We are creatures of habit, both good and bad, and now cognitive neuroscientists in Trinity College Dublin have published new research on how to make “automatic behaviours” work for us.
The research was led by Dr Eike Buabang, a postdoctoral research fellow in the lab of Professor Claire Gillan in the School of Psychology, whose paper is published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
“Habits play a central role in our daily lives,” Dr Buabang said.
“Our research reveals why these automatic behaviours are so powerful – and how we can harness our brain’s mechanisms to change them.
“We bring together decades of research from laboratory studies as well as research from real-world settings to get a picture of how habits work in the human brain.”
The researchers point out that our habits are shaped by two brain systems – one that triggers automatic responses to familiar cues and another that enables goal-directed control.
So, scrolling through social media when you are bored is the result of an automatic response system, while putting your phone away to focus on work is enabled by the goal-directed control brain system.
It is precisely the imbalance between these two brain systems that is key.
The research found that such imbalance can lead to everyday action slips, such as inadvertently entering an old password instead of the current one.
It can contribute to compulsive behaviours seen in conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder, substance-use disorders and eating disorders.
Habits develop when automatic responses outweigh our ability to consciously control them.
The environment also plays a key role in habit change. Adjusting surroundings and removing cues can help.
Making desired behaviours easier to access also encourages good habits, while removing cues that trigger unwanted behaviour disrupts bad habits, the study said.
Knowing how to engage your own goal-directed system can help strengthen and weaken habits.
Disengaging from effortful control, such as listening to a podcast while exercising, accelerates habit formation.
However, stress, time pressure and fatigue can trigger a return to old patterns, so staying mindful is key when trying to break them.
