into habits in this phase. Because of the circadian shift in our body The hormones that I mentioned above such as cortisol and dopamine and ... decline in our body. you don't want elevated cortisol in your body (it is a sign of depression) but a different hormone starts to rise, Serotonin. most people feel alert in early part of the day and calm in the phase 2 .

Certain types of habit are ideal to be build in this phase. the second phase phase is great for the habits that you have low level of mental resistance and limbic friction. In the second phase, the ability to overcome this resistance is really diminished. remember: If you already are working out in the afternoon habitually, there is no need to reschedule. The second phase is great for beginning a new habit .

Remember : by 5:00 pr 6:00 you might want to start to dim the lights because of the circadian shift in our body. Specially those one that are overhead.

• Hot shower and sauna Will support this serotonin based phase.

3) 16-24 hours after waking up:

As we said in the beginning, with each repetition, small changes happen in our procedural memory. There are a few things that allow neuroplasticity to occur. Basically to change your brain pathways so you can learn.

• Very low to no light environment

• lower room temperature : to support deep sleep

• Do not have a big meal before going to bed, at least 2 hours before.

• if you get up in the middle of the night which is absolutely normal, Do not use strong lights, use minimum lights ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34997782/#:~:text=Light%20at%20night%20in%20adults,a%20robust%20melatonin%20suppressing%20effect. )

Why am I talking about sleep and habit building and learning : Because low quality of sleep or short sleep directly decline the neuroplasticity which is basically learning. This is the foundation of building new habits ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693176/ )

some might think can I move a certain habit from a particular phase of the day and put it in another phase? The answer is YES. In fact moving that habit to a different time randomly, make it beneficial for you. That is when you know that habit is really built.

Reward Prediction Error

We are going to talk about The Dopamine hormone and the reward prediction error system.

This is discussed to accelerate and reinforce a habit. Reward prediction error is : " If you expect a reward and the reward comes, a particular behavior that was associated with generating that reward is more likely to occur again, however the amount of reward, in the form of this molecule Dopamine, is even greater if the reward arrives unexpectedly". example: if i think something is coming and it is going to be great. for instance; I am overcoming the limbic friction every morning to exercise and after that I feel great, I make my own dopamine reward, however: I will receive a greater reward of dopamine if something unexpected and great happens.

However: if we are expecting a reward to come and we do not get it, Our level of dopamine will drops below the baseline, even below the amount we had before we started the activity. for example : if we were supposed to write something for 45 minutes or get ice cream with friends or go on a date and something interrupts these plans, we feel disappointed and actually the levels of our dopamine dips way below where it was before.

The reward prediction error mechanism basically control all aspects of effort and learning. because when dopamine is released, the neuro circuits in our brain change, our levels of energy change. we can leverage this for habit formation.

how? Think back to task bracketing and limbic friction. if you are try to have a new habit or break a habit, alongside with the procedural process that is mentioned above ( think of the very steps that need to be done) also think about the events that precede and follow that particular habit. You are forming a cast or mold around the habit .

For example : you want to get to the habit of reading 30 minutes every day. what you should do is positively anticipate about doing the task and how you feel after the task is done. Not only you are going to Think about how you are going to feel after But also think about how challenging it is going to be so the reward afterward is going to be greater.

• Walk through the steps of the habit in mind

• begin to positively predict the challenge and sequences before the habit. what should be done 10-15 minutes before the habit and what will be done after the habit and how you feel after its execution

instead of thinking that the action or the task is just an isolated task but expands your frame and think of the challenge and steps before and the reward after that. so you are putting that task in a bracket so Dopamine can rewire your brain and with a good night of sleep you activate your brain plasticity and carve those tasks in your brain. We want to access dopamine around a greater event so we can leverage this fascinating molecule. Dopamine gives us energy and motivation and the goal is to stay motivated.

A System To Build And Test A Habit - 21 Day System

You set out to do 6 new habits per day across 21 days. and the expectation is that you are only going to do 4 or 5 of them each day. It turns out that this method is not based specifically on the habits , but it is based on the habit of performing habits . the habit of performing things during day. If you miss a day, there is no punishment, if you miss 3 today, you will not do 7 tomorrow. This is called "Habit Slip Compensation". You don't want to engage in a routine that you cannot keep up with for 5 - 6 weeks .

after 21 days, you go autopilot. you ask yourself how many of those habits you can do automatically. You don't start adding new habits. you want to keep doing those habits.

• you specify 6 things you want to get into habit of doing

• expect to perform 4-5

• if you miss a day you just keep doing what you were doing

• In the next 21 days, you want to do the ones you almost adopt.

• 21 days for performing. 21 of testing ( you can do another 21 days if you think it's necessary)

• when those habits become reflexive ( you don't think about them and are easily perfomed) you can do this with other things.

How To Break a Habit

Psychology and neuroscience have some tools for breaking habits. in order to break neural connection to break habit we need to get involved in a process called " Long Term Depression" Which has nothing to do with Mental Depression/ Psychological Depression . Long term depression says : between two neurons, if neuron "A" is active and neuron "B" is not active withing a particular time window, Then their connection starts to weaken. so how do you get two neurons out of Synchrony? for instance : probably you have experience this incident, in the middle of the work you just pick you without doing anything just go into your favorite website or app, without engaging in anything. as if it is reflexive. in fact it is deeply carved in your brain.

There are number of ways to break this behaviors which most them involves rewards for not doing an activity or punishment for doing that activity. Probably you saw people with rubber bands on their wrist and snap themselves after doing some sort of activity.

This study ( https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1539449219876877?journalCode=otjb ) shows notification to engage in a habit or stop a habit is not effective successful over time. ( rubber band method for instance). The key to the " long term depression"

is : Immediately The following period after habit execution, Is crucial. After the habit execution, the neurons that were engaged in that habit are active so , you need to Immediately engage in another replacing activity. This way you will get other neurons to dismantle the circuit that said negetive habit formed previously. So you match up a bad habit with another positive habit. positive in your term. This create a mental mismatched in your neurons.

We all know that habit formation and breaking habits can sometimes be very hard Specially breaking habits. I hope you implement the tools that I learnt from great scientist and i shared with you.