"Good Habits, Bad Habits?"

“Good Habits, Bad Habits”

            Have you ever developed a habit and wondered why you developed that habit in first place? Good or bad habits like going to the gym every morning or reaching for that cookie before bed are habits that we develop that begin in our brains. Since the habitual behaviors are so hard to break, scientists are now trying to figure out how to break the habit. If scientists can learn how we can break these habits then we can learn how to form new habits, to break off old ones without using self-medication, and instead behavioral therapy. Advances in mental health would treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, fear, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

            Habit has been defined as a repetitive behavior that could eventually become a routine. Habits are formed when we explore a behavior and enjoy it or get something positive out of it. Generally, these habits form a routine when we receive some type of benefit. The more a behavior becomes a routine the less and less we become aware of the habit. Sometimes this can interfere with our daily lives, for example, you sometimes may find yourself asking, and did I lock the front door? Did I turn off the stove? Other times it can work against us when we allow bad or addictive habits to control us, such as, grabbing a cookie before leaving the kitchen or reaching for a small glass of wine upon getting home from work. Eventually, habits can become an addiction rather than controlled by conscious thought and behavior.

             A test using lab rats was conducted in the 1980s by British psychologist, Anthony Dickinson and his colleagues, who taught lab rats to press a lever then received treats as a reward.  When the lab rats pressed another lever they were rewarded with something unpleasant. Now that these lab rats have explored these levers, the next step was to let them determine which behavior they wanted to purposefully choose. The lab rats choose the reward that was pleasant, this is a formed a habit. On the other hand, the unpleasant reward was not chosen because it is a behavior that would not be mindfully chosen thus, not habit forming. The exploration of habits is controlled and monitored by our prefrontal cortex and striatum, which helps us figure out what works and doesn’t work, just as they observed in the lab rats. This is the first step to forming a habit, now that we have explored a habit we can now form it into a routine.

            In the second process, neurons in our brains will chunk together to make up a cluster of actions and keep it stored in our brains circuits. In our brain, multiple circuits interconnect in regions called the sensorimotor cortex and striatum. These become strongly engaged when we perform the given habit. As we repeat the behavior, this system relies on dopamine, and is a positive feedback loop, which makes us want to do it again. This habit is stored in chunks of neuron activity and stored within the striatum so we remember what actions to take to do it again.  

            Scientists saw that after the lab rats had been trained for while, there was a difference in the infralimbic cortex, the part of the brain that imprints the habit, thus permitting the habit to continue before sending the message to the entire brain. They found that the infralimbic system was in charge of deciding whether or not to keep the habit or kick it. The reason is to make sure that we want to keep this habit going, otherwise, if we don’t want it, we still have a chance to get rid of it. This region of the brain is important for finalizing the semi-permanent behavior to the rest of the brain so that it becomes an unconscious repetitive habit.

            How do I kick my bad habits or turn bad ones into good ones? Scientist have used a technique called optogenetics that places a light-sensitive molecule in the infralibic cortex, where we finalize habits. By doing this they found that they were able to block the habit in the rats entirely. What about old habits? Scientists found that when they blocked a new habit, the old one reappeared in seconds. This is because our “unconscious” brain is up and working even though we may not be thinking about or paying attention. In other words, although habits or behaviors may seem automatic, a section in our neocortex is always actively monitoring our habits. We can combat the bad habits by visually or physically monitoring ourselves. For example, removing it entirely could interrupt the habit of reaching for the candy jar while watching television in the living room. Another example is if you want to condition yourself to exercise in the morning, try wearing your workout clothes or shoes to bed or lay them out so that you could go running in the morning. This way you are either avoiding the habit all together or consciously conditioning yourself to keep up a good one.

            By changing behavior and forcefully and consciously repeating them, you can find yourself weeding out the bad habits and forming new and healthy ones. Once we know how something in our body works we can learn how to manipulate it to our advantage. This article is a great example of how we can use science and information to better our lives. I would say that we are far from zapping a bad habit for good, but discoveries like this says a lot about how well we can adapt and improve our lives for the better. We are that much better to improving and advancing in the medical field, such as in mental health, to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette’s syndrome, fear, or post-traumatic stress disorder. If there is one thing that we know, it is a lot easier to understand how we come to form habits and what we can do kick the ones we don’t want.