How Habits are Formed
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Developing new habits requires a lot of energy. And because energy is an exhaustible resource, the brain was designed to conserve it. Maintaining the old habit requires little energy because the brain uses well-worn neural pathways. Establishing a new habit is challenging because it requires new neural pathways. Trying and failing to develop new, healthier habits is stressful, but it doesn’t need to be. Here are four easy tips to keep you on track and stress-free.
1.) The brain likes consistency and is wired for efficiency (Dabir, 2024; van Kampen, 2019). You must do the new thing daily. Repeating the new behavior builds and strengthens the new neural pathways, which means it gets a little easier every time you do it.
2.) The brain does not care about intensity. An all-or-nothing approach is defeating. Begin with a mini habit. Can you commit to doing the new thing every day for one to five minutes? For example, if you want to exercise daily, commit to one to five minutes of sit-ups, squats, or jump rope. If you do one new thing for one to five minutes, you will see some results within a very short time. Results are the reward. Celebrate every time you meet your commitment and visually track it on a calendar or a habit-tracking app. When it comes to habitual behavior, the brain likes reward (Camerer & Li, 2021). If you focus on consistency, you will find yourself craving more.
3.) The brain is wired for efficiency. One to five minutes daily does not use up your brain’s precious energy resources. Higher cognitive loads require more energy than lower cognitive loads. Consistency promotes a lower cognitive load, enabling the brain to use less energy improving efficiency (Dabir, 2024). Over time, you can build up intensity, going from five minutes to 25 minutes or more without burning out.
4.) On average, establishing a new habit takes a little over two months. The notion that it takes 21 days to establish a new habit comes from a plastic surgeon observing the length of time it took patients to get used to a surgically modified face (Maltz, 2015). It was originally published in a self-help book from the 1960s, but the research does not support the claim. Instead, the research shows variation from 18 to 254 days, with an average of 66 days to establish a new habit (Solis-Mereira, 2024). The smaller the goal, the less time it takes. So start with a foundational mini habit and build on it.
Training the brain into a new habit requires developing new neural pathways. You must do the new thing every day for 1-5 minutes. If you do it every day, the neural pathways will be established in about two months or less. You can do this!
References
Camerer, C. F., & Li, X. (2021). Neural autopilot and context-sensitivity of habits. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 41, 185–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.07.002
Dabir, S. (2024). The science behind habits: How the brain forms and breaks them. Thrive Online. https://uwo.ca/se/thrive/blog/2024/the-science-behind-habits-how-the-brain-forms-and-breaks-them.html#:~:text=Habits%20are%20the%20brain's%20way,part%20of%20our%20daily%20routines.
Maltz, M. (2015). Psycho-cybernetics: Updated and expanded. Tarcher Perigree.
Solis-Mereira, J. (2024). How long does it really take to form a habit?. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-does-it-really-take-to-form-a-habit/
van Kampen, H. S. (2019). The principle of consistency and the cause and function of behaviour. Behavioural Processes, 159, 42–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2018.12.013
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