Unraveling the mysteries of habit formation

Posted by hhs 1 day ago

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Comment by getstowly 1 day ago

I was watching a Charlie Rocket interview today and I got a lot of inspiration from him. He made it a habit of staying positive, turning a loss into a win and always finding the upside. Instead of getting sucked into the despair, he takes a loss as a learning lesson. Good habits can be hard to find but once you get into the habit of something, it becomes super easy. Everything is hard to do -- if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Once you learn to do something, and keep doing it, you understand it better and it can make your life so much easier, or happier, or better, in so many ways. There are also bad habits but those are just as easy to break as good ones.

Comment by thephyber 1 day ago

There's a fine line between what you described and toxic positivity.

It's important not to ruminate on bad thoughts (when your proposal is a good replacement behavior), but it's also important not to bottle up natural human emotions as if they are unjustified or unreal.

A thought exercise: if it wasn't your behavior that caused your own despair, but your spouse's behaviors that caused you irritation / grief. Do you think it's better to paint a smile on yourself and ignore the underlying problem, or spend a few minutes feeling your emotions, describe the cause to your partner, then politely suggest a substitute behavior? The former builds resentment and bottles up strong emotions for an inevitable outburst down the road. The other diffuses the emotion, potentially alleviates the offending behavior, and doesn't betray what you authentically emote.

Comment by xyzelement 1 day ago

In your comment and the ones responding to you there's an assumption that your partner's behavior is the bigger problem compared to your reaction to it.

In my experience I've generally fucked things up precisely because my reaction was worse and inappropriate compared to what the partner did.

I think I am "lucky" in that my wife is amazing and I don't have to be on-guard again truly malicious and inappropriate behavior from her, so I have the "luxury" of focusing on controlling my own emotions and responses.

But then - WTF! How are people in relationships with people that you have to be so on-guard against?

Comment by caminante 21 hours ago

That's the point.

The grandparent said Rocket doesn't slip into despair, not tries not to slip.

That's unrealistic and tracks with toxic positivity. If everyone had the muscle to process their initial and secondary emotions in a calm manner, then airport bookshelves would be empty.

You even ask how people can get swept in such situations when the pathologies for trauma bonds and "s/he beats me because they love me" are pretty clear.

Comment by xyzelement 20 hours ago

I agree with you on everything except I don't understand why you are labeling the healthy alternative "toxic".

Comment by caminante 20 hours ago

I don't think I am.

I made a distinction between people who have the self-esteem muscle (healthy) and those who subscribe to unsustainable, toxic positivity (unhealthy).

Comment by amanaplanacanal 1 day ago

Because they formed partnerships when they were young and didn't know any better. And then once things get going, it seems better to "go along to get along" than face the difficulty of change.

In the US, we also have ideologies that say that one partner is supposed to be subservient to the other based on gender roles, and that makes things even more insane.

Comment by galaxyLogic 1 day ago

It is a trade-off. The benefits seems to outweigh the downsides, but it can still be painful. But we can try to alleviate the problems by using our rational mind.

Comment by xyzelement 1 day ago

I am not sure about either of these things. The typical HN person doesn't seem to be someone who partnered young or was raised in anything like a "traditional US ideology"...

It mainly seems like their parents failed to pass on any cultural wisdom. Go along to get along is fine, very different than your "partner" severely transgressing upon you.

Comment by sublinear 1 day ago

I think you're only only disagreeing in the premise of your reply, and not the substance of it.

The unnecessary emotion is the problem and that emotion is 100% caused by inexperience. The surest way to stay confused is to overindulge in the emotions blinding you. Worse would be wallowing in it with your partner.

Communicating the emotions first and then rambling your unfiltered thoughts will just cause more confusion. This is exactly how most couples fuck everything up. You should instead take the time to process the emotions on your own and then find the burning question underneath it all.

The more you do this, the less time you'll need to waste on the emotions and the more effective you'll be when you choose to speak or act.

Comment by dripdry45 1 day ago

Or the more confused everything becomes, and it just gets bottled up because there’s too much going on, and the partner gets away with their bad behavior and never has to take responsibility for their actions.

forming a habit involves taking an action and having a result. A consequence. Talking about it does not work for a lot of people. They need to be pavlov’d.

Once those difficult emotions are cool, everyone can explain what you did and why, yes. I just don’t think that always waiting for things to “cool off“ is actually helpful, it robs people of the consequences of their actions. People need immediate consequences to reinforce behaviors.

Comment by goobatrooba 1 day ago

Indeed, and time also gives plausible deniability.. reacting live means the behaviour is present, evident. Three hours later it is easy to deflect reality and claim it was a misperception.

Comment by literoldolphin 1 day ago

Don't date I think is the lesson here.

Comment by justonenote 1 day ago

Agree with most everything and will check our that interview, that attitude is how I try and live, but the last sentence is obviously not true. Taking heroin is a habit, going to a gym is a habit, and obviously one is much easier to stop whether either willfully or not.

I'd say the ease which you can pick up habits or drop them is extremely variable across the specific habit and person. (as a different example, someone with less social awareness will find it harder to pick up the habit of being a hospitable host than someone it comes naturally to, but once learned its probably fairly easy to maintain)

One of my favorite quotes is, "first the man makes the habit, then the habit makes the man" , and it works both ways, good and bad. I really think this is something that should be taught much more explicitly in school to everyone, rather than leaving it only in places like sports and the military.

Comment by shermantanktop 1 day ago

Taking heroin may be called “a habit” but it’s not a habit. It’s an addiction with physical and neurological elements.

Comment by justonenote 1 day ago

it absolutely is a habit, the fact that it affects you physiologically via pharma does not make it not a habit. a habit is something you do habitually, that is the exact definition of the word, and the reasons people do them vary wildly. I used heroin as an an extreme example.

Going for a 5k jog every morning is also a habit that affects your brain chemistry, through different mechanisms, and can also be addictive. It's obviously much healthier, but its still a habit, that is reinforced via brain chemistry rewards etc (addictive in some people). It's not as widely seen or known but there is a small cohort of people who exercise becomes a problematic habit and ends up being detrimental to their health.

I suggest you check the definition of the words. I specifically wasn't talking about addiction because that is just one axis of what can make up a habit. Drinking water is a habit that is not addictive but pretty hard to quit. If you take a wider view there are tons of habits that are either harmful or positive, but have no addictive component, and have no chemical component, and are either hard or easy to pickup / drop.

Comment by bryanrasmussen 1 day ago

Merriam-Webster does of course have addiction as a habit, but it singles it out as being different than other definitions https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/habit

perhaps this is one of those definitions that are in flux and we are moving from taking drugs as a habit, to first having a drug habit, and soon, no longer a habit but an addiction.

I would have to say that in light of the other definitions of habit it does seem reasonable to separate them.

Comment by justonenote 1 day ago

this is a willful misreading of the dictionary. you are pointing to habit being used colloquially as a short hand for addiction , which of course it is, as demonstrated through this thread, and is plainly obviously used that way to anyone who has lived in the last 50 years.

if you want to play pedant paddle, explain the relationship between the words habitual and habit, write an essay, and submit to webster, to oxford and any of your favorite dictionary and try and get them to change the the top definition of habit to be a synonym for addiction.

In the meantime I'll get on with my life because I know what I said was perfectly clear and accurate.

Comment by galaxyLogic 1 day ago

> a habit is something you do habitually

That soounds a tiny bit circular. Doesn't "habitually" mean to do something out of habit?

I'd suggest "habit" is something we often do, but don't really need to do, If it's something we have to do, like eating we don't call it a habit.

Comment by justonenote 1 day ago

It's not circular, its just basic grammar, smooth, smoothly, spice, spicy.

Comment by bulbar 1 day ago

> habit is something you do habitually, that is the exact definition of the word

That definition is too broad to be useful is absolutely not a definition used in the given context (psychology).

Same goes for the examples, you can generalize statements to to get common denominators (affects the brain), but it's not useful to do so, it's misleading.

Comment by justonenote 1 day ago

the examples I used were not generalized in any way at all. They were specifically picked examples that were at or approaching the limit of the definition, which is is a well known way of examining things in order to model them better.

if you want a more specific and narrow definition for certain classes of XYZ, you can do that, I wasn't trying to do that here.

Comment by teiferer 1 day ago

> it absolutely is a habit

You can follow the definition that you like, but the typical habit is something you just do without thinking. Taking drugs is mostly something you do to get the kick and in later stages because you don't want the withdrawal symptoms. Some addictions are quite habitual too (smoking is not just for the nicotin but also having the habit of taking a break for 10 minutes out on the balcony), but arguably there is more to an addiction than the habit component which is only a minor contributor if at all.

Comment by sokka_h2otribe 18 hours ago

Taking a drug is absolutely a habit, it's a habit of soothing an emotion or seeking an emotion. "My body feels this, therefore I will do that"

This is "bad, bored, tired" or anything else. "That" is the drug administration, experience, etc.

Much of addiction therapy is understanding that cycle and finding a different course of action between "my body feels this" and "doing other things instead of that drug"

Comment by tdrgabi 1 day ago

Could you share a link to the interview?

Comment by 1 day ago

Comment by epolanski 1 day ago

We are easily influenced by what we say.

Complaining is a reinforcing negative loop.

Saying to yourself that you can do it, even when you think the opposite very quickly shapes your mind.

Comment by cindyllm 1 day ago

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Comment by mellosouls 1 day ago

(in mice)

Needs to be as mandatory a suffix here as year, video, etc

Comment by teiferer 1 day ago

Should it be? "New black hole observed" needs a mandatory "(with a radiotelescope)"? "Agentic AI is great" needs a mandatory "(according to my opinion)"?

Lots of things we know about human physiology comes from animal studies.

Mice are not just some random animal species. They are a model organism for humans, meaning that they are sufficiently close in many ways such that insights are transferable.

Comment by mellosouls 1 day ago

1. Your examples are very different; we know in both cases the qualifier. I clicked on the link fully expecting to read an article about people.

2. Mice are obviously a useful first test subject or they wouldn't be used; they are also different enough from humans for studies to have no guarantee of results transitioning either smoothly or at all to us.

So yes, let's be more responsible with our link titles if the original articles "forget" to include the limitations.

Comment by teiferer 1 day ago

Your field of expertise is clearly not biomedical research. An article about results in mice is as close to article about humans as they get, except direct human studies. For ethical reasons lots of things can only directly be studied in model organisms.

Of course there is no guarantee. There never is in biology. Even if your study involves humans, there is bo guarantee that things apply to you or another cohort or are even reproducible. It's one data point and knowledge is built by gathering many of those which eventually paints a clearer picture.

Comment by winwang 1 day ago

... I don't think the original commenter said anything about mice being a non-model organism. But mice are far from humans, and I, at least, find the distinction rather important.

Comment by doginasuit 1 day ago

The determined mouse with the barbells and the headband is my new spirit animal.

Comment by shmoil 1 day ago

The same mouse later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K8lrVjT6fM

Comment by wwarner 1 day ago

warning: this shows a living mouse in a mouse trap.

Comment by shmoil 1 day ago

Did you even watch the whole thing?

Comment by getstowly 1 day ago

Same :D That mouse is determined. I love it.

Comment by davidmyr 1 day ago

What also still puzzles me about habits is the fact that once I have a routine (like going to the gym at 6am) it is super easy. But once I lost it I struggle a lot to get it back.

Comment by shermantanktop 1 day ago

When I start a habit it feels like a one-way trip to a new life. If I break it, even once, I realize it’s not, it’s just a thing that I can do or not do. Now starting that habit again feels much less consequential.

Comment by xyzelement 1 day ago

I really relate to this and see it as a problem because it feels this way but the feeling is misleading

I lately noticed that religion (at least, Judaism in my case) really embraces the opposite of what we just described. Daily action is really the thing. You don't pray once in your life, you pray every day. You follow the commandments every day. Back in the temple times, we gave sacrifices every day. Whether you take that literally or directionally - it's a powerful reminder against the thing we are struggling with that you described.

Comment by sandspar 11 hours ago

I find this as well, that breaking a habit kills some of its magic. However I sometimes prefer it this way. It might be good to hold habits with intellect rather than superstition. At least it's more honest.

Comment by dartharva 1 day ago

The paper might explain why it is so. Routine-setting in your brain runs separately than the execution of the activity itself, meaning you need to train the two separately, at least from what I understand.

Comment by sandspar 11 hours ago

The psychologist William James described habits as like winding a string of yarn into a ball. If you drop the ball then you have to spend time rewinding it. Also, a ball that has been being wound for a long time will be easier to rewind than a newer and smaller ball.

Comment by blooalien 1 day ago

I feel like it's much the same for bad habits broken, too. If you allow yourself to fall back into a bad habit (smoking, drinking, gambling, etc for example) it feels really challenging to break it yet again. Best excuse I suppose to keep those good habits and bad ones right where you wanna keep 'em.

Comment by card_zero 1 day ago

That is opposite, not the same.

Comment by davidmyr 1 day ago

This reminds me also of the Andrew Huberman <-> Jordan Peterson discussion where doing sth you do not like actually physically lets a specific region in your brain grow and if you do not do it, it shrinks (sorry for the simplification - not a neuro scientist haha)

Comment by Aurornis 1 day ago

Huberman grossly misrepresents the science on these issues. Not a good source. Yes I am aware of his credentials. He is notoriously bad at extrapolating from studies and confidently mapping it to life advice.

If believing it helps you establish better routines then there’s no harm in that. Just be careful about where you repeat this stuff because everyone who has studied even a little neuroscience groans when Huberman comes up.

Comment by abhaynayar 1 day ago

I haven't really listened to him much, didn't really like his style, just one or two of his sleep science episodes but I thought it was well-balanced and at each topic he added caveats etc. and always made sure to tell people to not just blindly trust the science but see what works for you. Can you point to any examples of him grossly misrepresenting the science on these issues. My personal hunch is most people don't watch the long-form stuff and only hear this second-hand in a short-form context where a lot of the details are stripped out.

Comment by Aurornis 1 day ago

He is the type of faux-balanced where he confidently says something and then tries to balance it with some caveats.

Almost everything he says about dopamine is flawed, as one example. It’s hard to explain how bad his statements about “dopamine detox” and low dopamine levels really are if you’ve only understood the concept of dopamine through his lens.

He’s a story teller with a lot of confidence and charisma. He will tell you any story that makes him sound smart and makes the listener feel impressed.

> My personal hunch is most people don't watch the long-form stuff and only hear this second-hand in a short-form context where a lot of the details are stripped out.

Nope! I tried to listen. It’s really bad. He uses the long form to ramble and project a sense that his knowledge is infinitely deep.

There are a lot of Huberman debunkings on the internet if you want to go look. You might also be interested to learn about his past lies to different researchers and his exaggerations about his lab affiliation (he doesn’t even live near the “Huberman lab”). He’s also not a great person by all accounts. He’s kind of the prototypical whole-package grifter podcaster.

Comment by davidmyr 1 day ago

Interesting did not know about this, just liked his videos :D Here is also an article that talks about him cherry-picking publications: https://neuroscienceandpsy.substack.com/p/breaking-up-with-b...

Comment by pizzao 1 day ago

As a beginner academic, is it fine to publish cute figures like this in academic journals (Im in computer science) ?

Comment by dryanau 1 day ago

It's fine, though it isn't the norm, presumably because authors fear their work might be taken less seriously; but if the content of the paper is good, it's fine to add a little character, or flourish. Some amusing titles fall into a similar category.

Comment by john_minsk 1 day ago

Interesting.

So one circuit essentially has 2 modes: 1 I do ActionA because I want to get GoalA 2 I do ActionA because it is my routine

What would be interesting to see is IF by activating this mechanism, mice start getting habits almost instantly for behaviors performed when this circuit was in the state#2. Correct me please.

Comment by rustfreeforme 1 day ago

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