On December 31, habitually many of us set New Year's resolutions. The idea is to get rid of our bad habits. Yet by the 15th of January, we have a relapse and most of us drop our new found activities and revert to our old ways.
We know there are good and bad habits. We tend to focus on the bad ones because those are usually the ones that are self destructing. Cursing, smoking, drinking, eating too much are the more popular ones. I went to a seminar once where the speaker said something I never heard before. Not doing something is also a habit. At that time, I wasn't exercising regularly. I had a bad habit of not exercising. And I thought I didn't have any bad habits...
NASA did a bunch of research on habits. They wanted to know how long it would take an astronaut to get used to weightlessness. In an experiment, astronauts put on inverted glasses so that they would see upside down and backwards. They wore them day and night. On the 30th day, the astronauts' brains reprogrammed their eyes so that eyesight and motor skills became normalized. They got used to their new glasses and could function normally just like you and I. Here's the amazing part, if an astronaut removed the glasses before the thirty days were complete, they had to start all over again and complete another 30 days before their brains would reprogram. After 30 days in this environment, their brains rewired. To get used to not wearing the glasses took another 30 days after the program ended.
You know what this means? Our brains are just complicated organic machines. To rewire it, requires 30 days of a changed way of thinking and doing. Any habit we want to break takes thirty consecutive days with no relapse. Any habit we want to create takes thirty consecutive days of activity. It won't be comfortable. The good news is that it's only thirty days. Now when we want to rid ourselves of a self destructing habit, we can count down the thirty days, knowing it gets much easier.
The video below goes into further detail about pavlovian thinking on habits that I thought was interesting enough to share. It explains the need for reward for a changing behaviour, which will change the way we look at a changed activity. Very interesting stuff...
Here are two observations to show simple habits that we don't even pay attention. Not self destructing, just plain ole habits in our daily lives.
1. Put your hands together like you're going to pray. Interlock your fingers. Recognize which thumb is on top. Most likely that is the same thumb that is always on top, when you put your hands together. Now, put the thumb that was on top and switch it with the other thumb. It doesn't feel right. Right? Habit
2. When you get out of the shower, notice how you dry yourself off with a towel. If you're like me, you always dry the exact same parts in a particular order. Never changes. And when you consciously change that order, it feels extremely weird. Again, another habit.
Everything we do is based on some particular habit. So when we talk about comfort and more importantly discomfort, the underlying problem we may be facing is that we've acquired a bad habit and we don't even know it.
Ta ta for now!
"Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time".
-Mark Twain
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