Change Your Mind, Change Your Life
continued from page 1
Rewire Your Brain
Our brains have evolved to avoid big changes, says Mark Stibich, PhD, a Houston-based wellness coach and behavior specialist.
Survival for our earliest ancestors depended upon doing what worked, and any change –trying a new way of hunting, for example – posed life-threatening consequences if it didn’t work, Stibich says. On average, people who repeated successful patterns survived.
Today, that same survival-based system drives our desire and rewards. When we find something that feels good (sex) or tastes good (chocolate), our brain floods the nervous system with dopamine – a chemical that drives the desire, decision-making and motivation centers of the brain and causes cravings.
We keep doing what feels good, enjoying the way it stimulates the pleasure centers of our brain. We essentially get hooked on doing what we know we shouldn’t do.
“Habits – both positive and negative – are reinforced day after day after day,” Marlatt says. “They feel good because they often reduce some negative aspect of ourselves. We go on automatic pilot, where our habits end up controlling us.”
What feels good isn’t always good for us. Alcohol can ease stress and anxiety or numb us against psychological pain. Food may fill an emotional void caused by loneliness or frustration. But the reality is, unhealthy habits, such as smoking, or eating or drinking to excess, may make us feel better in the moment but worse over time. When a bad habit takes hold, we often feel guilty and out of control, but we still feel and react, crave and indulge.
| Read about others making changes on Arthritis Today's Achieving Change blog |
Many of us go into denial. We fool ourselves into believing that our bad habits aren’t that bad, rationalizing, “One more piece of pizza won’t kill me,” or “It’s no big deal if I skip my workout again today.”
We pledge to make big changes and promise to start exercising tomorrow. Or we take on what Stibich calls a “status-quo bias”and continue with our bad habits, believing that “What didn’t kill me yesterday won’t kill me today.”
The thing is, it just might.
More than 60 percent of us die from illnesses caused or exacerbated by overeating, lack of exercise or smoking, such as heart disease and diabetes, according to Marlatt. And we tend to feel bad when we indulge in habits that harm our body. That adds emotional stress, says Stibich. And stress, according to countless studies, is a contributing factor to poor physical health.
To make a lasting change, we’ve got to replace old habits with new behaviors and rewards that help to rewire the neuropathways in the brain.
