THE POWER OF HABIT by Charles Duhigg
Abbadabba recommended this book. Just jotting a few notes about it for myself. I read it and listened to an audio version and found it quite informative
Duhigg, a journalist, discusses habit from the point of view of neuroscience. Habits are depicted as paths or “programs” formed in our brains. And we are more like research rats I suppose.
Habits and cravings are closely linked. As we perform an action with a stimulating outcome the body over time will anticipate a reward and form a craving.
Habit loop has been identified to model the cycle we get stuck in It consists of three elements. a cue, a routine and a reward. Duhigg says that understanding these can help in understanding how to change bad habits and form better ones. Overeating is my bad habit... so i am all ears
Habit Loop
CUE will set off a craving, It can be anything that trigger it and not always obvious to you until you focus to try to identify your pattern
THE ROUTINE is what you do to satisfy the craving. In my case my overeating
The Reward: Is the psychological of physiological well being that results from the babit or something that you are not quite sure about but need to get to the bottom of
(So simplified a loop could be an image of food, actual eating, feeling of satisfaction)
Habit loop governs automatic responses that keep us in bonds of bad habits but can also a tool for us to understand our actions to help us change bad habits into good ones.
To help break the loop We need to
1 Identify the routine
2 Experiment with the rewards. This can be take time but once we know what it is we REALLY crave we can begin to shift the routine so that you can replace your bad habit with something more positive.
In the appendix the author uses and example of craving a cookie around 3;30 every day. In the case of the cookie he realize he gets bored in the afternoon and just need a break and he is able to shift from the cookie to chatting with a coworker.
I can see how powerful it is to think of bad habits like this. It allows you to analyze the elements of them and make it more manageable rather than feel overwhelmed or like you are bad person who lacks control
In the chapter the golden rule of habit change… he does also talk about how hard it can be to change a habit especially if you get addicted to something like alcohol or smoking. He makes the point of saying even after you have changed your habits any amount of stress can make you revert to your bad habits. To prevent that he says that you need a belief and also a community. So I am stuck at Fatsecret it looks like :)
