How Do You Change ‘Bad’ Habits?

Recognised as the ‘father of western psychology’, William James observed that:

“All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits”.

Whether we realise it or not, most of what we do occurs on autopilot. Our actions are rarely the product of conscious decisions and choices. Rather, they’re the product of our past actions stuck on a repeat loop.

Consider your morning routine. I doubt you ‘think’ much about it at all. Yet every morning, like Groundhog Day, an eerily familiar routine plays out.

For me, this involves:

• Rolling over and ignoring the alarm.
• Stumbling into and then out of the shower.
• Throwing some clothes on.
• Introducing caffeine into the system – lots of it.
• Rummaging around for something to eat.
• Turning the computer on to see what the overnight emails have delivered…

This all ‘happens’ without me thinking about it. And if there isn’t a significant email that demands my conscious attention, I’ll continue on autopilot…

Most of us only become aware of the habits that shape our lives at key reflection times, such as New Years. At such times we might make resolutions to:

• Eat less junk food or go on a diet.
• Give up the grog or ciggies.
• Start exercising and promising that ‘this time we’ll stick to it’.
• Spend more time with friends and family, and less time on social media.

Seldom do such well-intentioned resolutions work.

Becoming aware of our ‘bad habits’ is a good first step. But that’s all it is.

To successfully change habits, Personal Trainers and Weight Management Coaches help people to become ‘habit-educated’.

To explain how, in this article we’ll examine:

• What habits are.
• The core components of habits.
• How unhealthy ‘bad’ habits get built.
• How to change or ‘re-programme’ those bad habits.

What are ‘habits’?

Habits are regularly repeated ‘routine’ behaviours which occur subconsciously or ‘automatically’. For many of us, having a morning/afternoon coffee (or three) is a habit. For others, a can of Coke is a habitual afternoon pick-me-up.

The critical factor to understand is that:

Habits are built through repetition.

Our Weight Management programme introduces students to case studies which help them understand how habits are built. One such study involves the patient ‘RH’ as cited by biopsychologists Pinel & Barnes [ref 1].

As a result of brain damage, RH, an averaged size male, developed severe amnesia (memory loss). Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to remember eating a meal, researchers wondered what he’d do if offered meals in quick succession. They hypothesised that he’d reject the subsequent meals due to:

• Feeling full.
• Having ample energy stores and therefore, no reason to be hungry.

To test their hypothesis, the researchers offered R.H. repeats of his favourite meal; veal parmigiana with unlimited apple juice (approximately 750+ calories). They found that R.H.:

• Ate a full 2nd meal, 15 minutes after finishing his initial meal.
• Ate a full 3rd meal, 15 minutes after finishing his 2nd meal.

Only after being offered a 4th meal, 15 minutes after his 3rd meal, did RH refuse. Only at this stage did RH mention that he ‘felt a little full’ (he’d consumed 2250+ calories within 45minutes).

However, a few minutes after this refusal, RH told the researchers he was going to go out for a walk…and a meal. When asked what he was going to eat, RH told the researchers – veal parmigiana!

As well as destroying the myth that satiety (feeling full) stops us from overeating, RH demonstrated that:

• Given the right circumstances and prompts, it’s hard to stop habitual behaviours from repeating.
• Once a habit has been built, it doesn’t require conscious control or memory to run it.

When it comes to changing bad habits, its clear that we’ll face some obstacles. As such, we need to understand the ‘anatomy’ of a habit.

What are the core components of a habit?

Brain imaging researchers from Washington University, Raichle and Petersen [ref 2] provide insights into the physical structure of habits. They suggest that at a neural level, a ‘scaffolding to storage’ framework exists.

When developing and refining new behaviours, higher level conscious processing is used in the ‘scaffolding’ part of the process. However, once the behaviours have been ‘learnt’, activity in the brain changes.

The changes are likened to removing the scaffolding to reveal the permanent neural structures built underneath. These deeper, subconscious structures store the neural programmes which then run habitual behaviours when prompted.

In The Power of Habit [ref3], Charles Duhigg provides an example of ‘scaffolding to storage’. A study monitored the brains of lab rats as they learnt to navigate their way through a maze. It was found that:

• As the rats were learning the correct pathway, substantial neural activity was displayed in brain regions associated with conscious decision-making.
• When the task became routine, neural activity in conscious brain regions ‘went quiet’ while activity in the subconscious regions increased.

The study also noted that there were always spikes (sharp increases) in neural activity when:

• The rats were cued to start the behaviour (when they were put into the maze).
• A food reward was received upon successful completion of the maze.

It was concluded that these spikes represented the conscious brain:

• Initially searching for the familiar cue to determine which habit to use and afterwards,
• Shaking itself awake again after receiving its reward.

As a result, the scientists concluded that:

There are three key steps or components to every habitual behaviour.

These steps/components include:

1. A cue or trigger which initiates the behaviour.
2. The behaviour itself.
3. A reward that consolidates or ‘reinforces’ the behaviour.

These three steps or components are commonly known as a ‘habit loop’. At the core of this loop is a craving for the rewards associated with the habit. Let’s see how this plays out with regard to some ‘bad’ habits.

How are ‘bad’ habits built?

Unfortunately, no-one has a better understanding of habits than the ‘Big’ players: Big Food, Big Alcohol, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma.

Companies such as Coca-Cola and McDonalds also understand the psychological principle of reinforcement. This principle holds that:

• Behaviours that are reinforced (usually via a pleasurable reward) are more likely to be repeated.
• Rewards are most effective when they are significant and immediately follow the behaviour.

Things that are key to human survival are known as primary reinforcers. Examples include food, water and sex. Engagement in, or consumption of these reinforcers produce pleasure as a reward.

The greater the pleasure…the more likely the behaviour is to be repeated.

In our Weight Management programme we reference the important work of investigative reporter Michael Moss [ref 4].

Moss notes that the processed food industry (Big Food) invests billions of dollars into research and development to:

• Maximise the physiological pleasure attained from the consumption of food products.

This is achieved by optimising the quantities of sugar, fat, and salt they add to processed food. For example, physiological ‘bliss’ is achieved by adding nine teaspoons of sugar to a standard can of soft drink.

The objective is to make products as addictive as possible.

And regarding the cueing of behaviour, the objective is to saturate media with cues that prompt consumption. Hence, you’ll see fast-food and soft-drink advertising all over TV, social media, downloadable apps, billboards, sponsorships and shop frontage.

When you look closely, you’ll note that the cues usually emphasise the rewards associated with consumption. For example:

• ‘Open happiness’ (Coca-Cola).
• ‘I’m lovin it’ (McDonalds).
• ‘It just tastes better’ (Burger King).
• ‘It’s finger lickin good’ (KFC).

When you understand the functional mechanics of habits, the strategies of the ‘Big’ players become obvious. And without doubt, their strategies are simple and very effective.

How do you change bad habits?

Well, we could push our beloved politicians to make our lived environments less supportive of bad habits by:

• Increasing the availability and affordability of healthy, unprocessed food.
• Reducing the availability and affordability of fast-food, junk-food, alcohol, vapes, and sugary drinks.
• Restricting the promotion of fast-food, junk-food, alcohol, and sugary drinks.
• Promoting physical activity in schools, workplaces and via media.

Unfortunately, many public health experts have been pushing for these exact changes for decades. All to no avail. I wonder why…

Relying on such changes being made at a higher level is ‘wishful thinking’ at best. It’s seems unlikely to happen anytime soon.

However, Personal Trainers and Weight Management Coaches can have a direct and immediate impact.

Well-educated trainers and coaches act as ‘hubs’ for changing key habits that enhance personal health and well-being.

When it comes to changing ‘bad’ habits its more about modifying the habits that already exist.

This requires the ‘bad’ habit loop to be well understood – especially the cues and rewards. The goal is to find a healthier behaviour that provides the same or similar rewards when cued.

For example, a clients afternoon Coke might provide them with a physiological and emotional pick-me-up. It might be cued by a combination of feeling lethargic, depressed and having a 12-pack of Coke sitting in the fridge. In this case, a successful modification might involve:

• Replacing the Coke with the clients favourite piece of sweet fruit,
• Disposing of the unused Coke from the fridge so it’s not there to act as a cue, and
• Ensuring fresh fruit is available and prominently positioned.

In this case, if the habit loop wasn’t understood, the client might just be advised to replace the Coke with water. But water alone is unlikely to provide the sugary pick-me-up the client craves. As such it wont provide the same or similar rewards and is unlikely to produce a successful modification.

And if the cans of Coke aren’t removed, then they’ll always be sitting there as latent cues…ready to catch the client when their attention is focused elsewhere. In this article on Stimulus Control, we discuss how to minimise these ‘latent’ environmental cues in greater depth.

A Final Word…

Habits are generally extremely beneficial. By relegating routine behaviours to the subconscious, they free the brain up to concentrate on big picture tasks.

The problem is when we develop habits that aren’t conducive to good health. And the reality is that we live in an environment that is very conducive to developing such habits.

The critical thing to remember is that repetition builds habits and once built, habits are hard to dismantle. They’re literally wired into the physical structure of our brains. So ‘bad’ habits stay, but ‘good’ habits will also stay. Focusing on changing one ‘bad’ habit at a time can have a dramatic cumulative effect with minimal effort.

‘Bad’ habits won’t disappear just because we want them to; but understanding, targeting and modifying ‘bad’ habits is very effective.

We can modify ‘bad’ habits to make them healthier by finding alternative behaviours that provide similar rewards when cued. For practitioners, this requires a willingness to:

• Investigate a clients habit loop – the cues that trigger and the rewards that reinforce.
• Encourage clients to experiment with a variety of alternative behaviours until they find the most practical replacement.
• Provide consistent support and encouragement as clients literally re-wire their brains!

The good news is – it’s not as hard as it sounds! And the rewards associated with helping others make long-term change is more than worth it.

References

1. Pinel & Barnes. (2014). Introduction to biopsychology (9th Ed). London: Pearson Education Limited. Chapter 12: Hunger, eating and health. https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/biopsychology/P200000003027/9780137588596
2. Gazzaniga et al. (2014). Cognitive neuroscience: The biology of the mind (4th Ed). New York: Norton. Chapter 14: Consciousness, free will and the law. https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393603170/about-the-book/description
3. Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do and how to change. London: Random House Books. https://www.randomhousebooks.com/books/202855/
4. Moss, M. (2013). Salt, sugar, fat: how the food giants hooked us (1st ed). Random House. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/209536/salt-sugar-fat-by-michael-moss/