Stephan Schmitz
By Teal Burrell
I’M STARING down at my fingers on the keyboard with some shame and disappointment. I expected them to look different by now. When I set out to write about habits, I vowed to break one of my own – biting my nails. The gnawed tips remind me what everyone knows: old habits die hard.
Just why habits are so hard to make and break is a long-standing mystery. Even so, the prospect of mastering our habits has such appeal that plenty of theories about them have evolved. Accepted wisdom suggests, for instance, that it takes 21 days to form a new habit or get rid of an old one.
Unfortunately, there’s little by way of evidence to back up such notions. But that is starting to change. With advances in neuroscience, it is now possible to peer inside the brain as it goes about its business, which means for the first time we are building an accurate picture of just what happens to brain circuitry when a new habit is formed. We’ve even figured out ways to switch habits on and off with the flick of a switch.
The first challenge in understanding habits is getting to grips with what one actually is. In the vernacular, we might refer to habits as anything from brushing our teeth to bad table manners or smoking.
Scientifically, habits are defined fairly broadly as actions performed routinely in certain contexts and situations, often unconsciously. Once a habit is formed, you might think of it like initiating a program that runs on autopilot, making our actions more streamlined.
“Forty per cent of our daily
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