You Have More Habits Than You Think

"What was I supposed to do again?"
Have you ever walked into a
room, wondered, "why am I
here?" then realize that you
meant to do something in a
completely different room?
Or have you ever gone to look
something up on your phone,
but instead of googling it, you
absentmindedly open your
favorite social media app
and catch up on what's
happening in the world?

This is because both of these actions are habits. A habit is a set of actions that have


been repeated often and have become regular. You've turned on your phone and gone
straight to checking instagram so many times that the one time you want to google
something instead, you automatically and accidentally check instagram.

Your brain has good reason to create habits. It reduces the amount of work the brain
has to do on a regular basis. According to my book The Power of Habit, "Without habit
loops, our brains would shut down, overwhelmed by the minutiae of daily life. People
whose basal ganglia, [the area of the brain responsible for the creation and activation
of habits,] are damaged by injury or disease often become mentally paralyzed. They
have trouble performing basic activities, such as opening a door or deciding what to
eat" (Duhigg 21). This shows that habits control many parts of our life, taking over 
whenever we do something regularly. They can even simplify seemingly complex tasks.
For example, the author of Habit highlights a man who suffered damage to the part of
his brain that stored short term memories. While this man, Eugene, couldn't remember
the day of the week, or the names of his doctors, could take a walk around the block
near his house, because it had become a habit to him (Duhigg).






How do Habits work?
A diagram demonstrating the inner
workings of a habit in The Power of Habit
  A habit has three main components,
  the cue, the routine, and the 
  reward. The cue prompts the brain
  to begin the actions of the habit.
  For example, say you have a habit
  of eating candy. In this habit, the
  cue is seeing the bowl of candy
  sitting on the counter. The routine
  is the set of actions that take place
  to complete the habit. In this
example, grabbing a piece of candy, ripping open the wrapper, and taking a bite.
Yum! This is the reward, the sweet taste in your mouth from  eating the candy.




How does this relate to me?
Using this information, I hope to be able to better identify habits in my daily life. This
will allow me to be more mindful of my actions and identify bad or unwanted habits.
In the future, I hope to modify or eliminate these habits.



Question to ponder

What habits can you think of in your life? Do you think they are beneficial,
or would you want to change them if you could?







Works Cited

Duhigg, Charles. The Power of Habit. New York, Random House, 2014.