2024-02-28 07:20:55
The American writer Charles Duhigg, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and regular columnist for The New Yorker, explains the mechanism for modifying routines and taking control of daily customs. “Changing habits can radically transform people’s behavior.”
December was the month we promised ourselves to change some things for this year. January and February are the months where what we promised ourselves still has an “allowed” time. We convince ourselves that the year begins in March. That helps postpone those resolutions. At the end of the season, we also accept that this time we can beat them.
However, calendars pass and the idea of eating healthier, exercising more, being consistent with reading or abandoning that inadvisable practice does not materialize. What is that powerful force that cloisters us in a custom that is so difficult for us to eradicate? Or why is this change possible for some and for others it becomes a lost cause? For Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize winner and frequent columnist for The New Yorker, author of The Power of Habit, which spent more than three years on The New York Times bestseller lists, we can discover them and, in doing so, change them.
Graduated from Yale University Business School, he discovered the power of changing habits by chance. He was covering a report in Iraq more than a decade ago. There he detected a member of the army whose specific duty was, at that time, to eliminate a series of violent disturbances that occurred daily in a central square of a certain town. “I saw that the officer decided to eliminate the food stalls that existed on the site,” says Duhigg. I thought regarding what one thing had to do with the other, but I discovered that in reality there were a dozen rioters, that they only attracted others who came to look at what was happening and, as the hours went by, a large group grew up that ended up, inevitably into altercations. However, when the stalls disappeared, the groups might not stay there for long, simply because they were hungry and had to go somewhere else to satisfy their hunger. There I noticed for the first time how a change in habits can radically transform people’s behavior.”
–With a certain unconsciousness we believe that habits invade us and we adopt them without realizing it
-But it’s not like that. A habit is always the product of a choice that we made deliberately at some point, but that repeated over time causes us to stop thinking regarding it, so that we continue to make it systematically, often daily, but without keeping track of what it was. an election. We let ourselves be carried away by that custom repeated over time. Neurologically, a habit is a formula that our brain follows automatically, because it is a lazy organ that prefers not to modify what is established as a way to save energy. So, he settles into the habit because it doesn’t require him to think.
–Is it in that equation where you notice that it is possible to change the habits we want?
–When you become aware that what you do is only the product of systematic repetition, without reflection involved, but rather the product of an old decision that has not been reviewed, it is possible to do it and modify what is repeated, in order to start a new process.
–You say that habits never completely disappear
-That’s how it is. They never really do. They are encoded in the structures of our brain. The difficulty is that our brain cannot decide between a good habit and a bad one. There is a signal that works as a trigger for automatic behavior to begin. That is followed by a routine, what we do in front of the trigger. For example: I am anxious or worried (that would be the signal), so I eat something, smoke a cigarette or drink a coffee (which would be the routines that the brain automatically triggers in response to the signal). A reward then follows, which is how the brain learns to remember this pattern for the future. When we talk regarding habits, we really focus on this cycle. But now we know that we can change those patterns and change routines in the face of cues. The key to being physically active, eating healthier, raising children the way we want, being more productive, or achieving success in a project is understanding this circuit. Habits are not destiny. They can be changed and remade.
Neurological cravings
One of the reasons habits are so powerful, Duhigg explains in his work, is that they create neurological cravings. “Most of the time, they arise so subtly that they are not aware of it. Over time they establish themselves so strongly in our brain that it seems impossible to modify them, but it is precisely regarding making them conscious.”
–Could you tell me a habit that you have managed to change?
–For years I ate a chocolate chip cookie every followingnoon, until one day I decided I wouldn’t do it anymore. But I needed to discover what pleasure I received from that intake. What was it that my brain valued. I changed products: sometimes I ate an apple or had a coffee. But he mightn’t identify the reward. Until I realized that the real reason I went to the cafeteria every day was to see my friends. That allowed me to continue going to the same place, but to have tea or continue eating a fruit, in any case that was not what I was looking for, but to socialize. He might also have continued eating the sprinkle cookie, but now he might decide how to change that habit.
–It is necessary to find some way to automate certain reactions because, as he says in his book, otherwise we would be thinking regarding every minimal decision.
–A couple of years ago, a researcher at Duke University tried to discover how many of our daily actions were habits. His data revealed that between 40 and 45 percent of the decisions we make each day are habits, not really decisions. And without that, we would go crazy. If we had to think regarding how to get to work every morning or where each letter on the keyboard is, we would not have time to create or invent. Our brain saves energy thanks to habits to make life possible. What we can do is modify these routines with habits that are more appropriate to what we prefer.
–The key to creating a new habit, then, is in routines.
-Indeed. For example, if I want to start running in the morning, I need to produce a simple signal that acts as a trigger for the practice, for example, I can leave the appropriate clothes for physical activity ready, or put on my sneakers when I get out of bed. And then, think of a reward: I’ll take a longer shower, I’ll make my favorite juice, I’ll reach the goal I set for myself. But both things are not the solution. The brain needs to start waiting for the reward, so that the entire process becomes automatic. The key to changing a habit is to maintain the cue, change the routine, and maintain the reward. If I wake up in the morning and can’t find my running clothes, I will go straight to take a shower or my favorite juice, because my brain will demand the reward. But if I change the routine, and maintain the rest, I will have changed the habit.
–Have habits changed with the emergence of the digital world?
-Absolutely. Applications are great allies. Anything you do that helps you measure and recognize what is happening is. For many people, knowing how much they’ve moved or what activities they’ve accomplished is a digital way to create a rewards system.
Author: Flavia Tomaello
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