Breaking the Habit
It is estimated that habits form 45% of our daily behaviours. Information comes in from the outside world and we respond based on pattern recognition. Familiar patterns or habits are efficient for the brain and conserve cognitive energy. This process becomes more ingrained as we become stuck in our ways.
One of the habits I have created for myself is to stay up until midnight and beyond. I might be tidying away toys, sorting paperwork, folding laundry or working at my computer. Whilst all of this 'stuff' needs doing, at this point in the day, my time would be much better spent getting some sleep.
I am endeavouring to break this habit this week by making sure I am in bed by 11:30pm. This is still too late, but it's a good start. Next week it will be 11pm and so on until I am getting my full quota of 8 hours of sleep every night. As a treat, I may even go to bed at the same time as the children! I did this the other night and it was so beneficial in many ways. Why don't you try it? Early book and bed for all the family. What’s not to love about that!?
Is it all about Willpower?
Willpower is “control of one’s impulses and actions; self-control”. It is the ability to resist short term gratification in pursuit of long-term goals.
Willpower alone is in most cases, not enough to change engrained habits. When it fails, exposure to an emotional stimulus overrides the rational, cognitive part of our brain, leading to impulsive actions. This can lead to a downward spiral and the return of an unwanted habit.
Motivation is a key factor in harnessing our willpower. Motivation is governed primarily by dopamine which is also responsible for reward-driven learning. Motivation is an adaptive neural mechanism that enables us to associate feelings of pleasure with external stimuli to develop appropriate behaviour. If we eat something highly palatable that stimulates our taste buds, we feel rewarded and want more. Unfortunately, this often applies to highly processed foods which contain high levels of synthetic flavourings. What if we change our motivation so that the food we get the most pleasure from is healthy food? Could eating broccoli actually feel rewarding? We have the power to change the way we think about food.
Our perception of food has a huge impact on the physiology in our brains which, in turn, impacts the decisions we make about what we consume. In other words, our reality is defined more from inside out than outside in.
