Habit Formation

Do you remember when you learned to brush your teeth? Probably not. Brushing your teeth is an example of a habit, which is any regularly repeated behavior that takes little thought to be performed. While this task may seem very simple now, it actually required a lot of mental effort when you were first learning it. You practiced the movements over and over again until brushing your teeth became an automatic behavior.

The action of brushing your teeth, like any habit, starts with something called a “habit loop”. This is a three-step psychological process that eventually results in habit formation. First, there is a cue, or trigger, that tells you to begin a certain behavior. In the case of teeth brushing, the cue may be time. Once you wake up in the morning, you know to head to the bathroom and get ready for the day. Similarly, the same thing happens before you go to bed at night. After the cue, you proceed to carry out the routine. This is the actual behavior that you perform. You put toothpaste on your toothbrush and move the toothbrush around in your mouth. Finally, there is a reward, which is what motivates you to remember the habit for the future. In this example, you are keeping your teeth healthy and clean. You enjoy this feeling, so you repeat this behavior every day.

So what makes habits easier to perform as you do them more and more? When you initially learn a behavior, a part of your brain known as the prefrontal cortex takes charge. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for decision making, which is why you may have noticed that newly learned behaviors require more thinking. Eventually, as you repeat a certain task many times, this brain region becomes less active, and you start to perform the behavior more mindlessly. This is all thanks to your basal ganglia, another part of your brain that helps you turn actions into a habitual routine.

Although habits are automatic, it is possible to change them. Some habits are more undesirable than others, and there should be an effort to break bad habits. However, we should not discredit the remarkable ability of our brains to transform new activities into easier processes. Next time you brush your teeth, make sure to keep in mind what it took to make this habit so simple!

Picture Source: thescienceofpsychotherapy.com