Whenever we decide to do any physical or mental work, our brain fires neurons in different regions including the sensory-motor region, the neocortex, and the prefrontal lobes. But the beauty is that the brain has a self-programming ability. When it sees some activity being repeated, it creates shortcuts of the neural sequences and stores them in the basal ganglia, the part of the brain responsible for learning, habits, and emotions. This enables the brain to engage in those activities with greater ease in the future. Habit formation is thus the brain’s way of simplifying its work and making it more efficient.
For example, the first time we began typing, our brain had to exert itself to the maximum to identify and press the required keys. Consequently, it took us a few minutes to type a handful of words. However, as we continued typing, the brain began programming itself. The moment we thought of a letter, our finger would fly on the keyboard to press the corresponding key. The brain had created programmes for the neural sequences to be fired for the task.
With repeated practice, the brain began forming programmes for entire words, enabling the keys to be pressed in multiple sequences. As a result, after a year of training, we were typing at speeds of fifty words a minute and above.Without such a self-programming ability, typing would have been as laborious as it was on the first day. Then we would be unable to think of anything else while typing. Fortunately, the power of habits simplifies the brain’s work, and along with typing, we are also able to think, imagine, and plan.
Similarly, we multitask while we drive. We speak to passengers, listen to audio talks, and plan the rest of our day. However, on the first day of driving, the tasks of simultaneously controlling the steering, accelerator, and brakes are so formidable that they take up all our attention. With continued practice, the brain keeps programming itself, creating habits out of these tasks. Finally, the day comes when we can simultaneously drive and engage in a spirited conversation without risk.
By creating habitual programmes, the brain gets its work done while expending much less energy. A study was conducted to observe cerebral activity in rats. The rats were left in a maze, at a distance from a chunk of cheese. They slowly sniffed their way to it. As the experiment was repeated, their brain began learning the pathways and they progressed more quickly to the cheese. After a month, on being left in the maze they could run towards the cheese. The instruments on their head showed that brain activity progressively reduced as the learning occurred.
The Habit Loop
A habit has three parts to it: 1) stimulus, 2) response, and 3) reward. The stimulus works like a trigger for the brain which then responds with the conditioned behaviour. That behaviour generates a reward which further reinforces the pattern for the future.
For example, if for a month, while watching TV, you drank tea regularly, it would grow into a habit. Now, whenever you sit before the TV, it acts as a trigger. The brain responds by creating the desire for tea. And when you drink the tea, the sensual gratification is the reward that reinforces the habit loop.
The brain is so smart that it does not need an external reward for reinforcement. It generates the feel-good chemicals— serotonin, endorphin, and dopamine—and sends them to the part of the brain that was engaged in the activity. These chemicals create the ‘feel-good’ sensation which is the reward.
Consider another example. Suppose that working on your assignment is drudgery for the brain, which seeks some diversion. When you hear the chime of a new email, you go to your inbox and check it. This provides a welcome distraction from work. The brain gets relief from the present drudgery and a slight pleasure from the content of the email. Plus, the feel-good chemicals created by the brain reinforce the habit loop. Now every time the email bell chimes, the mind generates an irresistible desire for reading it, which is hard to overcome. It has become a habit.
The patterns of habits become so strong that people find themselves helpless in changing them. Studies have shown that habits remain even after surgery is done on the brains of alcoholics. On the appearance of old cues, the cravings for rewards manifest again, waiting to exert their power on the mind.
Cues for habitual behaviour can be of infinite variety—a picture of ice cream, a certain place, a certain time of the day, or the company of a particular person. The routines they trigger can be a mere emotion that comes for milliseconds or a complex sequence of behaviours. The rewards vary—emotional payoff, chemical gratification, sensual pleasure, mental stimulation, or any combination of these.
Habits often enter our lives without our conscious permission. But they grow so strong that they shape our destiny far more than we realise. They cause our brain to latch onto them, to the exclusion of all else, including common sense. In this way, habits can be compared to a cable. Each day, we weave a thread of the cable. The singular thread seems too weak to hold us, however, when woven together, the cable is almost unbreakable. But the good news is that habits can be changed. Social researchers conducted studies to understand why families increased their fast food consumption when a fast food outlet moved into their neighbourhood. They found that advertisements, picturesque billboards, and other allurements successfully created cues for triggering the habit loop for eating French fries. The pleasurable taste of fat, salt, and crispy fries provided the natural reward. Inadvertently, customer behaviour was influenced to the extent that some of the families began taking their dinner daily at the fast food joint.
When the outlet moved out of the neighbourhood, the family habit slowly began changing. They started having food at home more often. Within a year, the habit had fully subsided. The conclusion was that habits are changeable.The brain’s quality of neuroplasticity works like a two-edged sword. On the negative side, it programmes and shackles our thinking in deleterious thought patterns. On the positive side, it provides an opportunity to reshape the brain, disband old habits, and install new ones. Thus, habits can be learned and unlearned. The potential is immense!
Excerpted with permission from The Science of Mind Management by Swami Mukundananda. Published by Westland Publications