A simple way to break a bad habit

When I was first learning to meditate,

the instruction was

to simply pay attention to my breath,

and when my mind wandered,

to bring it back.

Sounded simple enough.

Yet, I'd sit on these silent retreats,

sweating through T-shirts
in the middle of winter.

I'd take naps every chance I got
because it was really hard work.

Actually, it was exhausting.

The instruction was simple enough

but I was missing something
really important.

So why is it so hard to pay attention?

Well, studies show

that even when we're really trying
to pay attention to something --

like maybe this talk,

at some point,

about half of us will
drift off into a daydream,

or have this urge
to check our Twitter feed.

So what's going on here?

It turns out

that we're fighting one of the most

evolutionarily-conserved
learning processes

currently known in science,

one that's conserved back

to the most basic nervous
systems known to man.

This reward-based learning process

is called Positive and
Negative Reinforcement,

and basically goes like this:

we see some food that looks good,

our brain says, "calories ... survival,"

we eat the food, we taste it --

it tastes good --

and especially with sugar,

our bodies send a signal
to our brain that says,

"remember what you're eating
and where you found it."

We lay down this context-dependent memory

and learn to repeat the process next time.

See food,

eat food,

feel good,

repeat.

Trigger, behavior, reward.

Simple, right?

Well after awhile,

our creative brains say,

"you know what? You can use this for more
than just remembering where food is,

you know, next time you feel bad

why don't you try eating something good
so you'll feel better?"

We thank you brains for the great idea,

try this,

and quickly learn

that if we eat chocolate or ice cream
when we're mad or sad,

we feel better.

Same process,

just a different trigger.

Instead of this hunger signal
coming from out stomach,

this emotional signal --

feeling sad --

triggers that urge to eat.

Maybe in our teenage years,

we were a nerd at school,

and we see those rebel kids
outside smoking,

we think, "hey, I want to be cool,"

so we start smoking.

The Marlboro man wasn't a dork
and that was no accident.

See cool,

smoke to be cool,

feel good.

Repeat.

Trigger, behavior, reward.

And each time we do this,

we learn to repeat the process
and it becomes a habit.

So later,

feeling stressed out triggers
that urge to smoke cigarette,

or to eat something sweet.

Now with these same brain processes,

we've gone from learning to survive

to literally killing ourselves
with these habits.

Obesity and smoking

are among the leading preventable causes
of morbidity and mortality in the world.

So back to breath.

What if instead of fighting our brains,

or trying to force ourselves
to pay attention,

we instead tapped into this natural,
reward-based learning process ...

but added a twist?

What if instead we just got really curious

about what was happening
in our momentary experience?

I'll give you an example.

In my lab,

we studied whether mindfulness training
could help people quit smoking.

Now, just like trying to force myself
to pay attention to my breath,

they could try to force
themselves to quite smoking.

And the majority of them

had tried this before and failed --

on average, six times.

Now with mindfulness training,

we dropped the bit about forcing

and instead focused on being curious.

In fact,

we even told them to smoke.

What?

Yeah, we said, "go ahead and smoke,

just be really curious about
what it's like when you do."

And what did they notice?

Well here's an example
from one of our smokers.

She said, "Mindful smoking:

smells like stinky cheese,

and tastes like chemicals,

YUCK!"

Now she knew, cognitively
that smoking was bad for her,

that's why she joined our program.

What she discovered just by being
curiously aware when she smoked,

was that smoking tastes like shit.

(Laughter)

Now, she moved from knowledge to wisdom.

She moved from knowing in her head
that smoking was bad for her

to knowing it in her bones.

And the spell of smoking was broken.

She started to become
disenchanted with her behavior.

Now, the Prefrontal cortex,

that youngest part of our brain
from an evolutionary perspective,

it understands on an intellectual level
that we shouldn't smoke.

And it tries it's hardest

to help us change our behavior,

to help us stop smoking,

to help us stop eating that second,
that third, that fourth cookie.

We call this cognitive control.

We're using cognition
to control our behavior.

Unfortunately,

this is also the first part of our brain

that goes offline when
we get stressed out,

which isn't that helpful.

Now, we can all relate to this
in our own experience.

We're much more likely

to do things like yell
at our spouse or kids

when we're stressed out or tired,

even though we know
it's not going to be helpful,

we just can't help ourselves.

When the prefrontal cortex goes offline,

we fall back into our old habits,

which is why

this disenchantment is so important.

Seeing what we get from our habits

helps us understand
them at a deeper level --

to know it in our bones

so we don't have to force
ourselves to hold back

or restrain ourselves from behavior.

We're just less interested
in doing it in the first place.