Hey, Improvement Pill here I want to welcome you to the second lesson of the Healthy Mind - Think Big if you haven't reading lesson number one, I suggest that you stop this post right now and click on the link ( How To Quit ANY ADDICTION - The Strategy ) because if you want to get the most out of this course you're gonna have to read all of the posts in today's lesson we're gonna talk about how habits work or more specifically how they are structured because remember our strategy for the next couple of months is to focus all of our energy on creating good new habits and in order for us to do so we're gonna have to understand how they work.
Psychologists know that there's a certain structure that all habits follow there's dozens of models out there depicting this but for the purposes of this video to make things easier for all of us to understand I'm gonna use my favorite model the habit loop model which was introduced by Charles Duhigg in his book the power of habit the habit loop model contains three steps.
01. THE CUE : The Cue can come in many shapes and forms it can be something in your environment like an object a sound or a smell it could also be a certain time of day a location or even an emotion whatever it is the Cue serves one purpose it tells your brain that it should start the habit and that's where the next step of the habit loop comes in.
02. THE ROUTINE :
The habit loop is called the routine. The routine is the actual habit itself it's the behavior that you perform so if you have a bad habit of smoking cigarettes it's the act of taking out your pack lighting your cigarette and taking a poll this entire process is the routine.03. THE REWARD : The third and final step of the habit loop is the reward the reward can come in many shapes and forms and it varies from person to person it can even be a combination of different things for our example of smoking cigarettes it could be a quick spike in our dopamine levels which nicotine provides it could be a break from work or it could even be the good feeling that comes from socializing for people that like to smoke in groups the reason the habit loop is called a loop is because of the reward if there ward for the habit is satisfying enough your brain says okay if this cue appears and we do this routine then we get a good reward and it keeps this information tucked away for next time so the next time the cue appears your brain says oh look it's that cue again if we do the same routine as last time we'll get a good reward just like last time and each and every time you reach there reward this specific loop becomes stronger and stronger to the point where you no longer even have to think about the action you just do it.
when you reach this point where you no longer even have to think about doing the routine that's when a habit is officially formed and that's the habit loop now you're probably wondering well this is good information and all but how exactly can I use this to overcome my own addiction well this is important because it allows you to discover the cue routine reward of your current addiction it's important to find out the cues for your addiction because these are the cues that seem to appear in your life all of the time you can take these cues and attach them to more positive routines like exercise or meditation and if we can train our brain to associate these cues with those routines we will have successfully replaced a bad habit with a good one we'll dive deeper into this concept throughout the course.
Now it's important to become aware of what your rewards are because by doing so you'll discover the driving force behind your addiction let's say for example you realize that the reward for your pornography habit is that it helps you relieve stress maybe you have a tough day at work work maybe you had a bad interaction with a girl you like some of us turn to porn to relieve this sort of stress if that's the case then we need to address this problem you're not going to suddenly stop having stress in your life so we need to pick a habit that can relieve stress a good example of this is the habit of lifting heavy weights remember habits cannot truly be erased the cue and reward can't really be changed but we can alter the routine and that's the idea behind this entire course replace not a race.
So what I want you to do right now is to grab a pen and paper and start sketching out the habit loop for your own addiction the routine is pretty obvious it's the bad habit itself but the cue can be a little tricky most of the time there's more than one cue there's a variety of different situations that prompts us to indulge in our addiction so think of as many as possible and write them down for example here's a list of the cues that I wrote back in the day when I was in the process of overcoming my own pornography addiction if I was drunk if felt rejected if I had my phone or laptop on my bed before going to sleep now when it comes to identifying the rewards it can be a bit tricky as well for one every single bad habit that is addictive involves an increase in dopamine levels but we have to dig deeper than that and uncover the main rewards that we crave in the book the power of habit Charles Duhigg looked a this bad habit of eating cookies every single day at first glance you might think well the reward is probably the sugar rush or the satisfaction of hunger but Duhigg soon discovered that it was actually the reward of socializing because he would get up from his desk walk to the cafeteria buy the cookie and talk to his co-workers he discovered this by noticing that just eating the cookie wasn't enough to keep him satisfied he would always want more we need to think about our own addiction with this attention to detail a bad habit like pornography might provide you with a sense of validation because to your brain there's hundreds of girls that want to sleep with you another reward could be the fact that it helps you fall asleep it could also be something that relieves stress or maybe it could be something that makes you feel like you accomplished something there's many many possibilities and the only way to really determine what the rewards are is by analyzing your own life if you're someone who doesn't feel the urges to masturbate after spending the entire day having a great time with your friends then the reward for your addiction might be that it satisfies your social needs if you don't feel theurges to masturbate when you get a massage one day after feeling stressed at work your reward for your pornography addiction might be the fact that it relieves stress so it's really up to you to think about this part carefully and hypothesize what the rewards are for your addiction chances are you're not going to finish this diagram in one sitting you're probably going to think of some cues and come to the realization about the rewards throughout the next week or so so make sure you add those to your diagram because it's gonna play an extremely important role throughout this course in our next lesson we're gonna talk about how long it takes to form a habit there's a huge misconception going around about this some people say it takes 21 days some say it takes 90 for the most part they're all wrong. Take Care Guys!