The Science Behind Habit Formation

Have you ever noticed that somehow, somewhere along the way, life basically became a sequence of routines for you? You wake up, shower, get dressed, make a Plenny Shake for breakfast (and maybe one for lunch), brush your teeth, get to work, finish work, make dinner, Netflix, go to bed, wake up…

Sounds familiar?

Even if your habits are completely different, your life isn’t much more than the sum of those habits (sorry for the reality check). Think about it: your habits play a huge role in your fitness, your relationships, your career, your money, etc. With that in mind, good habits can be a very powerful tool to improve your daily life, while bad habits can be a threat to your overall happiness.

We fill our days with countless little habits, ones we’ve grown into over the course of our lives. No matter how old you are, you’ve been doing the same things basically forever. It’s no surprise, then, that adopting a new habit can be pretty tricky – especially to make it stick. But chances are you’ve been going about it wrong: behavioural scientists have found that a large number of people actually go about forming new habits the wrong way (9). There may not be a right or wrong way to adopt a new habit, but if there’s one approach we can rely on, it’s the scientific approach, right?

So before we start setting ambitious goals, let's first look at how habits actually work, just so we know what we're up against.

The Habit Loop

Here’s something interesting: brilliant researchers at Duke University have discovered that over 40 percent of people’s daily actions are not conscious decisions, but habits (1). This means that half the time, you’re basically not thinking, but just doing. Your actions have become automated and simply follow a neurological circuit in your brain. According to MIT researchers (2), backed by New York Times bestselling author James Clear (3) and Stanford behavioral researcher Dr. BJ Fogg (4), this neurological circuit consists of three elements:

The Cue

The habit cue is what triggers the habit and sets the routine in motion. They come in a wide variety, but common cues are time, place, preceding events, emotional state, and other people. If this still seems a bit abstract, author James Clear gives some clear examples (5):


Time : get up and get dressed, make coffee, etc.

Location : Being in the kitchen with a plate of cookies and eating the cookies, just because they are there.

Previous Events – A notification on your phone, so you can grab it to see what’s new.

Emotional state : Feeling stressed and again picking up the phone to see what's new.

Other People : The example Clear offers here is quite interesting. We are probably all familiar with behavioral changes around certain people; our parents, high school friends, etc. But a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that proximity isn't even that important. If your friend, who lives hundreds of miles away, becomes obese, then your chance of becoming obese also increases by 57 percent! (6)

The Routine

Routine is perhaps easier to understand than cues: it is the behavior that follows the signal or trigger. For example: the cue is stress, the routine is picking up the phone and scrolling through the timeline. FYI, this is an example of a bad habit.

 

The reward

Reward is the reason you’ve created these neurological loops in the first place. It’s the positive reinforcement that’s connected to the behavior, making you more likely to repeat the behavior. Taking a cue from stress/phone, according to Harvard researcher Trevor Haynes, checking social media notifications releases dopamine, a chemical associated with food, exercise, love, sex, gambling, and drugs. So it makes you feel good and is addictive, ensuring that you’re likely to repeat the behavior (7).


Now that we know how the three elements of behavior work, the next step is to “hack” them and manipulate them to our advantage. Let’s break down each of the three elements and discuss scientifically proven ways to manipulate them.

1. Cue

Every habit starts with the cue. Once again, it is the trigger that sets the wheels of the routine in motion.

So how do you develop a new cue? One scientifically proven way to create a new cue is to link it to a cue you've already internalized. This approach is commonly referred to as "habit stacking," a powerful technique used by both Dr. Fogg and James Clear (3, 4).


For example:

After brushing my teeth I will do a breathing exercise.

Before I drink my morning coffee I will do 10 lunges

Before going to the gym I will have a Plenny Drink


If you like podcasts, try the Armchair Expert episode with Dr. BJ Fogg. He talks about his own experience forming a new habit of doing daily push-ups. He started out doing two push-ups every time he went to the bathroom, and now he's in the habit of doing 40-80 push-ups a day. And the guy is almost 60 years old!

Try to think about what habits you currently have and which one would serve you best as a stacking habit. That's your cue!

2. Routine

The trick to creating a new habit is to start small. Don't set yourself up for failure by setting impossible goals, because you will fail. It's nothing personal; studies say that about 80% of people fail to achieve their New Year's resolutions every year (8). It's a numbers game and the game is rigged.


Not to say you shouldn’t be ambitious, but if you plan on working out/writing/reading/meditating for two hours every day (while you’re currently doing zero hours), chances are your motivation will fade pretty quickly. Again, Dr. Fogg’s example is a great one, as it perfectly demonstrates the power of starting small. Two push-ups every time you go to the bathroom. Anyone who is physically capable of doing push-ups can do it! Maybe even start with a push-up – don’t ask yourself too much too fast. If you want to read more, pick up your book every day and hold it in your hands. It’s hard to fail at that. Once you master that skill, try reading a sentence or two. You get the idea.


Research shows that it takes between 18 and 254 days to form a habit, with a median time of 66 days. You'll need to muster some patience and discipline, but after that, the habit loop kicks in and is basically an automated process.

3. Rewards

Let’s say you grabbed your book 5 days in a row — cause for celebration! Yes, really. It may seem silly to celebrate a relatively small feat, but you made yourself a promise and you kept it. Look at it this way: you’re not so much celebrating being able to pick up a book, you’re celebrating the fact that you’ve changed your behavior — which is a big deal. You’ve taken steps to improve, you’ve been successful, and now you’re taking a moment to acknowledge this fact with a small celebration or reward. This positive reinforcement will help solidify the habit.


Here are some examples from Dr. Fogg's New York Times best-selling book, Tiny Habits, that you can try celebrating by completing your habit (4):


Make a physical movement: give a thumbs up, raise your fists, or clap your hands.
Do a fluid physical movement: a short victory dance or clap your hands.
Say something out loud or to yourself: "Awesome!", "Bingo!" or "Great job!"
Sing a song out loud or to yourself: "Hey, you're a rock star."
Vocalize music or a sound effect: "Do it!" (trumpet for royalty)
Imagine listening to music or sound effects: a roaring crowd, happy about your success.
Move your face to look happy - Smile or laugh.


These examples may seem a little silly, and to some extent they are. But it doesn't really matter what you do, as long as it makes you happy and reinforces your behavior in a positive way. Go ahead and think of some of his own, if these make you cringe a little. For example:


Have a tasty and nutritious snack: enjoy a Plenny Bar !

How Jimmy Joy can help you create new habits

One habit you might want to develop is taking better care of yourself. For example, by making sure you eat healthy and regularly. Or maybe you want to help reduce carbon emissions by eating less or no meat at all. And guess what? These may be the easiest new habits you'll create all year long - maybe even your entire life! Because we've already developed the perfect formula for optimal daily nutrition with our Plenny Shake , Plenny Drink , Plenny Bar and Plenny Pot . And they're vegan too!


But that's not all: we can bring your new daily habit straight to your doorstep every month with our subscription service . Subscribing will even save you 10%!

BONUS TIPS

Make it easy / remove objects

The best way to ensure that your new habits stick is to make it as easy as possible to achieve them by removing anything that might get in the way.

Wendy Wood, a research psychologist at the University of Southern California, started sleeping in her running gear, so all she had to do in the morning was put on her running shoes and head out (9).

If you want to catch up on your reading, put your book somewhere in plain sight, preferably near a comfortable chair to sit in. If you want to watch less TV, hide the remote control in the kitchen drawer. Or maybe even store the TV in the garage for a couple of days. This approach is scientifically backed by psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who discusses it in depth in his book Finding Flow (10).

And then, celebrate some more!

Let’s say you’ve completed your habit for seven days straight. First of all, congratulations—that’s pretty amazing. Well done, you. Now treat yourself! You’ve been dangling a carrot in front of your face for a week (or maybe even a month) and now you’ve earned it. If you allow yourself something you love after achieving your goal (a cheat meal, a cocktail, a massage, or a trip to the movies), you can focus on that reward if one day you just can’t seem to muster the motivation to stick with your new habit. So you can have your cake and eat it too—but only if you’ve earned it!

Sources

1. Duke University, Association for Psychological Science 2006, David T. Neal, Wendy Wood, and Jeffrey M. Quinn, Habits—A Repeat Performance.
2. Cathryn M. Delude, N. (2005) Brain researchers explain why old habits die hard, MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
3. Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones (2018), by James Clear, published by Penguin / Random House.
4. Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything (2019), by BJ Fogg, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
5. The Habit Loop: 5 Habit Triggers That Make New Behaviors Stick (2015).

6. Christakis, N. and Fowler, J. (2007) "The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years", New England Journal of Medicine , 357(4), pp. 370-379. doi:10.1056/nejmsa066082.

7. Dopamine, Smartphones & You: A battle for your time - Science in the News (2018).
8. A Ridiculous Amount of People Have Already Ditched Their New Year's Resolutions (2018).
9. How to Build Healthy Habits (2020).
10. Finding Flow: The Psychology Of Engagement With Everyday Life, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Published by Ingram Publisher Services US in 1998.

11. Lally, P. et al. (2009) "How are habits formed: Modeling habit formation in the real world", European Journal of Social Psychology , 40(6), pp. 998-1009. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.674.

12. How Habits Work - Charles Duhigg (2020).