How do Habits Work? The Psychology behind Habits and Addictions. Part -1

Have you ever noticed yourself getting up at 7 without any alarms? or you know why you can't quit cigarettes or alcohol even after you tried your best? Well, I have your answers. Let's learn about how habits are formed and how the know-how of habits can be a life-altering thing for you.

First, let's learn about which part of our brain is responsible for our habit formations. There's a golf ball-sized lump of tissue in parts of our inner brain ( cerebrum to be clearer) known as Basal Ganglia. It is basically responsible for recalling the patterns and acting on them. This part helps in efficient brain working and saves us from thinking over basic behaviors like walking or choosing what to eat ( so that you can focus more on developing irrigation systems and airplanes :D ).

The Basal Ganglia has a clever system to form a habit and determine when the habits need to take over.

This process that occurs is a three-step loop;-

1. A cue- a trigger that tells your brain to go into the automatic mode and not think.

2. A routine- the normal completion of steps that can be physical, mental, or emotional.

3. A reward- this tells your brain that the loop is worth remembering for the future.

Looks simple right? Let's understand how this loop works and how it is responsible for our habits. There was an experiment that was conducted on rats by a scientist in the 1990s (Trust me, not all experiments are boring ).

Each rat was placed in a T-shaped maze. They were placed behind a partition which made a click sound every time it opened. At one of the ends, a bar of chocolate was kept. When the partition was removed, the rats moved around sniffling in search of chocolate. They would stop, move a little, sniffle, and move again (see the picture). But in the end, they found the way to the chocolate. This process was repeated hundreds of times.

A series of shifts slowly emerged. The rats now stopped sniffling around the corners and stopped making wrong turns. Rather, they started moving faster. And soon came a time when they moved directly to the chocolate without stopping. So the route became more automatic and each rat started thinking less and less.

Here, the cue was the click sound which alerted the rats' brains to move. The routine was the movement and sniffling of the rat and the reward was the chocolate. Over time the loop became more and more automatic and hence the rats knew where exactly they would find the chocolate and directly moved towards it.

This is exactly how our habits emerge. There is always a cue, a routine, and a reward and we unknowingly want that reward. Our habits are the root of how we behave. We might not remember the experiences that create our habits but once they are lodged within our brains, it influences how one reacts- often without realization.

Now you know why you planned on losing weight but always failed to do so and take a piece of chocolate every time you open the freezer ( I know I do it)

This is because our brain doesn't have a habit loop and an urge to lose weight and we end up eating junk.

Do one thing, next time you plan on getting up at 6 in the morning and go for a run, keep your clothes and shoes next to you. The alarm clock and clothes would act as a cue to the brain, the routine would be getting up and going for a run and the reward would be the freshness and a healthy body.

Every time you want any new habit to take over, you just need to find a cue and a reward then make a routine accordingly and wolllaaa! you have a new habit.

But what would keep you going? What doesn't let you back out?

Let's understand this with the example of a famous toothpaste brand named pepsodent. It has an amazing backstory and how all these companies' success is based on simple psychology amazes me.

We all have used pepsodent at least once in our life ( if not, then Colgate, closeup, they all taste the same).

This million-dollar company knew that they need to inculcate the habit of brushing in the people ( Americans had very dirty teeth) and hence worked on the habit loop. But the product didn't work out because of the other reasons they ignored.

Touch your teeth with your tongue. Do you feel a film on them? That's the tooth film that is harmful to the teeth and needs to be removed. Pepsodent used this amazing strategy to let people feel the film and telling them how it was harmful to their teeth (cue to brush). They advertised that the tooth film could be removed if they brushed their teeth regularly ( routine) and how people would get beautiful white teeth in the end. (reward).

No doubt they found a simple and obvious cue and they clearly defined the rewards.

Seems like a perfect habit loop right? And technically, it should have worked. But it didn't.

The human brain wants more than just the habit loop. It wants cravings. Do you crave brushing your teeth?

None of the advertisements "clean that dirty layer", "your white enamel is only hidden by a coating of the film" were enough for the pepsodent to create cravings amongst its customers.

Habits develop neurological cravings that are necessary to keep the habit loop spinning. They didn't have any cravings to keep the habit loop going and hence called quits on the toothpaste.

Pepsodent soon came up with the craving. Unlike other kinds of toothpaste of that period, it had citric acid and a dose of mint oil so that the toothpaste tasted fresh and create a cool, tingling sensation on the tongue and gums.

We often justify clean teeth through the taste of fresh mint, don't we? But you know what? That mint isn't a necessary ingredient in toothpaste. It has absolutely no role in the cleansing process of our teeth. It is there just so our tongue and gums crave the minty taste of the toothpaste and we get up to brush our teeth every morning.

We have been following this habit loop for over years now, and now you know why. We crave that slight irritation. If it isn't there, our mouth doesn't feel clean. This strategy helped pepsodent to have millions of sales over years.

The habit loop works only when the cravings for the reward are cultivated.

For example, take a smoker for instance. When a smoker sees a cue, say a pack of Marlboros, his brain starts anticipating a hit of nicotine. Just the sight of cigarettes is enough for the brain to crave the nicotine rush.

So the last question. Can we really change our habits provided it has been stored in our brains for years? I have the answer to this too. Now that you know how habits can be formed or can be changed, the brain can be reprogrammed. The concept can actually be inculcated in the real-life. You just need to be deliberate about it and then you can let nature do its magic.

In the next blog, I would go a little deep on how addictions work and go forward with the smoker's example I mentioned and how can the habits and addictions be changed. Till then keep reading !!