Why is it despite our best intentions, that installing new helpful habits can be so tricky?
Behavioural change even when desired, agreed upon and planned can still fall foul of procrastination, obstacles and life events.
What if anything will assist to nudge, cajole or twist our arm to create an enduring positive lifestyle habit?
As creatures of habit, we are the sum of what we do, repeatedly. Habits are evolution’s nifty way of conserving our precious mental energy. Your magnificent frontal lobes, helpful as they are to your conscious thought consume a disproportionate amount of energy compared to the mighty subconscious. Your brain spends its day channelling as much repeated thought and behaviour as possible into our habit locker – the basal ganglia.
Which explains why 45% of all our daily activities are habitual. From the way we get dressed, to what we select at the supermarket, to how we cook an omelette. Habits enable us to get through our days doing what must be done, while retaining sufficient conscious resources for all the heavy lifting thinking issues; problem solving, decision making and planning.
Every habit according to Charles Duhigg author of The Power of Habit comprises three components. A cue or trigger, a pathway and a reward to reinforce that behaviour.
Running on autopilot means you don’t have to remember how to drive a car every time you find yourself in the driver’s seat. Though if you’re used to driving a manual and find yourself in an automatic, you’ll be engaging your conscious thought temporarily to remind you how to do things differently.
As soon as the key is in the ignition the sequence of events to guide you out safely out of the garage and onto the road are primarily a series of learned automated behaviours, honed by plenty of practice.
The behavioural part of the habit can either be a reactive thought as when you’ve noticed some rude person cut in front of you in traffic “what an idiot!” or an action such as crossing the road if you see someone on the other side who appears to be intoxicated.
Every time the habit is performed it strengthens the associated neural pathway which is why habits whether helpful or maladaptive can be so hard to overcome.
We don’t break habits we supersede them
If you’ve ever been tempted to buy the latest book touting how you can become thinner, more attractive and more beautiful in 21 days, please save your money. Dr. Maxwell Mount a plastic surgeon in the 1960’s noted it took around 21 days for people to adjust to their new nose or facial appearance. What the science has shown is that the average length of time taken to install a bright shiny new habit is 66 days depending on its complexity, the strength of desire to achieve it and the presence of a support network. Research by Lally reported it took 96 volunteers between 18 to 254 days to embed a new automatic behaviour.
Stress leads to the default pathway
When under pressure, we revert to our old habits, yes, those ones you spent months trying to overcome like quitting smoking. In stressful times such as during the Covid-19 pandemic, those good intentions of eating healthily, cutting down on alcohol and exercising every day get a lot harder.
This is because here you’re dealing with the default pattern that may have been in place for year. It’s hard work swimming against the tide to create a new neural pathway and when feeling stressed, anxious or worried it’s like adding a couple of extra weights to your ankles.
Maladaptive behaviours while understandable can be frustrating to change, which is why as lifestyle practitioners providing support, encouragement and a road map can make all the difference.
Behavioural change is hard, even when our life depends on it. In his book Change or Die, Alan Deutschman shared how Dr Edward Miller at IBM’s 2004 Global Innovation Outlook reported how of the 600,000 people undergoing cardiac bypass each year in the U.S, around half would restenose within 2 years primarily because 90% of patients were unable to change their lifestyle to minimise their risk, even though they were made aware that failure to do so increased their risk of the return of disabling symptoms, or further heart attack or the requirement for repeat surgery.
It has been said that crisis is a powerful motivator for change, but the real driver isn’t just being provided with the facts. It’s the psychological and emotional aspects that makes the difference to fully understand “what’s in it for me?”
Ten things that facilitate installing behaviour change and new habits include:
1. Having a big enough WHY
Change the narrative to determine the personal benefit of making the change and undertake it as a personal commitment.
2. Make it EASY to do
Make the cue obvious and big. In his book Atomic Habits James Clear shares the story of how Boston based Dr Anne Thorndike got her patients to drink more water by putting bottled water next to the soda drinks at the cash register in the hospital cafeteria.
3. WRITE it down
You may have heard about the Harvard MBA study in 1979 that reported that 84% of the graduating class hadn’t set any goals in life, 13% had written goals but no concrete goals and that 3% had both written goals and a plan No prizes for guessing it was the 3% who later in life were found to be x10 more successful than the other 97%. While a great indicator of the value of having goals and a plan, the study is an urban myth. Happily, real research conducted by Orbell and others found 91% of people who planned their intention to exercise more by writing down the ‘where’ and ‘when’ each week were able to establish their habit more readily.
4. Feeling or seeing the result or impact of the change makes it FEEL worthwhile
Quick positive wins nourish the change effort emotionally, build the momentum and keeps the new habit meaningful.
5. Get SUPPORT
Having an accountability buddy or someone undertaking the same challenge reduces the pain of installing the change because ‘we’re in this together.’ While the spirit of camaraderie and a little competitiveness helps everyone to stick to the new habit and achieve their goal more quickly.
6. Increase CONSISTENCY
Disrupt the old habit loop by habit stacking. As proposed by Clear it’s easier to remember to floss your teeth when the floss is adjacent to the toothbrush or to get out for a morning run by leaving your trainers by the front door. The plan here is to increase the consistency of the new habit.
7. Keep yourself in a POSITIVE STATE OF MIND
Be aware of the potential disruption caused by stress. Seek to keep yourself in a positive state of mind and minimise the impact of stress using regular exercise, keeping a gratitude journal or listening to your favourite upbeat music.
8. Show yourself some SELF-COMPASSION
Everyone will fall off the new habit trail from time to time Anticipating obstacles makes it easier to have a Plan B or If-Then solution.
9. Be MINDFUL in your approach
Increase your conscious attention and intention to stick to the desired response. This helps you to be more mindful in your approach and to avoid getting side-tracked in those “usual” automated behaviours. As Dan Siegel author of Mindsight reminds us “the greater our ability to be mindful of the present moment, the more ability we have to regulate our emotions.”
10. Review your PROGRESS regularly
If you’re going to all that effort of creating a helpful new habit, even under trying circumstances it pays to celebrate all wins great and small. Regular progress reviews remind us how far we’ve already come as Amabile and Kramer authors of The Progress Principle Success is a series of small wins and the brain would always far rather experience the reward of a regular small celebration rather than wait for the big end of semester party.
While habit making and behavioural change can be a challenge, especially when under stress, you can set yourself up for greater success by understanding why your brain prefers to keep everything the same and implementing what the science has shown to work.
This article has been written for the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine (ASLM) by the documented original author. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the original author and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the ASLM or its Board.
Dr Jenny Brockis (FASLM) specialises in brain health and mental performance in the workplace. She works as a keynote speaker, trainer and is the author of four books.
