Habit Formation: How to Nourish New Neural Pathways and Burn Bad Habits

Identifying the stage where a behavior becomes a habit is difficult. I can remember how old I was, and where I was when I had my first cigarette but at what point did temptation begin to steer me towards having one to de-stress? I remember my favorite post-school treat of Hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles that are ubiquitous in Holland) on toast, and I remember that it always made me happy. But when did food, in general, become my go-to comfort to combat sadness (even when I’m not necessarily hungry)? Attempting to pin down when a series of moments created a compulsion feels like an impossible task because of how habits form in the brain.

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken”–Samuel Johnson

Marc Lewis is a former addict, neuroscientist, and author of the book “The Biology of Desire”. This book explores addictive tendencies as an unintended consequence of what the brain is supposed to do, seek pleasure and relief. While our brains are designed to restructure themselves with normal learning and development, this process is accelerated in addiction when highly attractive rewards are repeatedly pursued.

Lewis is a controversial figure with regards to his stance against classifying addictions as diseases, but his research on the plasticity of the human brain compliments studies as to how habits form. Fast Company featured a quick analysis on habit formation in “What it Takes to Change Your Brain’s Patterns After Age 25” by Vivian Giang. Here Giang relates the work of Deborah Ancona, a professor of management and organization studies at MIT, and Tara Swart, a Senior lecturer at MIT and author of the book Neuroscience for Leadership, to explain the formation of habits.

As we age we develop neural pathways which become deeply embedded. The brain will always choose, “the most energy-efficient path”, this is how habits form. While you’ll never learn and change as quickly and easily as you once could (when your neural pathways were developing) Ancona and Swart offer a few ways to create new connections between neurons (and keep your brain agile).

Habit formation-Step by step:

Focused attention is how one should start. This means honing in on parts of the brain that are used less frequently. It should involve a task that leaves you feeling mentally and physically tired after practicing it. You need to force your brain to work in ways it’s unaccustomed to. This is how to grow new neurons strong enough to connect with existing ones and form new pathways. Learning a language or musical instrument are given as examples.

Deliberate repetition and practice is the next step. New pathways are fragile, and practice is essential. Swart writes in Neuroscience, “Depending on the complexity of the activity, [experiments have required] four and a half months, 144 days or even three months for a new brain map, equal in complexity to an old one, to be created in the motor cortex.”

Lastly, you will need the right environment. Without this, your brain won’t be able to focus and create new neurons. It will be in survival mode and will always choose to travel the pathways it’s already familiar with to mitigate risk. To keep your brain flexible and “plastic” physical health is important, especially as “your brain sucks up a massive amount of your body’s nutrients”.

Giang’s piece offers useful advice for building positive habits. Such advice is essential in the breaking of bad ones, as the brain wants a new habit to replace the old. I did wish though, to also offer some practical advice specific to the breaking of bad habits. The point regarding the importance of having the right environment leads into this nicely.

When we are not doing well in our lives physically or mentally, old habits we thought we had long since killed off tend to reappear. This makes sense, it is your brain running back to the old comfortable path it knows so well, attempting to conserve some energy during a difficult time.

Our habit-making behaviors have been traced to the part of the brain called the basal ganglia, which plays a key role in the development of emotions, memories, and pattern recognition. Decisions are made in the prefrontal cortex, which decides it’s safe to chill out once a behavior becomes automatic.

Is there a best time to break a bad habit?

Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit, points out that the best time to break a habit is on vacation. You are out of the patterns your brain is used to and “all your old cues and rewards aren’t there anymore.” I love this advice but it’s not very cost-effective.

Peter Gollwitzer, a professor at New York University specializing in goals and behavior, provides a more economical solution in Fortune magazine. His solution re-engages the prefrontal cortex. It is called the “if-then” format.

In the “if” part of the plan you identify the critical situation that triggers the bad habit. In the “then” part you specify the action needed to avoid it. The example given is “drinking too much in the company of friends”. And so, assuming your trigger is a friend offering you a drink, your “if-then” format would be, “If on Friday evening my friend offers me a drink, then I will answer: I prefer to stick with water tonight”. This almost seems too simple, but a wealth of research supports it as an effective method for breaking bad habits.

Time spent building new habits requires dedication, patience, and a genuine desire to improve. Time spent breaking bad habits demands planning, a determination to change, and an honest understanding of the origin of the habit. Both the building and the breaking are essential to personal growth, which is well worth pursuing regardless of age. Besides keeping your world open, challenging, and interesting it may provide other career and life opportunities you would not have considered had you not been willing to invest in change.

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Sources for further study

1. The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease, by Marc Lewis

2. Changing the brain’s patterns by Fast company

3. Habits- Selftrive?

4. Interview with Duhigg

5. Neuroscience for Leadership