this is a video that I've been meaning to make for a long time because it's one
of the main reasons I titled my channel the rewired soul so in this video I'm
gonna teach you the science about developing bad as well as good habits so
stay tuned what is up everybody this is Chris from the rewired soul where we
talked about the problem but focus on the solution this is a very important
video when it comes to mental health because when it comes to mental health
depression anxiety addiction no matter what it is these are all based around
different habits that we have there are habits that we have that make our
depression worse there were habits that we can develop to make it better
same thing goes with anxiety there are things that we do to fuel our own
anxiety that are based on habits but there are things that we can change to
develop better habits to reduce our anxiety addiction I don't even need to
talk about about much but when we develop an addiction purely based around
habits so if you are somebody or even know somebody and I know you do don't
you lie to me if you know somebody with a bad habit please share this video with
them because I'm gonna teach you about how the brain works how these are
developed how to break them and how to change them there's a lot to go over I
will not cover all of them in this video but that's why you're such a loyal
subscriber is you're gonna stay tuned and see what else I got for you so the
habit loop is what we're talking about today okay this is a concept that was
first discussed by a great psychologist named BF Skinner if you've been in a
psychology class you've probably heard his name but he talks about
context-dependent memory okay this was a long time ago but now there is a new
neuroscientist by the name of dr. Judson Brewer I've done some videos on him in
the past and an interview with him if you want to check it out this when I was
brand new so the videos were a lot different not nearly as good as they are
now but dr. Judson Brewer he's a neuroscientist and he's also really big
into meditation too but like you couldn't believe just about everything
he says because of all the scientific evidence he has as well as the fact that
he developed the best the best program for helping people quit smoking okay
and it's all purely based on understanding the habit loop alright so
in this video I'm gonna discuss mainly the habit loop in other videos I'll
discuss more about breaking and developing new good habits alright so in
order to understand the habit loop let's talk about evolution and how your brain
works and it makes sense once you understand all this stuff ok so this is
okay the reason why we have this habit loop is because it's helped us survive
so this habit loop is actually something that all species have any living being
is completely based on this habit loop okay and it involves a trigger a
behavior and a reward okay so let's picture prehistoric man
alright prehistoric man he gets hungry boom trigger all right now how's he
gonna get rid of that hunger he does a behavior he finds food and he eats the
food okay that is the behavior now he gets the reward he's not hungry anymore
that's the reward it shoots off a little splits of dopamine just a little right
there and what that does is right here it lays down a memory okay so the reason
this happens is so the next time mr. caveman has hunger he knows where to
find food to get rid of the hunger so that's one of the reasons why this habit
loop is so ingrained in our minds okay now let's talk about something more
modern okay if you have a baby you understand if you used to be a baby you
understand and if you understand anything about babies this will make
sense all right so let's use a baby for the habit loop okay these things why did
I call babies things these kids they grow up they evolve but they need this
habit loop in their brain so let's think about a baby the baby is triggered by
hunger the behavior is you guessed it baby cries all right baby gets fed
that's the reward baby's hunger goes away and lays out a memory in the baby's
head the next time the baby gets hungry the brain reminds him oh hey next time
you're hungry just cry you'll get food alright are you starting
to follow me starting to understand why this habit loop is so crucial for our
survival we can take this this understanding of the brain and start to
understand our bad habits right and once we understand our bad habits we can
start developing new good habits so let's use the example of snacking
snacking eating unhealthy things like that alright so let's say every day you
get home from work okay that is your trigger you got home okay
now the behavior is is that you reach in the fridge and you grab something
unhealthy maybe it's a soda okay high-calorie fully sugar soda right you
take that boom reward maybe some sense of satisfaction that lays down a memory
next day when you get home your brain says huh you had a long day at work hey
that soda is gonna help you out you do it again so remember right after the
reward it's laying down a memory so eventually what happens is that you just
start to go in an autopilot mode same thing happens if every time you sit down
to watch TV you sit down with a bag of chips like what you start to realize is
is that every time you're sitting down you're reaching for this value chips
even if you aren't hungry okay the reason this happens is is that there's
two parts of the brain one is called the nucleus accumbens the other is called
the dorsal striatum these both live inside of the limbic system which is our
most primitive part of the brain and it's one of the reasons we survive but
it's meant to make our brain more efficient so the nucleus accumbens is
shooting out dopamine every time you get this reward but after you repeat this
habit loop a certain amount of times that memory then moves into the dorsal
striatum which is a part of the brain that's designed to make you more
efficient okay so now whether this reward is good or bad you keep doing it
purely based out of autopilot all right now that we're talking you can start to
see how an addiction develops so let's use a dictionary example alright as a
recovering addict I'll use myself as an example okay every time I was having
anxiety I would self-medicate so I be having anxiety I would drink
anxiety would go away that would be my reward and would lay down a memory so
the next time I got anxious it would say hey Chris why don't you try drinking
again boom anxiety goes away that's my reward
and every time I repeated that loop it made the memory even stronger and for
addicts and alcoholics what eventually happens is is that you're getting even
more anxiety you're no longer getting the reward and it's just a hot hot mess
okay same thing happens with your cell phone you'll start to notice with your
cell phone the habits you have based on your cell phone here's a very good one
bad depending on how you look at it but everytime I came to a stoplight
I found myself grabbing for my phone and I was like whoa like that's a habit that
I have it's something that has just become automated and I had to start
breaking that habit so let's talk about developing good habits works the exact
same way if any of you have heard of cognitive behavioral therapy it's
largely based around this okay identify a trigger identify the behavior that you
don't want anymore swap it out and rewire your brain hence
the rewired soul right I've always just found it fascinating what we can do to
our own branch once we understand how it works so let's say you have a habit of
every time you sit down you snack on some chips right well all you have to do
is every time you sit down to watch TV sit down and snack on carrots and sad
something like that right what you'll find seriously for most people it's
within a matter of days or a week you'll start to notice that you don't even have
the craving for chips anymore all right same thing with any other habit and I
don't mean to minimize this and make this sound easy because the trigger
induces a craving and that is the part that a lot of us don't know how to work
through but I will make more videos on that and I'm gonna spoil it a little bit
it has a lot to do with meditation okay not like intensive meditation it's
pretty much just mindfulness meditation so when working on these bad
so I'll give you a little preview real quick we need to bring back that habit
loop and take a look at it okay what is the habit that I'm trying to
break alright the first step in this is identifying your triggers I didn't find
what your triggers are is it stress is it depression is the sadness there's a
loneliness is it certain places you go like do you go to a certain restaurant
and always order something unhealthy like what is the trigger okay we got to
get down to the root of this thing first okay so now that we've identified the
trigger now we can start looking at the behavior that we want to replace so the
trick to this is if we're looking at the habit loop we're trying to drive a wedge
between the trigger and the behavior alright one of my favorite quotes one my
favorite quotes is by the author Viktor Frankl and he says this between stimulus
and response there is a space in that space is our power to choose our
response in our response lies our growth and our freedom like think about that
for a second okay so in between stimulus and response so in between trigger and
behavior that is where we get to make a choice but first we have to step outside
of that habit loop and say well what is going on here right now we have the
power of choice do I want to choose a different option so if you're somebody
who struggles with depression now that you know that this trigger is going to
make you depressed or if we're talking about anxiety now you get to choose okay
do you choose an unhealthy behavior right acting out isolating yelling at
somebody you know anything like that right we get to choose do I want to do
that or do I want to do something that's a little bit healthier okay and I'm
telling you once you get started i dint affine these things it's a whole lot
easier to develop better habits alright but anyways I've had a lot of requests
to make a video like this because habits happen all over the place and I know
sometimes we beat ourselves up about them we don't go to the gym enough we
don't eat healthy enough we don't save money all these different things
that are a detriment to our mental health and this is a very important
subject so please please please please do me a
favor share this with people you know who have bad habits that they're trying
to kick because I will be putting this in an entire playlist and I am looking
forward to making more videos about how to break that habit loop and work
through cravings through a bunch of different techniques okay
but anyways here's what I want you to do down in the comments below let's do this
this will give me ideas for future videos to make for this playlist down in
the comments below tell me about habits that you have that you're trying to
break it'll help me out with video content if you can tell me what the
trigger is alright but that's not homework assignment for you and that's
all I got for you today so if you like this video please give it a thumbs up
and if you are new here I'm always making videos to help you out with your
mental health so make sure that you click that subscribe button all right
and if you got time you can click or tap on one of those thumbnails right there
check out some other content on my channel ok thank you so much for
watching start identifying your bad habits and
I'll see you next time