Break All Your Bad Habits with One Good Habit

Not again! You ate too much cake. You bought another pair of shoes that you don't need. You were rude to someone. You partied too hard. The list of regrets goes on. We can recognize our bad habits, but we have great difficulty breaking them. There is one simple thing you can do - a new habit that you can develop - that has the potential to resolve all of your bad habits. To learn how it works, one needs to better understand how the brain controls behavior.
The how and why of habit formation New research has uncovered numerous hidden forces that affect our behavior in surprising ways. These forces include biological and environmental factors that control our actions on an unconscious level. In other words, many of the things we do, including the habits that we have developed, are not the result of careful deliberation and deliberation on our part. This may sound unsettling, but understanding the mechanisms that underlie our behavior opens up potential ways to hack the brain to make smarter decisions. Otherwise we will pretend that we are behind the wheel when we are actually only a rear seat driver.
Our brain is a remarkable feat of evolutionary technology, but it is not without its problems. Our thinking organ is an energy guzzler, consuming up to 20 percent of the body's daily caloric intake - even when you are sleeping! To save energy, the brain relies on mental abbreviations that psychologists call heuristics. The brain works hard to identify patterns and then makes assumptions based on those patterns. These assumptions can affect our behavior in ways that are below our conscious radar. Because the brain puts a lot of effort into developing these algorithms, it is reluctant to expend additional energy in re-evaluating its assumptions. This is why people are often persistent, and sometimes doubles up on false beliefs, even when they come up with convincing evidence to the contrary. The brain uses the patterns it has learned to run on an autopilot whenever possible. This conserves the body's resources, but it can cause bad habits to reappear. We do things without thinking. We form beliefs without evaluating evidence. We get biased and construct stereotypes. Bad habits and irrational decisions can stem from these automated heuristic paths in the brain.
Breaking Bad Habits To break the cycle, we must constantly remind ourselves to get out of the back seat and get behind the wheel. We are often the victims of a lazy brain that relies too heavily on mental shortcuts. The trick is to be aware of our behaviors, no matter how trivial they may seem. Ask yourself questions like: Why do I want this cookie? Why do I want to say such a cruel thing? I yawn, so why am I staying up to see another episode? Why am I looking at my phone instead of enjoying my meal? The strategy may seem obvious, but being aware of our current actions is not so easy for two related reasons: Our brains overuse mental shortcuts and divert energy to worry about what is left to happen.
The brain works mainly with heuristics for your daily routine. This releases energy so that the brain can do its favorite thing: imagine future scenarios. Research has shown that the wandering mind is the default setting for the brain, which clearly offers survival benefits. The downside to this concern is that we are not very good at living in the here and now. We are not very good at suppressing our infinite desires. We're not very good at recognizing and appreciating what we already have. You can grow a new habit for living in the moment. Examine your actions to reveal the choices in front of you. Look at every fork in the road. Activate your logic circuits instead of just letting the mind act on unconscious assumptions. Here's a helpful approach that capitalizes on the brain's desire for success: Establish the decision you need to make as a test. Will you pass it Or will you fail? The brain hates failure and creates emotions like guilt and shame to encourage you not to fail again. The brain rewards performance for the same reason. If you can be aware of the here and now and how your behavior is.