Jungle Mums

We all have habits, some are highly functional, others, such as eating when bored or coffee & cake after dinner every night, can be counter-productive and very hard to overcome. So why are habits so hard to break and how can we do it?

To begin with, you should not regard the fact that you find a habit hard to break a weakness! It is a function of a physiological process. The striatum, an area within the basal ganglia of your lower brain has actually formed physical changes, a neural pathway, to create a habit “file” for each and every habit you have. A neural pathway is an interconnected set of neurons that transfer information to and from your brain. This clever and perfect design enables your higher cortical brain to be freed up for more complex thoughts and functions.

So… give yourself a break and know that habits are normal, and functional.

Secondly, understand that this neural pathway was formed purely through frequent repetition, much like the sheep tracks we see our beloved NZ icon creating across our countryside. The more they use the tracks, the more etched they become.

The upside to all of this is that habits are able to be altered by forming new neural pathways and because this is merely a physiological process, you are just as capable as anyone else to overcome destructive habits.
Don’t expect the pathway to shrivel away in “21 days” or any other arbitrary finite period you may read about.  Instead you will only find yourself no longer succombing to an old habit once you have created a stronger, more beneficial and contrary pathway, an alternative route, if you will.

This will be especially achievable if the outcome for the mind is more preferable. It’s always with an eye on the outcome that a pathway is etched therefore, the greater the reward, the easier the going.  A strong sense of direction, excellent goal setting processes with rewards and visualisation can provide this clarity of a preferable outcome.  More on these concepts in a later blog.

Further, avoiding the initial step in a series of behaviour, over time will also reprogramme the brain.  So removing temptations and initiators of habit, changing your environment or even the people in it can improve your chances of breaking destructive habits.

Finally giving good attention to a task throws the task out of the hands of the basil ganglia and into the more “thinking” parts of the brain, thereby disrupting the process.  Giving attention to what you are doing hijacks the habit’s momentum.

What does this mean for someone who is trying to forge a new lifestyle in the face of recurring deep set habits?

1. Give yourself a break man!
2. Expect change. Know you absolutely can do it, but expect it to take time – enjoy the journey, be patient.
3. Expect errors, that destructive pathway is still in place and every now and then your brain will try to take the old road. You simply have to retrain your brain to take the new route most often. If it occasionally wants to go the old way for old times sake, how much damage will it really do?
4. To forge a new habit, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat…

Benjamin Franklin, in his striving for moral perfection and in his patience to do so stated,

“Each year one vicious habit discarded, in time might make the worst of us good.”

Small tweaks is all it takes, small tweaks when you can.