We
Are All Creatures of Habit
By
Jeffrey M. Bowen
Every day at 3 p.m. on the dot our black lab named Goose appears
in the doorway expectantly, ears cocked, tail wagging, vigorously panting, all
for one purpose – dinner! He has trained
us to respond rather early to these signals.
A wave of our hand and he races to the kitchen and waits impatiently to
down his bowl in about 15 seconds flat. Then
he insists on going out to defend his territory.
Why does this particular pattern repeat so regularly? Not really because of instinct; not all dogs
do this. Goose seems to have an internal
alarm clock. He is faithfully well fed,
and surely, he could wait a bit. Instead
this happens because he is a steadfast creature of habit. We are too, because we respond habitually to
his habit.
This serves as a preface to my message that all sentient
beings are governed by habits. These may
be good or bad, but they are always strangely powerful. Volumes of anecdotal advice give us ways to
break or create habits. Understanding and
using them calls for more scientific scrutiny.
When situations repeat themselves during our daily
activities, research tells us that, on average, 45 percent of the time we react
the same way not as an actual decision, but almost automatically. Up to 88 percent of our morning hygiene is
subconsciously routine, as is about 55 percent of activity at work. If you live to 80, according to another
estimate, about 36 years of your life is spent on autopilot!
Sometimes we think of these happenings as positive
learning when the steps produce good results.
Extended habits yield comfort and stability, even when no obvious
rewards are involved. We call them
rituals or traditions. In contrast, habituation
may produce a physical or psychological dependency and become an
addiction. Habits are mostly
convenient; no need to think much about them.
No executive decision or concentrated self-control is required. A cue leads to a routine, which then leads to
an anticipated reward.
Changing a habit is quite another story. My own experience, and probably yours,
confirms that habits can be very stubborn creatures. An area in the prefrontal cortex of our
brains sort of scripts out a memory to ensure that a given context will cue the
same behavior each time. With each
repetition, less thought is given to the rational intention or goal, and more
is given to the contextual cue. Our
subconscious mind seems to declare, “Do what you’ve always done, so you’ll get
what you’ve always gotten!”
What’s wrong with that?
No problem, unless we decide, or are pressed by circumstances, to change
intentions quickly, or to give what we do a lot of forethought. Remember those cartoons where Donald Duck
faces a fiendish choice and realizes two little ducks are sitting on either
shoulder. The one with a halo says
“stop” while the other one, holding a pitchfork, whispers, “Oh go ahead.” The guardian angel is our rational mind, the
source of conscious willpower, and typically he wins when a single decision is
to be made. The devilish duck is our
nonconscious mentality, and if the pitchfork is applied repeatedly, he morphs
into a habit.
Most purposes can become
almost intuitive preferences when repeated often enough. Psychologist Wendy Wood, after decades
applying neuroscience to the issues, concludes that habits are almost like a
second self. Without realizing it, we reconcile
ourselves to choices we have already made, cave in to the repetitive settings
or context in which previous decisions were made, and perpetuate automatic
steps even after taking a break from the situation or getting only an
infrequent reward from doing so.
I have always praised those who exercise great
self-control or self-denial since they seem to accomplish great things by means
of grit. It turns out that most
self-controllers are just better at automating their patterns of behavior. They meet goals without serious struggles because
they have acquired the right habits. Beneficial
actions become their default choices. Repetition
and efficiency reinforce those choices.
Environmental changes have a dominant effect on both good
and bad habits. The current COVID pandemic provides a case in
point. For all kinds of safety or
economic reasons, according to a new Pew Research Center survey, about one in
five adults say they either changed their residence because of the pandemic, or
they know someone who did. Like it or
not, such moves produce a change of scenery that can declutter your habitual
landscape and provide fertile ground for new and hopefully better habits. Meanwhile, when confined to our current home
environments, daily routines may be altered drastically. Everything from hygiene to technology, and
from home-school connections to organizing closets is changed. As a result, the virus may be moving us
toward new habits that no reforms could ever mandate.
Unfortunately, there is ample data to suggest that old
habits die hard. When change is forced
upon us, we may revert to thinking without thinking. Feelings of vulnerability, depression, and
poor assessments of risk begin to distort our perspective.
Habits can be curse or a benefit, but they are not a
fixed destiny. Simply put, they are
embedded in a loop that begins with a cue and ends with a reward. In between lie routines. The best route is to examine the routine,
develop a plan to shake it up with a new goal in mind, and you will start to
like your life a lot better. Soon you won’t even have to think about it.
