M.I.T. Explains Why Bad Habits Are Hard to Break

Ant writes "CNET News.com says habitual activity (e.g., smoking, eating fatty foods, gambling, etc.) changes neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain when habits are formed. These neural patterns created by habit can be changed or altered. But when a stimulus from the old days returns, the dormant pattern can reassert itself, according to a new study from the M.I.T., putting an individual in a neural state akin to being on autopilot... The neural patterns get established in the basal ganglia, a brain region critical to habits, addiction and procedural learning."

Comments

Nothing new, just not commonly known

[FredThompson]

This came out of alzheimer's research about 15 years ago.

Your brain optimizes to think what it thinks about a lot. (Why Slashdot readers don't morph into female genitalia or came controllers shows that human thought can't change matter.)

When you try to "break" an old habit, it's easy at first. After a few days, the brain realizes the optimizations are starting to disappear and it works to reinforce those structures.

The good side of this is that you don't have to re-learn how to use the toilet, eat, talk, etc. The bad side is you can't choose which thoughts are reinforced other than brute force to get past the recovery period. Even so, it's easy to go back to old optimizations. Think of it as being similar to a fold in a piece of paper. The fold can't ever be removed, just made less prominent. The paper will still have the tendency to fold at that position.

Scientology engrams?

[bobalu]

I hate to bring it up for fear of Xenu's revenge, but as I understand it this is the basis for Scientology's "auditing". The idea is to break up those old neural paths so they don't re-assert themselves inappropriately - like telling your boss to f*ck off because he reminds you of your father, for instance.

I always thought this made some sense, although the rest of their, umm, presentation was pretty scary.

Neural imprinting can be a real bitch some time

[multiplexo]

Sure, it's nice not to have to relearn how to wipe your ass every day but on the other hand I've met amputees who had serious damage to their legs and after years of surgery they finally elected to have an amputation so that they could have a fully functional prosthesis rather than a non-functional and painful leg. But the bitch of it is that the chronic pain they suffered rewired their brains to feel chronic pain and a lot of them still have quite a bit of pain after their amputations, even though the affected limb is gone.

Re:What we already knew

[ReverendLoki]

Here's what helped me quit - after finishing my last pack of "real" cigarettes (funny how that last pack lasts longer than any other pack you've owned), I went to the tobacconist's and bought a pack of what sounded like the nastiest herbal cigaretes I could find. I think the brand name was "Magic" or something sad like that. Hell, the first two ingredients were marshmallow and "cherry flavoring", with absolutely no tobacco whatsoever. Then, for the next week, whenever that urge got to be so strong that I couldn't resist it anymore, I stepped outside (even if I was somewhere that allowed smoking, 'cause I couldn't force this stench on anyone) and forced myself to smoke an entire one of these. Nastiest crap ever - it tasted like I was smoking over-sweetened Kool-Aid. In fact, I think mixing Kool-Aid powder and dried lettuce leaves might be a good equivalent for hand-rolled.

I used this to help me get through that first week, when the bodies getting over the worst of the nicotine withdrawal. It satisfied my habit of the ritual of smoking, but did nothing to satisfy the addiction, which not only helped divorce the ritual from the effects of the nicotine in my mind, but it also provided some damn effective negative reinforcement to boot.

I never did finish that pack...