Habits

A short review of the book

The Power of Habit

Why We Do What We Do in Life and In Business

By Charles Duhigg

A book based on scientific study of habits, how they are formed and how we can change habits.  The author introduces the habit loop.  He says there is a cue, something that sets our habit in motion.  There is the habit or action. And there is the reward. 

Developing a good habit is easy.  For instance, say you want to start exercising.  You need to create the cue, laying out your exercise clothes at night so you see them when you get up.  Then you do the action.  This action leads to a reward.  If you want the habit to be one that really sticks, get the habit to create a craving.  It was interesting that 98% of people who exercised commented that they craved their endorphin high.  But for those who really stuck with their exercising, 68% of those also had some way of measuring success in small increments.  They not only craved the endorphins but the accomplishments they made each day. 

None of us want to change our good habits.  But we have so many bad habits.  How do we change those and stay successful at keeping them changed. 

The book is full of many examples and great inspiring stories of how people were able to change their habits.  Read them for yourself.  Here I just want to state the process Duhigg reports that leads to success in changing a habit. 

In order to change a bad habit, it is best not to change the cues or the reward, just the action.  An example is someone who smokes.  The cue may be stress, the action is smoking, the reward is release of the stress.  So how can someone give up smoking, life is stressfull.  We all have it.  But research has shown that caffeine can give the same stress relief as one cigarette.  So when stress comes, drink a cup of coffee, down a Mountain Dew, etc.  The relief comes and a habit is changed. 

Sounds simple but for many of us our bad habits are so ingrained we have no idea what actually cues them and we don’t necessarily recognize what reward we receive. 

This is where the author brings in Alcoholics Anonymous.  Science has recently studied why AA is so successful.  Steps four and five require the Alcoholic to think about and list all the cues that drive him to drink and then all the rewards he feels from drinking.  We need to do the same when it comes to a habit we wish to conquer.  We must concentrate on what is happening at the moment before we take the action we wish to remove from our lives.  How do we feel right afterwards and why?

Of course it is suggested that we write these things down.  Then we have to make a plan for what we will do instead of our bad habit.  For instance we want to stop eating the junk food people bring to work.  We discover that it is when we are bored or sleepy at work that we drop into the break room and grab some Twizzlers.  Afterwards, we are not so tired, we have a little sugar high and besides they tasted good. To change that, we make a plan.  Today, when the boredom hits, instead of walking to the break room, we walk to the stairs and go up and down four or five flights.  We have an endorphin high and we are on our way to replacing the bad habit with a good one. 

Now one thing that researches did not like about AA was their relying on God.  Because these were scientists not chaplains, they wanted to prove that one did not have to rely on God to overcome an addiction or habit.  A scientist in Germany implanted electrodes in the basal ganglia of a number of extremely addicted alcoholics; one had been through rehab 60 times.  They all reported that as soon as the electrodes were turned on they could walk into a bar and have no temptation at all.  Success!  But then they went back to their lives.  The stress mounted (the cue) and soon they were back drinking again even though they had no physical craving for alcohol.  It was the habit they had developed when they felt stress. 

This is the part of the book with the great inspirational stories. For the most part, the author remains a science reporter, but he just can’t explain everything with science. These men found that when they developed a “belief system” of some kind, they succeeded in giving up the alcohol.  They went to AA groups and saw that others were succeeding and that gave them the faith that they could succeed themselves. 

Even if it is just one other person, someone who can help you believe you can do it, solidifies your ability to replace one habit with another. 

In review, to change a habit, you cannot get rid of a bad habit.  It will always be a part of your brain pattern.  What you have to do is replace the action with a good action.  The cues and the rewards must stay the same.  But to be totally successful you have to have a community of believers even if it is just one. 

I read this book because I was interested to see why I have been successful at losing weight this time around.  I have seen how doing P90X supported the idea of developing a habit loop. Having the cue, doing the action (habit), receiving a reward.  P90X is extreme and it is not always “fun.”  But Tony Horton, the coach, has you keep track of every rep and every weight you lift.  I had the cues all around me.  My workout sheets were taped to the closet door.  My workout clothes and shoes were there when I got up in the morning.  My husband gets up early too, perhaps the best cue of all.  I got the endorphin high even when I was dying.  But more than that, and I think this is something that really did make a difference for me.  I recorded the weights and the reps and I saw the progress. 

But what has kept me going.  After all, I have done P90X twice and P90X Plus and now I am doing Turbo Fire, another extreme workout.  I have lost weight.  Why keep going? 

I have a group, a community that helped me believe.  I didn’t plan to be able to do all that I have done.  My daughter-in-law does not know how much she influenced me.  Heidi was so successful, she help me I try too.  My son, Jeremy laughed with me and encouraged me too. 

My husband loves my new slim and “powerful” look.  Jeremy started a Facebook group that has given me more incentive.  How can I stop?

But here comes the part that I think the author missed.  He reported people talking about it, but he did not list it as a component of the key to complete change.  All the really inspiring stories about people and groups that changed, reported one specific thing.  They started changing because they wanted to help others.  They stopped thinking about themselves.  In my vocabulary, they developed Charity.  The drunk helped put the chairs away at an AA meeting.  That was it, he put the chairs away.  He had helped the group and began to believe in them.  The football team started to do it for their coach.  The dad stopped cocaine for his son.

I continue to exercise for myself, of course; but also for my family.  I don’t want to be stuck in a wheelchair due to my arthritis.  I want to be the grandma who does, not just watches.  I want to serve a mission with my husband, AWAY FROM HOME.  I want to be able to be of service to others.  I want to inspire the person who thinks they can’t.  If I can, they certainly can.  Others keep me going.  I hope this little review helps others find ways to change too.