Emily McDonald breaks down the habit loop: cue triggers a craving, which produces a behavior. Once automatic, habits run without thought. To break the cycle, make the cue harder to access. That pause gives you a chance to choose differently, like moving a vape out of arm's reach in your car.
Remember the habit loop. You have a stimulus or a trigger or a cue, and that automatically leads to craving or motivation, which leads to your response. Now, when you are in a habit loop, all of this is happening automatically. Like, we don't get to think. It's not a decision. It is an automatic loop that the brain is playing, and it is so deeply ingrained that we don't get a choice in it. And that's why it's so hard. But if you can put this thing out of reach, if you can make it harder to do, what happens is you Interrupt this and you create a pause. So if I'm driving in the car and I get triggered, which triggers that craving, my automatic response would be to vape. But because it's underneath the chair next to me, I can't automatically respond, which creates a pause. And in that pause, I can choose differently. And that is how you can begin to take your power back and be mindful over these automatic behaviors and habit loops that run our lives.
