NEUROSCIENTIST: 3 Mental Habits of the Highly Successful

Habits are a big part of who we are. What we do habitually makes up much of what we do entirely. In fact, it's estimated that up to 70% of our waking behavior is made up of habitual behavior. People are highly variable, and if you can't form one habit easily, it doesn't mean that you can't form other habits easily. So what I'd like to do is to take the scientific literature of how the nervous system learns and engages in neuroplasticity and apply that to. To habit formation, habit maintenance, and, if so desired, how to break particular habits. I'd like to give you a particular tool that's gleaned from the research psychology literature. With each repetition of a habit, small changes occur in the cognitive and neural mechanisms associated with procedural memory. So I just want to talk for a second about what procedural memory is. In the neuroscience of memory, we distinguish between what's called episodic memory and procedural memory. Episodic memory is a recall of a particular set of events that happened, whereas procedural memory is holding in mind the specific sequence of things that need to happen in order for a particular outcome to occur. So think of it like a recipe or a protocol, or if for sake of exercise, it's like sets and reps or a particular course that you're going to run or cycle, or the number of laps you're going to swim and how you're going to perform it. It's very clear that for anyone trying to adopt new habits, getting into the mindset of procedural memory is very useful for overcoming that barrier that we call limbic frict. How do you do that? Well, a simple visualization exercise, or it doesn't even have to be done eyes closed. You know, oftentimes we hear visualization exercise. You think about sitting in the lotus position, eyes closed, and, you know, trying really hard to visualize something doesn't need to be anything like that. It can simply be, if you are deciding to adopt a new habit, to just think about the very specific sequence of steps that's required to execute that habit. And I'll use a trivial example, but this could be applied to anything. Let's say I want to get into the habit of making myself or someone else in my household a cup of espresso every morning. I would actually think through each of those steps, walk into the kitchen, turn on the espresso machine, draw the espresso, walking through each of those steps from start to finish, and turns out just that simple mental exercise done once can shift people toward a much Higher likelihood of performing that habit regularly, not just the first time, but as they continue out into the days and weeks that follow. So now I'd like to discuss a second and what I think is perhaps the most powerful tool for being able to acquire and stick to new habits. The tool that I'm referring to is something called task bracketing. And the neural circuits associated with task bracketing are basically the neural circuits that are going to allow you to learn any new type of habit or break any habit that you'd like to break. We have in our brain a set of neural circuits that fall under the umbrella term of the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia are involved in action execution, meaning doing certain things, and action suppression, not doing certain things. In the experimental realm, these are referred to as go, meaning do or no go. Don't do certain things. And some of us fall more into the category of we find it very easy to do certain things, but harder to not do other things. Some people have a lot of no go type circuits that are very robust and they have a lot of behavioral constraint, but they have a harder time getting into action. And some people have a perfect balance of both. But I've never met one of those people. Task bracketing involves a particular set of neural circuits within the basal ganglia. We have particular circuits in our brain that are devoted to framing the events that happened just before and as we initiate a habit, and just after and as we terminate a habit. Now, this is very important because task bracketing is what underlies whether or not a habit will be context dependent or not, whether or not it will be strong and likely to occur. Even if we didn't get a good night's sleep the night before, even if we're feeling distracted, even if we are not feeling like doing something emotionally, or if we are, you know, completely overwhelmed by other events. If the neural circuits for task bracketing are deeply embedded in us, meaning they are very robust around a particular habit, well, then it's likely that we're going to go out for that zone two cardio, no matter what, that we're going to brush our teeth no matter what. In fact, brushing our teeth is a pretty good example because for most people, even if you got a terrible night's sleep, even if everything in your life is going wrong, chances are that you're going to still carry out the behavior of brushing your teeth in the morning. I would hope so, actually. But you are probably less likely to perform particular habits that are not what you deem as necessary. But if you think about it brushing your teeth, exercise, eating particular foods, maybe engaging socially in particular ways. You are the one that places any kind of value assessment on which ones are essential and which ones are negotiable. So task bracketing sets a neural imprint, a kind of a fingerprint in your brain of this thing has to happen at this particular time of day, so much so that it's reflexive. If you are considering adopting a new habit or if you are trying to break a habit, it's very useful to think not just about the procedural aspects of what you're going to do, but also think about the events that precede and follow that particular habit and the execution, or at least the effort to execute that habit. What you're doing is you're casting a kind of a spotlight or around a bin of time or a set of events for which dopamine can be associated. What does this look like in the practical sense? Well, again, I'll just try and use very simple, concrete examples, but this could carry over to anything. Let's say I were somebody who has a hard time getting in that 30 to 60 minutes of zone 2 cardiovascular exercise mid morning. What I should do is positively anticipate the onset and the offset of that session. Right. So thinking about leaning into the effort, going out and doing that zone two cardio session, and I should think about how I'm going to feel after. So not just thinking about how great I'm going to feel after, but also thinking about how hard it's going to be at the beginning and then trying to reward myself subjectively for the entire experience. In other words, start rewarding task bracketing in addition to rewarding the execution of the habit itself.

Sam.