Latest / Do You F*cking Mind? / The Neuroscience of Breaking a Habit and sticking to it

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The Neuroscience of Breaking a Habit and sticking to it · Do You F*cking Mind?

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello, my beautiful beings, and welcome to the podcast episode
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: of Today. So this is part two of the episode
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: that I released a couple of days ago or last
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  Speaker 1: week or whatever it was, which is the neuroscience of
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: making and Breaking a habit. So in part two, we're
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: going to be focusing heavily on the breaking a habit
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  Speaker 1: part of the neuroscience and what I'm talking about now
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  Speaker 1: I might be kind of weaving in and out and
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  Speaker 1: giving you maintaining facts about making habits as well, but
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  Speaker 1: this is heavily focused on breaking a habit. If you
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  Speaker 1: haven't listened to part one, I highly encourage you to
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  Speaker 1: listen to part one. As I've said before, your habits
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  Speaker 1: really determined the quality of your life, good ones and
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  Speaker 1: bad ones. They are going to determine how we experience
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  Speaker 1: our life. They're going to determine the use of our time.
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  Speaker 1: They are it's if you can really harness the neurochemicals
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  Speaker 1: and your brain and how to really learn how to
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  Speaker 1: put habits into place and how to break habits that
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  Speaker 1: aren't work looking for you, I really think that it
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  Speaker 1: is one of the key key key things to really
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  Speaker 1: change how you experience your time on this earth. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so let's get straight into it. I'm not going to
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  Speaker 1: fuck around with other things because it is a part
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  Speaker 1: two and I want to keep that momentum going. So
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  Speaker 1: breaking a habit, let's talk about it. The first thing,
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  Speaker 1: well not even the first thing. One thing I want
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  Speaker 1: to brush on very very quickly is what are examples
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  Speaker 1: of habits that we would want to break? Okay, now,
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  Speaker 1: I was looking up top habits. I was kind of
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  Speaker 1: looking at articles and googling and all kinds of things
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  Speaker 1: and the top habits that people want to break. Ah
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  Speaker 1: and this is not in order, mind you, so, but
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  Speaker 1: this is just like kind of a summation of all
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  Speaker 1: the top habits. Mindless scrollings. I think operative word being
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  Speaker 1: mindless because it's not saying I can't be on social media,
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  Speaker 1: but it's this kind of like doom scrolling, basically binge
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  Speaker 1: watching TV. Again, it's the excess. I think a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people really struggle with doing something to excess. It's
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  Speaker 1: not saying I need to eliminate, it's how do I
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  Speaker 1: learn to moderate. We're going to be talking about that
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  Speaker 1: screen time in bed, specific smoking, excessive drinking, poor eating
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  Speaker 1: habits such as too much sugar or snacks really late
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  Speaker 1: at night or snacks in the middle of the night,
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  Speaker 1: or too much fast food, et cetera, et cetera, I'm
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  Speaker 1: not drinking enough water, things like that. Sitting for too long,
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  Speaker 1: you find that hours and hours and hours I've gone by,
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  Speaker 1: and you can't snap out of this, you know, once
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  Speaker 1: I sit down and kind of hear hitting the snooze button,
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  Speaker 1: or going to bed too late, and just basically not
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  Speaker 1: getting enough sleep overall, being late, sitting in bed for
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  Speaker 1: too long, I'm guessing when you wake up in the
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  Speaker 1: morning is what they're referring to. And nail biting was
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  Speaker 1: another really big one. Okay, Now, one thing I have
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  Speaker 1: to cover before I talk about how you can eliminate
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  Speaker 1: all these bad habits is the difference between a bad
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  Speaker 1: habit and an addiction, because this episode is not about addiction. Now.
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  Speaker 1: I have done facts in the past about addictive behaviors
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  Speaker 1: and phone addictions and things like that. So if you
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  Speaker 1: just look up in the search bar, if you go
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: into my podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts, and
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  Speaker 1: enter in the search bar addiction, you might find things
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  Speaker 1: that are more real to specific addictions. But we are
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  Speaker 1: talking about habits and This is the difference. Now, even
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  Speaker 1: though breaking a habit is not easy, breaking an addiction
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  Speaker 1: is a lot harder than breaking a bad habit. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Bad habits are repetitive, normally unconscious behaviors like phone checking, now, biting,
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  Speaker 1: all of that. So it's controllable with willpower. That's the
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  Speaker 1: difference between a bad habit and an addiction. So it's
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  Speaker 1: where you say, okay, if I'm really aware of this,
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  Speaker 1: and I really say okay, no, I need to not
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  Speaker 1: do that thing, you are able to not do it.
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  Speaker 1: It's just a habit that you kind of fall into,
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  Speaker 1: but it's not like you have no control. You do
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  Speaker 1: have control. An addiction is a compulsive disorder, okay, where
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  Speaker 1: there are intense cravings. It feels like there's like a
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  Speaker 1: loss of control over yourself, and it's something that you
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  Speaker 1: keep doing despite it having a really negative side effect
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  Speaker 1: and negative consequences. Okay, some behaviors and addictions. It's a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a slippery slope because obviously all bad habits
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  Speaker 1: do have some sort of a negative consequence, but we're
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  Speaker 1: talking about negative consequences that are relatively immediate and obvious,
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  Speaker 1: and yet we still do that thing. So for example,
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  Speaker 1: with a bad habit nail binding, Okay, there might be
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  Speaker 1: a negative consequence, but it's not something that necessarily is
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  Speaker 1: immediately impacting your life for the worst. Whereas an addictive
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  Speaker 1: behavior where you're feeling like let's say it's alcohol, Like
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  Speaker 1: an alcohol or substance addiction, you literally your relationships might
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  Speaker 1: be falling apart, you are feeling like absolute shit the
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  Speaker 1: next day, and the only way to feel better is
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  Speaker 1: to get back onto that substance. You know, there's a
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  Speaker 1: big difference between something that long term is negatively going
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  Speaker 1: to impact my life because I'm actually wasting time I
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  Speaker 1: could be more productive all these things, versus really really
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  Speaker 1: having a negative impact on your life, where it's extremely
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  Speaker 1: detrimental to you, like your relationships and your health, and
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  Speaker 1: you can see it happening, but you still continue to
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  Speaker 1: engage in this addictive behavior. Okay, so you can't. It
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  Speaker 1: feels like you can't simply just withhold from that behavior
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  Speaker 1: if you focus on it, even when you're consciously aware
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  Speaker 1: of doing that thing. So if you're consciously aware that
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  Speaker 1: you're doing it, and with all the willpayer in the world,
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  Speaker 1: you can't withhold that behavior. That is an addiction Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so if you're right now thinking, well, I don't know
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  Speaker 1: the difference. I don't know where I sit. The willpower
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  Speaker 1: side of things is really going to give you an indicator.
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  Speaker 1: And obviously, chemical addictions are often a lot more intense
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  Speaker 1: in the brain than a behavioral addiction, and a lot
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  Speaker 1: of the time what we deem to call a behavioral
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  Speaker 1: addiction is just a bad habit that we can curb
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  Speaker 1: easier than an addiction would be curbable. Okay, so I
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  Speaker 1: think it was important to speak about this because I
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  Speaker 1: don't want it to look like I'm trying to give
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  Speaker 1: such a simplistic cure to an addiction. I'm not covering
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  Speaker 1: addictions here. It's very different. And the way to go about,
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  Speaker 1: you know, curbing an addiction again is a lot more
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  Speaker 1: intense and again different. Some things would overlap, but something different.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm not covering addictions here. So don't think that
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  Speaker 1: I'm saying, oh fucking if you're addicted to whatever, just
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  Speaker 1: do these simple steps and you're no longer an addict.
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  Speaker 1: That's not the case. We're talking about bad habits here. Now.
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  Speaker 1: Another thing I did want to say, smoking and drinking
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  Speaker 1: and things like that can fall into both categories depending
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  Speaker 1: on the whole willpower side of things, like I spoke
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  Speaker 1: about before, So for example, smoking for some is a
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  Speaker 1: bad habit and for others is an addiction. So a
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  Speaker 1: bad habit in the sense of like, oh, well, every
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  Speaker 1: time I go out, I end up just slipping into
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  Speaker 1: that habit of just having cigarettes while I've got alcohol
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  Speaker 1: and while I'm socializing. And for some people it's like,
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  Speaker 1: well it's so rare, I don't care, and I don't
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  Speaker 1: care to fix it because I really like that cigarette,
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  Speaker 1: in which case, don't fix it, like, don't change it
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  Speaker 1: if it doesn't bother you. But for some people it's
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  Speaker 1: like I just I hate it. I hate that I
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  Speaker 1: do it. I don't want to do it. It's just
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  Speaker 1: when I'm there, I fall into it. That would be
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  Speaker 1: a bad habit. I wouldn't consider that an addiction because
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  Speaker 1: it's not compulsive. It's more like the environment is creating
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  Speaker 1: like this perfect storm, and then you're like, ah, I
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  Speaker 1: just slip into my old behavior patterns. But if you don't,
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  Speaker 1: you know, if you're not in that environment and you're
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  Speaker 1: away from it and you're not paying attention to it,
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  Speaker 1: and someone's smoking a cigarette, the last thing you want
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  Speaker 1: to do is smoke a cigarette. You're like, oh, I
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  Speaker 1: like that. I don't crave that at all. It's only
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  Speaker 1: when I'm socializing with alcohol that's what I want. So
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  Speaker 1: that's more of like a bad habit. Or if you
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  Speaker 1: are someone that has one cigarette after dinner and you've
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  Speaker 1: gotten into that nice habit and you associate it with
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  Speaker 1: this nice wind down routine, and it's this association thing,
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  Speaker 1: but really it's not the cigarette itself that you're addicted to.
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  Speaker 1: That would also be a habit that you can break.
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  Speaker 1: Versus someone who cannot go two hours without having a
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  Speaker 1: cigarette because they're actually addicted to the nicotine from that cigarette. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: So just a little bit of an insight into that.
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  Speaker 1: Alcohol again, like I said, can be bad habit or
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  Speaker 1: it can actually be an addiction. And based on my example,
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  Speaker 1: I think you can kind of see for yourself which
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  Speaker 1: one you would fall into. Now, something I did want
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  Speaker 1: to go into is extinction. It's something that's used in
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  Speaker 1: psychology when we're talking about removing a behavior, and I
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  Speaker 1: did want to kind of cover it even though I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to give you other tools to break a bad habit,
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  Speaker 1: but I thought it'd be cool to kind of delve
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  Speaker 1: into this idea of extinction. So, in psychology, extinction, the
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  Speaker 1: word extinction is the process of eliminating or reducing a
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  Speaker 1: learned behavior. Now, this is something that you need to know.
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  Speaker 1: When we eliminate quote unquote eliminate a behavior, it doesn't
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  Speaker 1: mean that we have deleted this pathway in the brain
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  Speaker 1: for good. There's always going to be some residual pathway there.
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  Speaker 1: You could be decades where you don't do that thing,
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  Speaker 1: and you might not have an inkling to want to
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  Speaker 1: do it at all, but sometimes bring you back into
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  Speaker 1: the exact same environment, the exact same circumstances. You can
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  Speaker 1: see a person kind of slipping into their old patterns
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  Speaker 1: and into their old ways when everything kind of brings
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  Speaker 1: them back into that the old way. So for the
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  Speaker 1: most part, you are not fully completely eliminating that thing,
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  Speaker 1: but you are weakening it to the point where it
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  Speaker 1: no longer has power over you. And that is the aim. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: And if you're changing your behavior your environment, like I
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  Speaker 1: spoke about in the last episode, that's really also going
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  Speaker 1: to help massively for you to kind of have this
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  Speaker 1: extinction thing that we're going to do, reduce or eliminate
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  Speaker 1: this learnt behavior. And we're talking about a learned behavior here.
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  Speaker 1: So this is done by this extinction is done by
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  Speaker 1: withholding the thing that reinforces what maintains the habit. For example,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about classic classical extinction and classic conditioning. Now,
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  Speaker 1: if you're a psychologist student, or a neuroscience student, or
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  Speaker 1: anyone who even did psych one oh one, you very
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  Speaker 1: very likely would have heard about Pavlov's experiment with dogs.
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  Speaker 1: Pavlovs dog, that whole thing, okay, the bell and the dog,
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  Speaker 1: And this is classical conditioning. And I'm going to give
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  Speaker 1: you a very very very quick overview because this is
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  Speaker 1: how habits are learnt and broken as well. So Pavlov,
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  Speaker 1: the psychologist or psychiatrist who ran this study, it was
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  Speaker 1: this sounding of a bell. What he would do is
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  Speaker 1: he would sound to bell and then feed a dog. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so the bell sound was the conditioned stimulus. It's what
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you were conditioned to learn. It was this learnt thing.
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  Speaker 1: It was a conditioned stimulus and they had associated it
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  Speaker 1: or paired it with food, and food was the unconditioned stimulus. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so food, they're always going to salivate when they have
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  Speaker 1: food because it's unconditioned. It's just this innate thing that
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  Speaker 1: they're going to do. And then they started introducing the
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  Speaker 1: bell pair it with food. And then the aim was
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  Speaker 1: that eventually, when you would hear the bell, even without
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  Speaker 1: the food, the dogs would start salivating even if the
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  Speaker 1: food wasn't present, because they had this condition. They'd conditioned
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  Speaker 1: themselves to learn that that stimulus equaled food or salivating
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  Speaker 1: because they thought food was going to come. Okay, however
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  Speaker 1: when it came to so that was a conditioned response.
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  Speaker 1: The salivating to the bell was the conditioned response. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: But if you kept ringing the bell enough times and
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  Speaker 1: you didn't pair the bell with food, eventually the salivating
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  Speaker 1: would stop the bell. Okay. So this is called classical extinction,
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  Speaker 1: where you stop pairing the conditioned stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Now I'm going to give you a bit more of
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  Speaker 1: an explanation of that. So it makes a little bit
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  Speaker 1: more sense if you have like a fear based behavior,
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  Speaker 1: such as a fear of dogs. Okay, so the conditioned
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  Speaker 1: response is fear the dogs is the stimulus the unconditioned stimulus. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so you've got you see a dog, right, you once
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  Speaker 1: maybe had a dog attack or a close call with
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  Speaker 1: a dog. So now every time you see your dog
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  Speaker 1: from a distance, or you hear a dog buck, you
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  Speaker 1: get a fear response. Okay, that's a learnt response. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: Now the way that you would do extinction is that
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  Speaker 1: you would do kind of like an exposure therapy with
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  Speaker 1: friendly dogs. Okay, And so then you start, I see
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  Speaker 1: a dog, it's friendly. I don't see it attack, I
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  Speaker 1: don't see it grow My fear goes down. Next time
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  Speaker 1: I see a friendly dog, I don't see a growl,
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  Speaker 1: I don't see a buck. My fear goes down. My
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: fear goes down, My fear goes down, and then you
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  Speaker 1: start disassociating dog with fear. Eventually you are able to
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  Speaker 1: remove the fear from the dog, and then you're only
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  Speaker 1: going to be fearful when you actually see an aggressive dog,
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  Speaker 1: not all dogs. Okay. So that's they do this a
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  Speaker 1: lot with people who have PTSD, you know, maybe who
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  Speaker 1: have gone to war, and any kind of loud bang
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  Speaker 1: or a car backfire and will kind of bring on
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  Speaker 1: these really traumatic memories and really traumatic response. So in
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  Speaker 1: a very controlled, safe environment, you are doing this exposure
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  Speaker 1: therapy where you're getting them to hear sounds, but it's
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  Speaker 1: in a safe environment, so they stop associating these sounds
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  Speaker 1: with this really intense response, so they can kind of
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  Speaker 1: function a lot better day to day. So this is
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: kind of what we're talking about. When we do extinction,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: then we have something called operant extinction, and this is
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: kind of what we're talking about a little bit more here.
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  Speaker 1: So it's where you're getting rid of a reinforced behavior
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  Speaker 1: that you have built up, and you can eradicate it
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  Speaker 1: when the reinforcing consequence is no longer there. Okay. An
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  Speaker 1: example of this is, let's say you're a parent with
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  Speaker 1: a child, and the child you always give a child
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  Speaker 1: a gift. Every time you leave the house, you go
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  Speaker 1: to the store, and you always buy the child a gift.
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  Speaker 1: And then one time the child doesn't get the gift
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  Speaker 1: and the child has an absolute tantrum. So then you think, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I'll just buy the gift because it had a tantrum.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: And so now the child has a tantrum, you buy
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the gift. You've paid it perfectly. Okay, there's this thing,
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  Speaker 1: and then your consequence and then the child gets what
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  Speaker 1: it wants bank tantrum gift shut the child up. But
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: then you think, wait a minute, I don't want to
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  Speaker 1: be caving into this child's tantrums. What am I going
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  Speaker 1: to do? So this is a very simplified version of
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: dealing with the tantrum, by the way, but it's just
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  Speaker 1: an example. So then you think, I now have to
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  Speaker 1: do this extinction. I have to stop giving that thing
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  Speaker 1: that reinforces the behavior. If a child has a tantrum
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  Speaker 1: and I shut it up by giving him or her
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  Speaker 1: the present, then I'm encouraging this behavior. So I have
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  Speaker 1: to do this kind of extinction where it's going to
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  Speaker 1: be really fucking difficult for me to do because there's
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: going to be a lot of backlash and it's going
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: to be really hard before it gets good. But I'm
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: going to withhold that thing from the child. And then
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: of course the child's tantrum gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
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  Speaker 1: At escalats, you might have to leave whatever you do
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  Speaker 1: that a couple of times, and eventually the child's going
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  Speaker 1: to rea lies. This tantrum no longer gets me what
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  Speaker 1: I want. The tantrum gets me into like a quiet corner,
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  Speaker 1: or it gets me taken home, or it gets me
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  Speaker 1: something that it's a consequence that I don't want, it's
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: not something pleasant. So then the child realizes they put
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  Speaker 1: two and two together. This tantrum is no longer a
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  Speaker 1: means to get what I want. I need to find
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  Speaker 1: another way. Maybe I learn to behave differently or ask
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: for something or whatever, or maybe I just learned that
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  Speaker 1: I don't always get what I want, and then I
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: move on. And that's how humans fucking evolve and grow up.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: So this is an example of that. So the mechanisms
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of breaking a habit or breaking a behavior is you
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: have to weaken this stimulus response link. Okay, you have
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: to expose yourself with cues to the cues without acting.
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  Speaker 1: So say it's a cigarette after dinner, you think dinner,
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  Speaker 1: Then my whatever you drink after dinner could be a tea, whatever,
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  Speaker 1: and I always have a cigarette. So then you have
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  Speaker 1: to do this exposure without dinner plus tea, no cigarette, okay,
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  Speaker 1: And so the first few times is going to be
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  Speaker 1: really awful. It's going to feel like I just really
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  Speaker 1: want that. That's that, but that habit, But you've got
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  Speaker 1: to pair it. You've got to have that event without
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the cigarette, because you then want to be able to
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  Speaker 1: have dinner and that thing without the cigarette, and that
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  Speaker 1: association starts to break, break, break, break, break, and then
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  Speaker 1: eventually you've completely broken the association and you can easily
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: have dinner and your tea or your whatever. You're drinking
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: coffee if you're one of those people that love coffee
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: before bed, which is crazy. That used to be me
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: but no longer. And then you're you're gonna be able
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to be perfectly fine. But it's a process of learning. Okay,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Now there is something called an extinction burst, and you
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: have to learn to get through this extinction burst if
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: you ever want to eliminate a bad habit. And this
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: extinction burst is that the behavior gets worse before it
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: gets better. It's stronger urges, stronger cravings. It's your brain
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: doing everything to recover this reward. So initially the urge
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: for a cigarette, if you know the cigarette is coming,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: is like, yes, it's there. I want a cigarette, but
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I and now I can have it, so it's fine.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not desperate for a cigarette. But when you take
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: that cigarette away, you become desperate in that like the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: next day. It's not necessarily a withdrawal like an addiction,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: but it's this thing of like really not having a
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: good time and not enjoying it. Maybe just one more time,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, Like you could withhold, but your
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: brain's giving you all the reasons in the world why
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: you should do it, why you could start tomorrow, Why this,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: why that? Why why that? So it's not even necessarily
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the nicotine that you need, but it's you're so embedded
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: in this behavior, in this kind of routine that you enjoyed,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: but you know it's not good for you. So this
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: extinction burst is going to it's your brain really kind
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of having that quote unquote tantrum that that toddler would
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: be having. Same as like with the tantrum, if you
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: don't give into the tantrum, the tantrum doesn't go away.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: It gets really bad initially. Okay, so you've got to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: ride the wave of the extinction burst if you are
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: really committed to breaking the habit that is the child
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: trying to recover the reward, that is you trying to
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: recover that cigarette just this one last time before tomorrow.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: It's that's you trying to be like, oh, I'll just
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: scroll and then Tomorrow I start fresh. I'll just scroll
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: a bit longer. And tomorrow, well tomorrow, I'll do this.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: This is why this whole idea of tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: it's our brain's going through this extinction burst every time
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: we try and break a bad habits. So if you
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: can identify that you're gonna have an extinction burst, and
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: that it is always going to be intense initially and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: then it fades out very quickly and quite dramatically. So
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: after that extinction burst, you will realize that it's no
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: way near as hard. But the burst makes you think
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: that it's always going to be this bad. That's why
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: we cave, because we think this is fucked. Like I'm
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a good person, I've worked hard, I deserve it. I
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: deserve it. I deserve it, I deserve it. And then
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you give yourself a life that you don't deserve because
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: you stack all these bad habits and then you're not
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: happy and it's all backfired. Okay, So ride the wave
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: of the extinction burst, is what I'm saying. Expect it,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: ride it, and then you come through the other end
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: in a very short amount of time, Like I'm talking
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: a very short amount of time. For sometimes it's only
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: three exposures. For some people it's ten exposures. That depends
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: on what it is that we're talking about, but it
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: will get better really really quickly. Now, another thing that
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about, and I'll go in depth
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit further, is strategies that we're going to do.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: And these are going to be replacing and not removing
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: a behavior altogether. Learning how we can replace things, because
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: sometimes just the blatant removal of something is harder than
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: if we swap it out. Substitution behaviors is one of
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: those things. And then we're going to identify triggers and
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: frictions and things like that. Now, let's talk about neuroplasticity
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: first before we talk about that and this weakening of
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: neural associations, like what's actually happening in the brain. So habits,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: like I spoke about last episode, they're stored in the
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: basal ganglia as these really strongly myelinated, really efficient neural
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: circuits with this habit loop, this Q routine reward qu
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: routine reward, which I spoke about. Now, breaking a habit
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: requires this neuroplastic change called long term depression, and this
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: is weakening the connection between the neurons that previously fired
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: together to wire together to execute a habit. Okay, so
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: while we have this long term ptiententiation which I said,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: like sleep is really important and it occurs during LTP
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: to really strengthen those neural circuits, we're also having this
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: thing where the less attention you give to this circuit,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: like by breaking it, the extinction burst all that kind
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: of stuff. Right in that way of not associating, like
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: removing associations and things like that, the weaker and weaker
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: and weaker that loop or that habit or that connection
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: in the brain is going to get and you get
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: this long term depression. So your brain starts to identify
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: what it uses a lot of what it doesn't, and
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: when it doesn't use something that much, that pathway gets weak.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Because it's the brain is efficient. It's not going to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: be putting so much blood flow, oxygen energy into maintaining
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: a pathway because a pathway in the brain, all pathways
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: require a lot of nutrients. Really strengthened pathways require a
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: lot of oxygen, nutrients, blood flow, all these other you know,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: like neurochemicals to keep it going. So it's not going
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: to keep a pathway going if it's not used enough,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: so the remnants will stay there. But for it to
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: be this thick, strong highway not worth it for the brain.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: It's not fucking worth it, which is great in our favor,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: but it's also not good for things that we want,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: like the whole idea of like you know, when you
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: learn a language as a second language, it's a whole.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: If you don't use it, you lose it thing. So
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: it's good, and it's also bad for the things that
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: we want to maintain. We have to be using it
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: all the time for it to stay nice and strong. Now,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: fun fact, well it's not a fun fact. It's actually
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: a very sad fact about mylin. I said, these strongly
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: mylinated efficient neural circuits. Mylin is kind of this fatty
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: sheath that wraps around the axons. Now we know that
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the axon or may we may or may not know,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: but the axon is the part of the cell, the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: neuron that sends information to the next neuron, the next cell.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Now that axon, you know, sometimes they really long, and
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: even when they're not long, they are mylinated. So it's
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: this kind of it's a cell called aligodendrocyte, and this
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: aligodendrocyte produces this fatty mylin and it wraps around in
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: kind of like sheaths, like broken up sheets along the axon,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and it kind of acts as a conductor, so it conducts.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: It's like electricity. It's like it speeds up the flow
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: of that signal. Without the milin, the signal either doesn't arrive,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: is really disjointed and broken, or it doesn't arrive properly,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: or it's really slow. Okay, so we need the myeline.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: It's really really important. And there are conditions where the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: myelin gets attacked, where the immune system attacks the milin,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and probably the most well known one is multiple sclerosis,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: where the immune system is attacking the oligodendrocytes and also
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: the myelin that is being produced. So that's why there's
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: you know, like a miscommunication between you know, for movement
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: and for things like that, and we don't exactly know why,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: but it will attack and then it'll stop. So that's
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: why you'll see people with multiple sclerosis be able to
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: have like better seasons where they can move better and
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: seasons where they can't move better. Depending where this mylin
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: is being attacked, and sometimes it's no longer being attacked,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: so it can produce more and then it goes back
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and forth, back and forth. Okay, So definitely not a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: fun fact. But it's act about myelin. Okay. So when
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: we're looking at long term depression, you're getting lesser for
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: milor the nation, you're getting less and that, like I said,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that requires a lot of energy. It requires a lot. Okay.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: So when we stop doing that thing, where we stop
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: reinforcing that thing, that thought, that behavior, that path where
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: you're getting weakening, weakening, weakening, weakening, weakening. Of course, it
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: requires effort, it requires kind of redirection, it requires resisting
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: certain things. But that is how the brain works, and
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it works like that every time. So if we know that,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: if we can really be aware of that, then we
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: can do something about it. Now, another thing that's really
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: important is that an ingrained habit like I spoke about
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: last episode, is managed by this the basal ganglia, that
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: central part of the brain, not the core text. It's
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: kind of more in the midbrain. And this reduces the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: need for conscious thought. Like I said, it's going to
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: give all these tasks that become you know, like where
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: you've wrote, learnt something, or where you're doing something in repetition.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: It gives the tusk to your subconscious mind, so your
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: conscious mind is free to focus on other things and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: to think about other things. Okay, So breaking a habit
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: also requires input from the prefrontal cortex, this executive control
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: center in the brain. So the same way that we
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: make a habit is going to be the same way
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: that we break a habit. We need to override the
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: automatic behavior by kind of bringing in conscious awareness and
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: putting a stop to it. So goal directed inhibition, so
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex has to actively inhibit these automatic signals
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: from the basal ganglia, which means that we need to
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: The number one most important thing when breaking about habit
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: is awareness. You know, there's people that like flick their
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: wrist when they do something or whatever it's because and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: it's brilliant as long as they're again aware that they're
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: doing it enough to like flick the rubber band on
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: their wrist, and or just counting. A really good way
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: to break a habit is just count how many times
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: you do that thing. So it's not saying you got
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: to stop this, you got to stop that, and then resist, no, no,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: just count and just by counting how many times you're
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: doing it. The act of counting is waking your conscious
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: mind up, being like I'm aware, I'm aware of it,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I'm doing it, and I'm going to note it down.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: I don't have to do anything else but become aware.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: And the reason that works for many people, again not everyone,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: we're talking about overall populations, is because you're bringing this
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: conscious awareness into it and you're able to again like
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: look at this goal directed inhibition. Then we've got mindfulness
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: or awareness. And again it's consciously identifying the queue that's
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: going to bring on that activity before that activity happens.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Like again with the smoking after dinner, you are now okay,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I'm having dinner. Now I'm aware that I'm about to
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: slip into this habit. Or I'm sitting down at my
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: desk about to start work. I'm aware that the first
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: thing I do before I start is to start scrolling
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: on my phone while I'm waiting for like, you know,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: to sign into my email and while I'm waiting for
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: whatever it is okay. So it's this compulsion that we do,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and it's this mindfulness awareness that it's really really important
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: now let's talk about environment again with breaking a habit,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: So environmental disruption is also really really helpful because again
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: we're getting less of these queues that we're familiar with
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: that are prepping us to fall into that same routine.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Habits are very highly context dependent. Like I spoke about,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: there are going to be some that are really strong
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: that you're going to do no matter what, normally the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: things that you like doing, but then there's going to
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: be ones that you do because it's kind of associated
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: with all these other things that you do when you
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: change the environment, depending on what the habit is that
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: we're talking about, but when you change the environment, it
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: often does break this association between queue and routine. So
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: for example, if we're doing this whole scrolling thing, you
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: could think, well, instead of checking my emails at home, whatever,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: maybe I'll go across the road to that cafe, order
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the coffee and do my emails there. And maybe maybe
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: just because you've changed the environment of where you let's
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: say you work from home, for example, of where you scroll,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you might maybe scroll less because you're in a different environment. Okay,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: of course, environment changes also do help with replacement of behaviors,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: So for example, if I have my dinner and then
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I make a tea and I sit outside on the balcony,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: that's when I light up a cigarette. You could do dinner,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: make yourself a tea and a takeaway cup, and just
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: go for a walk around the block instead, and you're
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: less likely to have that cigarette because the behavior is
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: completely changed. The environment has changed, everything's changed after the dinner. Okay,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Then we've got something called increasing friction. So this is
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: making the unhealthy habit harder to perform. So you're removing
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: a temptation. You're physically disrupting this automatic loop that normally
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: is like so easy. It makes it, like I said, automatic, Okay,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: so how are we doing this? Then we have increasing friction.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: So increasing friction, this is making the unhealthy habit harder
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: to perform. So basically you're doing things to remove temptation.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Let's take the cigarettes. For example, you're not saying I
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: have to quit overnight. You're putting the cigarettes in your car.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: Can you be fucked to go and get the cigarettes
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: from the car when you're already settled and comfortable and whatever.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Maybe you can, maybe you can't. Hopefully you can't. With
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the phone thing, if you're going to sit down to
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: do some work. You've got your computer in front of
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you. You can already be checking your emails in front of you.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: You put the phone on the other side of the
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: room because a lot of the time our checking off
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the phone and these habits is because it's so easy
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: and automatic. Just the simple act of realizing that the
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: phone is not within arm's reach. I can still see it,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: It's literally there, but the fact that I've got to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: get up to walk over grab it, whatever it is
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: going is enough for me to not do that thing.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: It's enough for me to wake up and realize, naw,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to do it. The same thing is
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: like snoozing the alarm. If I put my alarm further away,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: so like a buy an old school alarm clock, if
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: you're like a compulsive snooze on it, just never. And
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: then next to the alarm clock, you've got your watch
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: that you already put on when you start your days.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: One of the first things I do when I wake
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: up is I put my watch on. So if I'm
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: going to put my watch on, I've already broken the
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: association of ever returning back to bed. I'm not putting
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: my watch on if I'm going to go back to bed.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: So if I wake up maybe at like five thirty
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: because one of the babies work up and I give
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: them a feed at five point thirty am, I'm not
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: putting my watch on because I'm going to go back
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: to bed for half an hour if the baby's decide
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to sleep or not. However, if I'm getting even if
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: it's earlier than I want the moment my watch is on,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: that's it. So like if you can tag a few
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: behaviors on that break that circuit. So if I had
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: to get out of bed earlier than I wanted to,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: but then I put my watch on, there's that kind
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: of loop of like, well, you're up now, or if
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I brush my teeth in the morning, I'm fucking up now.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: There's no way I'm going back to sleep. If I've
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: like had this minty taste in my mouth and I'm
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: ready to go like splash water on my face. Whatever
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: that is. So if you can put your alarm clock
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: k me like in the bathroom, how fucking allowed would
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: that be? And then you like splash water on your face,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: That's a really good way of breaking that snoozing habit
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: so anything that makes the performance off that habit harder
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: more of a mission to do, you're going to do
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: that thing. Okay, nail biting people have like put stuff
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: that doesn't taste good on their nails, things like that.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: So anything you know that's a really like old school trick,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: but anything that's going to stand in the way of
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: you subconsciously performing that thing is what you're going to do.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: But then something that I think is really really good
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to try, and this is what the best ways to
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: break a bad habit is where you are following this
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: bad behavior with a good behavior immediately. Okay. One thing
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: that I don't recommend you do is that you fall
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: into a system of punishment when you do a bad habit.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I don't think it works well. It doesn't work. There's
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: a lot of data to show that you try to
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: punish yourself after a bad habit doesn't actually work for
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: many reasons, but mainly because you don't want to get
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: into a position where you've done the bad thing. Then
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: you've quote unquote like punished yourself, and then you feel
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: shitter about that, and then you feel like flat about yourself,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: and then you have all these other feelings and all
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: these thoughts and then you just start to problem and
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: then you go back into that bad habit because you
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: don't feel good or empowered at all about that thing.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: So I don't think that this, Oh I've got to
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: punish myself because I did that. We're not doing that anymore.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really work, which is great, and there's just
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: better tools that you can use. So instead of punishing yourself,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you are going to kind of it's like a substitution.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: But even if you can't substitute it, it is you're
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: doing it regardless. So let's say if you pick up
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: your phone to scroll, okay, and you did the scrolling
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: before this interception of oh shit, I actually scrolled, and
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: then I realized, Ah, that's a habit I'm trying to break.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: You have to then read one page of a book.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: That's not a punishment, that's a replacement with a positive behavior.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: You might be like, oh, but I don't really have
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: time whatever. It's like, no, I'm doing this for myself.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: A punishment would be withholding something from yourself or doing
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: something mean to yourself that has no added benefit at all.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: But for you saying, if I do this, then I
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: have to be doing this good behavior immediately after. That's
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: not a punishment. That's saying I'm teaching myself to break
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: out of this behavior while at the same time doing
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: something that actually is for my greater good anyway, So
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: reading that one page of the book is great. Another
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: thing would be if I scroll, I then have to
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: write three sentences down about my day about whatever things
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: that I'm great or things that I've learned today, doesn't matter.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: But it's just like a journaling practice or something. Okay,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: if I pick up my phone to scroll, I'm not
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: allowed to put it down unless I do one module
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: of this language that I'm doing. So I have to
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: make it educational while I'm already there. Things like that,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: And obviously you have to have follow through. You have
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: to be committed to wanting to do that. But again,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: this is the difference between the bad habit and this
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: addiction that we're talking about. It's you do have a
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: level of control over what you're doing, you just don't
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: want to, versus an addiction where it's this compulsion against
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: all odds. So if you are going to eat a
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: sugary thing before bed, you have to then follow it
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: by having a peppermint tea or your vitamins or whatever
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: it is. Okay, it's what is the behavior that is
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: positive for me that ideally I'd like to be the
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: replacement of. But even if I do do this behavior,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I have to pair it with something that is actually
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: good for me as well. So you remove the punishment
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: and you start pairing it with this good behavior. And
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: this is why it's it's good twofold number one, because
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: even if you do that bad habit that you want
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: to break, you still get something good out of it.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: You've read the book, you've done the journal, so it's
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: not all a waste. And then you don't feel like
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: you shit about yourself and you're not punishing yourself. It's
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: not this like negative cycle that's feeding itself. You actually
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: feel a bit happier, you feel more empowered. But then
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the other good thing is that the thing that was
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the association for the phone or whatever is going to
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: start to become an association for that positive habit. Okay,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: So before when you think alarm clock equals snooze equals
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: ten more minutes of broken shitty sleep, anyway, you're going
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: to think alarm clock equals creatine in the glass of water, right,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: So it's things like that. You know you're going to think,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: oh me, you know, if I get a notification on
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: my phone that's a text message, I'm going to straight
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: away go into like my Instagram or whatever. Instead you'd
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: be like, I get a text message and instead of
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: going to the Instagram, I'm already thinking, well, now I'm
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: going to read one paragraph of a book or now
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going whatever. It something that's easy to access. Because
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: if you're not someone that reads books on your kindle
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you might not have a book handy all
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the time. So it has to be accessible. It has
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: to be a behavior that A you want to do,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: b is good for you and good for you in
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: the long term, and see accessible in that moment that
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: you can carry out. So it's going to be context
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: and environment dependent as well. Now, like I said, we're
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: going to be increasing the barrier to entry. I've already
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: covered that. So that's where you're putting you know, the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: alarm clock here or where you you know, you know
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: how I'm saying lower the barrier to entry, you're raising
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the barrier to entry as well. Changing your environments is
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: really important. So the people that you hang around with
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: do I think that you need to eliminate people out
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: of your life just because of a bad habit. If
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: it's people that encourage addictions, especially chemical addictions, yes, yes,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you need to be kind of removing yourself from these people,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: at least for a period of time. However, if it's
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: kind of just a bad habit and whatever, I'm not
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: about cutting people out left, right and center just for
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: the for fucking shits and giggles. I don't like the
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: idea of that unless there's a really good reason to
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: cut someone out of your life, like if someone's actively
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: trying to make your life harder than what it is
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: consciously and on purpose. Like there's many people that write
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: in and talk about really really toxic dynamics with friendships
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: and families, and I do suggest that maybe you know
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: it's time. But this idea of like, oh, well, you know,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I just want to hang around driven people, and my
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: friend who's a fucking right or diet it just isn't
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: as driven as me, So I think I need to
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: cut them out. I think that's chaotic behavior, to be honest,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: And I think I'm actually doing an entire planning currently
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: planning an entire episode on how people are kind of
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: using and abusing therapy talk to, you know, and using
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: the word boundary as an excuse to just be an
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: absolute cunt, and the difference between real boundary setting and
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: acting like a selfish bitch. So I'm actually doing an
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: episode on that because there's so many people that become
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the toxic one by acting like, oh, I'm just protecting
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: my space. There's a massive difference between real, healthy boundary
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: setting and that. So when we talk about environment, relationships
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: and all of that, No, I don't think you need
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: to cut certain people that if they you know, oh
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: but all my friends always scroll and this, and that
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: all my friends aren't. Really you don't unless you actually
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: don't like these people and you don't want them in
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: your life, in which case by all means be my
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: fucking guest and cut them out. You don't need to
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: be cutting these people out. You have to have control
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: and responsibility over your own behaviors. However, if there's certain
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: things that you slip into when you're around these people,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: you can be doing certain things like speaking to your
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: friends being like, hey, every time I'm around you, guys,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I do this. Can you just snatch the cigarette out
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: of my hand when I'm around you, a good friend will,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: a bad friend will put a cigarette in your hand. Well,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying a bad friend, but a friend that
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: isn't really on board with it is going to put
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: a cigarette in your hand. You're just going to say, listen,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: love you guys so much. I'm really trying to do this.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I need you on my side. Can you help me
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: do this? You're not asking them to change, You're asking
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: for support to help you change. And that's where a
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: good friend will step in and do that for you. Okay,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: prep your space, prep, you know, prep things like I said,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you know the outfit, the clock, this that, What are
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: things that you can do? What are steps that you
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: can do so you're less likely to engage in that
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: negative behavior or that bad habit and more likely to
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: engage in a positive habit. You have to really think
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: about your future self. It's conscious, conscious, conscious, conscious, conscious, conscious,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: conscious until it becomes subconscious. It's not going to become
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: subconscious of a night. It is your responsibility to train
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: your brain to Then we're doing this long term potentiation.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: It's this neuroplasticity where we're building stronger networks and when
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: we're kind of weakening strong ingrained networks. So, like I said,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: both ways, to make a habit and to break a
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: habit requires conscious attention and conscious effort. You have to
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: be willing to do it because in the short run
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: it's hard, the extinction burst, the you know, the instilling
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: of a new behavior that requires effort. But in the
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: long run it will pay off like tenfold because you
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: don't have to think about doing it and you just
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: do it by default. I used to, Okay, I used
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: to vape more than I realized at the time. I'm like, oh,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: but I only vape socially and this and that and
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: this and that, and I realized that this is like
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one days, like early days of the podcast.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: And I realized that especially because I wasn't filming it. Lol.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Imagine me just puffing around a vape all day while
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: I'm filming something about like, hey, how to be helpful
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: for your brain? I'm inhaling fucking god knows what's in
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: a battery probably, and anyway, mind you, I'm not some
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: other traces. So if you've vape, like honestly, fucking no shade.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: But I'm just saying that personally. I noticed that I
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: started baping when I would record my podcast Association Association.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: So I started. And the reason when I realized it
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: was actually like a big problem is that one day
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: I went I sat down to record when it was
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: just audio recording, no video, and I was like, where's
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the vape that fucking black ice if anyone like fucking
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: if you know, you know that's ooh. Now I smell it,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: and I'm like anyway, So and I was looking looking
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: looking for it everywhere, and then I started realizing, I
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: don't know how long I've been looking for this fape,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: but it's more than a couple of minutes. And this
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: is ridiculous because that is a compulsion. Now I'm acting
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: like as if I can't record this fucking episode without
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: this vape, which is crazy. So I thought, I don't
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: want that. I don't want this addiction. I will never
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: again vape ever again on my own, okay, And I
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: think because I wanted it so badly and I really
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: didn't like that, it was a slippery slope. I never
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: did it again and never vaked alone again, but I
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: was vaping socially for a good year after that, and
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: this brilliant thing that happened that fully cut the vaping
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: thing for me. And it was like, sometimes you just
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: need one big thing to turn you off, and sometimes
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: it requires all this conscious So obviously this association thing
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: with not vaping alone ever again, that required a lot
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: of conscious effort. It wasn't an addiction, but it was
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: going to get there. So I was like, Okay, I'm
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: never gonna do that again. If I have the if
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I'm about to have the podcast, I'm going to make
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: myself a coffee and I'm gonna have the coffee there
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and that's going to be the thing that I'm like
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: kind of sipping on and whatever. Because when I used
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: to record my episodes, it wasn't in one long stretch.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: I'd record a bit, pause the ape, will have a
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: coffee whatever, record Paul. So it was a lot easier
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: to like eat, drink whatever when I wasn't filming it.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: The glory day is it podcasting where you didn't have
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: to have a video, and I, yeah, I really wanted
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: that change. So it required a lot of conscious effort.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Versus where I had this big kind of line in
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the sand moment. I was in balley once and my
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: brother in law, So my future brother in law, I
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: guess he went and like found these vapes from some
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: random vendor and they weren't in the normal boxes, they
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: weren't branded. And I tried it and it tasted like
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: an actual well I'd love to when I wouldn't even
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: love what am I talking about it? I'm saying it
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: tasted like an actual battery, and I don't know what
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: a battery taste like. And I was about to say
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: i'd love to know. I really would not love to
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: know what about it retaste like. But it tasted what
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: I would imagine a battery to taste like. Let's hope
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I never have to taste one. And it was the
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: most awful thing ever. And I remember thinking, oh my god,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: but we don't know what's in them with And then
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I had this other realization, being like, you delusional fuck
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: with just because there was a box and it didn't
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: come in packaging and it didn't taste good. That vape
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: that I had there is no worse than the shit
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: that I was having back in Australia. So I thought,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: I'm never fucking gonna vape again, ever again, ever again.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: And that was three years ago. Three and a half
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: years ago, maybe more four years ago, and I've never
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: touched a vape. Literally never people would vape around me.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't crave it. Have I had a cigarette? Yes,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: every once in a blue moon. If I'm having a
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: drink or whatever and I'm out and someone's having like
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a Vogue menthol, I really shouldn't be fucking encouraging you, guys,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: But I'm just gonna be honest with you. Love a
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Vogue menthol here and there, just a menthol where you
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: crack the bead. Anyway, it's not good for you. But
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying is that I said, if I want
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: a cigarette, or if I want the taste of a vape,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the only way I can do it is if I
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: have a cigarette. So that was a really breaking association.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I had had a replacement, And I don't like smoking
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: in general. It's just when the stars aligned that I
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: might have a cigarette. But this idea of like your
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: hands feeling like that, I just don't like it personally.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: So it's like I've really really like raised that barrier
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: to entry and I've bed it harder for myself. So
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: if I actually want that nicotine or whatever, there's a
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: lot of things that need to kind of align for
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: me to have that. So that's an example in my
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: world for how I dealt with breaking this thing. One
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: of them took a lot of effort and the other
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: one was a lot easier because it was so turned
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: off by something. So if you can ever do anything
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: that's going to turn you off, like another example, and
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: I don't I'm not recommending this, but my mum once
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: told me about when she was growing up. I think
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: it was her cousin his dad. Like, my mum will
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: clarify on who this person was, but it was someone
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: when she was growing up, and let's just say it
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: was her cousin. His dad found out that he was smoking,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: and he would have been like fifteen at the time
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: or young, and so he didn't get angry, but he
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: sat down and he's like, you're gonna smoke this whole
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: packet of cigarettes now, So obviously he doesn't make him
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: smoke the whole thing. But after a couple of cigarettes,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: he felt sick, vomiting, like six sixty six six sick,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: and then he never touched a cigarette ever again because
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: he was so turned off the smell of a cigarette
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: woh like made him vomit. It's kind of like when
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: we have like I once had a really bad nights.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: I was fifteen, and it was one of the first
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: times I ever got drunk, and it was with like
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: that white bacati and then I just could never touch
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: that white baccati ever again. It's like, if you can
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: do something thing ideally, not in a way like like
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: I'm suggesting, but what I'm saying is if you can
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: do something to really turn you off that thing, be
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: my guest, do that, and it's really going to help
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: you kind of break that circle really quickly. But for
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the most part, you're not going to get these once
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: in a blue moon, like really good circle breakers that
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: kill it and turn you off, give you the ick,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: and you go from date tonight being like I'm never
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: doing that think again. It obviously for the most part,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: does require a lot of conscious effort. So but there
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: are those are like kind of two ways that you
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: can really break about habit. Now. Another thing that's really
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: really helpful, and I speak about this as being helpful
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: for absolutely everything, and there's a reason why. Is anything
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: that's going to be helping you with emotional regulation. So
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: obviously meditation, if you know things like writing things down, journaling,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, mindfulness, things are going
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: for a walk with no no podcast, no music, nothing,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: just just becoming aware of yourself anything that's going to
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: calm you down. Yoga, of course, good sleep, and the
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: reason for that is because it helped you regulate your emotions.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: When you are stressed physically or emotionally, your ability to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: regulate is going to go down. Your ability to bring
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: your conscious awareness into something emotional and kind of even
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: out the playing field of me. Like, that's probably not
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: a good idea, same as emotional outbursts. Like it's if
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: you feel really regulated and calm, something would happen that
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: really pisces you off. But you can stay under control.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: You know, you don't lose your shit. But if you
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: are really worn thin and something happens to annoy you,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: you're going to fucking explode because you're at the end
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: of your tether. Okay, So with all things, whether it's focus, attention,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: trying to break a bad habit, trying to instill a
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: good habit, learning, memory, consolidation, everything, relationships, everything will always
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: be improved when you do practices that help regulate your emotions,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: and by regulate your emotions. It's when we speak about
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: emotional regulation, or at least when I speak about it,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: they're like, well, what do exactly mean by emotional regulation?
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: What I mean is your ability to have conscious interception
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: when you are having an emotional like or an unconscious
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: or a subconscious thing. So it's a subconscious like act
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: of doing the bad habit. Consciously, you're like, yep, I'm
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: able to regulate that. If you're about to blow up consciously,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: you're like, I can talk myself down and just breathe
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: into this and feel a little bit better. You're feeling really,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: really anxious, you can consciously step in being like, why
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: am I anxious? Let's take some deep breaths. Let's kind
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: of like and talk myself down off the ledge. That's
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: what I mean about regulation. It's where you have more
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: of an interaction between your prefrontal cortex and you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: your reasoning and your executive function and the more emotional
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: habitual centers in the brain that either are emotional like
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: fear based or anxiety based, or you know, impulsive, and
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: also with you know, slipping into old routines and patterns
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: because they're ingrained in you subconsciously. That is what I
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: talk about when we talk about emotional regulation, to be
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: specific from like a neuro like wiring point of view
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and also from a neurochemical point of view. Now again
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: with the breaking of the bad habits, you've also got
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: to understand that dopamine is going to be involved. So
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: if you can be like, when I engage in this
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: bad habit, I'm getting that spike of dopamine. And then
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: because I get that spike of dopamin, especially if I
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: haven't earned it, like you know, we're going the cigarette,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: We're going the fucking scrolling on the phone and all
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: these things, then I'm going to like get that dip
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: below the baseline. So again, engaging in things that are
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: going to help regulate, also help regulate these neurochemicals. You
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: get that nice you feel better, you feel more relaxed,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: and you feel like you've got nice levels of dopamine
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: throughout the day regardless. Okay, so you're less likely to
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: kind of be seeking seeking seeking these hits, hit hits hits.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: When we feel depleted, we'll look at anything that's going
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: to give me a quick fix to make us feel better. Okay.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: So if you can be filling up your cut from
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: the inside by you know, whether it be yoga, exercising, meditating,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: hanging out with socializing is a great one. That's a
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: really good one to help with emotional regulation. Hang out
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: with people that are good for your soul, that make
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: you laugh, that keep you in the moment where you
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: the last thing you're thinking about is checking your phone
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: because you're so present. Has those people more of that, more, more, more,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: more more. That's really good for emotional regulation. So it
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: doesn't all have to be soulo shit that you do
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: things like playing chess, whatever, It's a lot that you
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: can do that's going to calm you down. As long
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: as you're not crazy competitive where you like blow a
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: fucking fuse every time you lose, then that is good
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: for your emotional regulation. So yeah, that is today's episode. Now,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: one thing I do want to reinforces that a habit
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: can still be a habit even if you slip. Okay,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: it's still a habit. Don't look at oh I slip.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Now I have to start from zero again. No you don't, No,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: you don't. Consistency overall is better than intensity. It's what
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: I said last week, And I want you to remember
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: that unless you're doing like a challenge just for the
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: sake of the challenge, to see if you can challenge
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: yourself like seventy five hard where if you miss the day,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: you start from day one whatever. Like, if you want
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: that intensity just for vibes, go for it. But overall,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: when you're bringing in new habits and when you're breaking habits,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: if you have one bad day, that's just part of it.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: Just want to factor that in. That's why I like
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: doing things like no two days off in a row.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: As you know, for example, if I'm trying to start,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: let's say I want to start exercising, I can say,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: like from from nothing to something, I could say, I'm
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: just gonna have no two days off in a row.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: So as long as I'm doing a fifty percent hit rate,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I am going to say some change. And when you
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: do that enough and you start noticing the benefits, things
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: start feeling good, by default, you're going to do more
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: and more and more of that thing. Okay, same with
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: breaking a habit. Okay, today I scrolled mindlessly and I
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: didn't want to. So tomorrow I'm really going to be
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: switched on a not okay, and then you know, today
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I had a really good day of not scrolling. Let's
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: see how I go tomorrow. But if I fail tomorrow,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to do my best. But if I fail,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not punishing myself. We're doing We're trying again, trying again.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: So that's a really really good system because consistency is
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: not about perfection. It's about overall the hit rate. So
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: fifty percent or more, it's kind of what we're looking for.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Sixty percent hit rate awesome, seventy fucking killing. At eighty
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: you're a psychopath or anything above that you're just like
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: an absolute unicorn. Okay, you don't have to have one
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: hundred percent hit rate. There's going to be things that
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: you will eradicate altogether completely, like I did with the
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: vaping and things like that, because for many different factors
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: that come in and also lifestyle wise, there's going to
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: be things that will change and you're just going to
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: do less of just because you've evolved or the people
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: that you hang out with evolved and you're in a
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: different stage of your life. So there's going to be
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: things where you are evolving out of a habit just
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: by default, and there's going to be times that you
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: actually have to really really pay attention. But how can
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: my environment set me up to succeed. How can I
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: put like raise the barrier to entry. How can I
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: become really consciously aware of when I'm doing that thing,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: whether it's like just naming it, snapping that thing on
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: the wrist. What behavior can I add on when I
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: do do that bad habit that's actually good for me,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: But I have to follow through and do that thing.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: What is that behavior, whether it's the reading of the page,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: whether it's the drinking a glass of water, whether it's
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: whatever the fucking thing is. I have to name that behavior.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe I can have three options for that behavior, depending
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: if I'm at home versus out of the home or whatever.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: So you're really setting yourself up and want you to
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: write down your game plan now for how you're going
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: to break the bad habits that you want to break.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: And ideally I would start with one bad habit at
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: a time, because again, overwhelm. If we put too much
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: on our plate, we do nothing. If we do one
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: thing at a time, we're hungry and excited for the
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: next thing. That's what you want to be. You want
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: to get yourself hungry for change, and you want to
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: stay there, so you're always hungry for change because it
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: feels doable, it feels good. It's challenging, but not overwhelming
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: to the point where we're absolutely hating what we're going through. Anyway,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: I can hear one of my babies yelling out for me,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: so I must go. It's my cue to go. But
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: that is the end of the episode. Just remember you
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: are adjusting a really good system that already exists. You're
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: just doing some tweaks. You have everything in you right
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: now to be able to break a bad habit. Okay,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: different to an addiction, but you have it in you
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: to break a bad habit. And I you know, everyone
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: that's listening right now has the ability to increase their
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: attention span to stop this doom scrolling and make it
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: intentional in pockets at the day that they want to do,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to stop snoozing their alarm, to have a better morning
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: routine if that's what they want, to stop that cigarette
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: after dinner, if they want, like all these things, you
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: are all capable of doing it. It's about conscious awareness.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: It's about long term depression off those neural pathways, weakening
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: it and replacing it with something that's actually going to
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: be good for you. Okay, I'm excited. I'm excited for you.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: I literally nearly just threw my neck out saying I'm excited,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: so I need to calm the fuck down and have
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: a sauna. But anyway, I'm excited for you and for
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: me because I'm actually going to put this into practice
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: as well. And I'll let you know what I'm going
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: to be putting into practice after I've done it, because
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I don't want to be shouting my goals from the
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: rooftop until they're in place. But yeah, I've got already
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: a list in my head of things that I'm going
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: to be targeting in my everyday routine. And that is all. Guys,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Last episode,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: I did ask for you guys to give me some
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: ideas in the comment section if you do listen on Spotify,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: where you can add comments off which science things you
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: want me to cover, And there's some great suggestions in there,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: so thank you so much for writing those suggestions down,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: so keep them coming. If you want to add more suggestions,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: like please do the neuroscience off whatever, write it down.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: I've got really good feedback from you guys loving the
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: return to more heavy neuroscience. I'm fucking loving it. As
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: you can tell. I've got my big neuroscience textbook behind
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: my head right now if you're watching the video, and
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: that is my cue to stop rambling. Now, I'm gonna
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: have a coffee, Not a bape, but a coffee, That
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: is all. Anyway, Love you guys so much. As always, remember,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: be kind to yourself, be kind to your brain. Don't
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: take shit from anyone, and especially don't take shit from yourself.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: Don't hurt