Reprogramming Your Habits

The Healthy Programmer — by Joe Kutner (15 / 113)

👈 The Science Behind Habits | TOC | Change one habitRetrospective 👉

Creating new habits works much the same way for us as it did for the rats in the MIT experiment — we develop new cues, routines, and rewards. But changing existing habits is different. That’s important to understand because the challenge when it comes to staying healthy is often to overcome bad habits that have existed for years.

The key to changing habits is to keep the same cues and rewards while replacing the routine with something new. The best example of this is smoking cessation. Smoking is much more than a habit — it’s a chemical addiction. But the habits that surround cigarette smokers make overcoming the dependence on nicotine even harder. Routines like smoke breaks, lighting up, and even buying cigarettes all have to be changed for a smoker to quit.

The key to changing habits is to keep the same cues and rewards while replacing the routine with something new.

Despite how hard it is to quit, smoking rates have plummeted in the United States in the last decade.[10] One reason for the sharp decline is that we better understand how cues trigger smoking habits. That’s why the American Cancer Society recommends replacing smoking with tea, coffee, exercise, or something that gives you the same reward.[11]

For Chad, having the same reward is exactly the reason his new habits started to stick. He felt good after eating a healthy meal in the same way he used to feel good after eating an unhealthy meal. In fact, the unhealthy meals started to make Chad feel bad. “I do a cheat day or binge day every Saturday,” Chad says. “It makes me sick every time and I look forward to it less and less.”

The rewards of being healthy come in many different forms. You may get extra energy, be able to concentrate longer, reduce pain, or just do your job better. In this book, you’ll learn how to create a system of change that helps you realize these rewards. Then you’ll have the tools you need to achieve the goals defined throughout the book. Let’s get started. Your first goal is to change a small habit in your life.

👈 The Science Behind Habits | TOC | Change one habitRetrospective 👉

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