15 Ways to Hack Your Brain to Break Bad Habits

how many times have you tried to break a bad habit 90% of people fail when they first start trying to break their bad habits and it's because they're trying to break it in all the wrong ways habits are hardwired into your brain and they have to be because you need the space for learning which means that if you have a bad habit you have to break it by rewiring the source code you have to get into all the little parts of your brain that created The Habit in the first place and keep it functioning and

how on Earth can you do all of that well here you go number one you actually have to hack your brain at the right point when you break into something you're not going to go for the hardest point right you're going to go for the weakest part and then get in that way it's the same with your mind you keep trying to hack and trick your normal conscious mind and it's virtually impossible okay that shit's kept behind lock key alarms and guards the easiest way in is through your subconscious mind and look okay before you

dismiss this as some kind of woo woo advice hear us out it's really hard virtually impossible to rewire anything with your conscious normal everyday thinking mind there's just too much going in and you can't get through all of that noise but there's a moment when the noise is quiet when it's still picking up steam and that's when you have to slip in quietly like a burglar in the night breaking into your own mind when you wake up in the morning your brain moves through different wave States delta waves which are deep sleep Theta which is

deep relaxation Alpha light relaxation and then beta which is very active you want to catch those waves when it's not as active and more suggestible so the moment you wake up and just before you fall asleep sneak in with some imaginary scenarios where you've broken the bad habit and you feel good about it we'll go into some more details on how to do this in just a moment but we wanted to get this out of the way first to make sure you're entering your mind at the right Point number two make mistakes because they break

old neural Pathways and build up new ones mistakes interrupt the system and cause chaos and this is exactly what you want when you're trying to break a bad habit mistakes are your brain's weapon for creating change if you've been conditioned to think that failure means means you're back to square one well you've misunderstood how your brain works each time when you make a mistake as you're trying to break a habit use that error to gather new data understand what doesn't work for you the mistake is fine the problem is when you don't actually gather information

from it because look then you see the mistake as a failure and you fall off track since it feels like there's no coming back from it but when you gather the data your brain will rewire itself to recognize other options for the Habit you're trying to break the more mistakes you make the better it becomes at predicting and avoiding those behaviors but you must gather that data just like you would do with any work project what caused the error what's the most critical point of intercepting this error and how can you make sure it doesn't

happen again number three use emotional priming to set yourself up for suc success your emotions are the key to controlling your habits you keep turning to your bad habits because they make you feel better when you experience negative emotions like stress boredom or anxiety so when you feel stressed you look for comfort and since you find comfort in your bad habits well you'll use that habit to douse the feeling of stress in a way your brain has been trained to connect that Comfort to the habits that are usually bad because they take less energy to

do and usually give you a short Rush before a drop so you need to train your brain to experience good emotions from good habits instead of just the bad ones and did you know that your body and your brain don't actually know the difference between what's real and what's imaginary whatever is happening in your mind it's happening to you with some emotional priming you rehearse the feeling you want to get when you break a bad habit keep rehearsing this feeling think think about breaking that habit and think about the good feelings that will come with

it let's say you want to stop procrastinating and be more productive standard goal right we'll take a few moments each morning to sit quietly and imagine how you'll feel when you're in control of your time calm focused accomplished let those emotions wash over you as if they're already happening this trains your brain to expect those feelings over time it'll begin to associate new healthier behaviors with the Positive emotions that you've primed so it's easier to follow through on the actions that will get you to your goals number four mentally rehearse specific actions for Success now

that you've rehearsed the emotions you have to rehearse the action in your brain habits are just neural Pathways that are connected to each other it's like dominoes all falling in the same direction each time because of the way they've been stacked they're all connected because they're on the same pathway now when you mentally rehearse the action of breaking a habit you take a different route and that creates new neural Pathways you're moving The Dominoes so they all fall a different way instead rehearsing the action takes a little bit more practice and energy than the emotion

because well instead of imagining a feeling you have to imagine a whole scenario it's like you're creating a short film in your mind you'll have to think of all the steps you have to do do outside obstacles you'll have to overcome and how to play Devil's Advocate to the excuses that you'll inevitably come up with now we just mentioned before that your brain and body can't actually tell what's real and what isn't if it's happening in your mind it's happening to you okay cool but what does that even mean so when you imagine the action

you want to do like breaking a bad habit it's as if you've already done it and now you have new neural Pathways that are in your control you've got a blueprint which makes the physical changes a whole lot easier to achieve number five Don't Force change with information about how bad your behavior is if the first thing you do when you're trying to break a bad habit is to learn everything you can about how bad it is you're never going to succeed you already know it's bad okay that is why you're trying to break it

in the first place you can't think your way out of a bad habit and you can't shame yourself out of it either because the the more you focus on your behavior the more comfortable you get in that guilt and shame that comes with it so stop learning about how bad it is for you okay it's not helpful you're targeting the completely wrong thing and you're not going to make progress that way when you focus on how bad something is you're activating guilt shame and anxiety which actually triggers more stress the very emotion that reinforces these

bad habits so shift your focus to what you gain by letting go of the habit it frame the change as something you are gaining not something you are losing the less mental energy you waste on berating yourself the more you'll have available to build the Habit that will actually serve you better number six take the power back from your body's automatic reactions when something becomes a habit you're no longer in charge of it but that's kind of a good thing it's your brain's way of saving energy it's a great tool when you've got good habits

because you won't have to hype yourself up for them every time you do something but it's not so great when you've got bad habits that's when you need to show who's actually in charge your body becomes conditioned to respond to certain triggers it acts before your conscious mind even has a chance to catch up so you have to show him who's boss by interrupting yourself at the most unpredictable times when you're sitting comfortably on the sofa watching TV and you've got this vague thought about getting up and doing some cleaning and your body and brain

both say no you have to step in and say yes you are not the voice in your head okay every time you find yourself mindlessly doing something you usually do driving walking the same route ordering the same food kick down that door take control and make a random but powerful change number seven use routines to rewire the code in Neuroscience there's a saying that goes nerve cells that fire together wi together so the more you perform a habit the stronger the actual neural Connections in your brain become it's like a code that's written and hardwired

into you you have to go in and rewrite that code your first step is to find the strongest Connection in that code and break it it's basically the middle point where you think of doing something and your brain goes into autopilot mode now usually you'll wake up from that state once you've performed your sequence but you have to wake yourself up before that the most effective way to do this is to change the place where you perform that habit it's the quickest and easiest way to upset the balance and comfort that you feel from your

usual sequence of actions like if you usually eat in front of the TV you got to change where you are and every time you eat you do it at the dining table even if you're having a snack if you feel like you're drinking too much beer or wine in the evenings when you're sitting on the porch well take that glass to the store room or bathroom room and drink it there it sounds kind of funny and weird but changing that space and taking the Comfort away from it will make your brain wake up and go

what the F this is weird not fun let's do less of this it sounds stupid simple right but you'll see just how uncomfortable and weird it feels when you try to do it yourself and yes that's partly because youve put yourself in a strange place but mostly it's because that place is uncomfortable and the opposite of what you're looking for in the moment number eight find the emotional triggers behind the habit every bad habit is fulfilling an emotional need that you're lacking but what are you lacking ha that's what you have to find out right

you have to find this out by first seeing which emotion is triggering the Habit in the first place is it stress loneliness boredom or just wanting some comfort take a step back and notice what's going on before you indulge in that habit are you feeling anxious over overwhelmed when you know the trigger you can tackle it directly then you come up with a healthier but also easier habit that you can do instead when you get that feeling like if you're feeling stressed you do five squats and then five push-ups instead don't think too much about

the exercise or action here your goal isn't to become a squatting Champion it's just to break that automatic feedback loop of feeling an emotion and then turning to a habit to fix it the awareness and then a deliberate action repeated over time is enough to karate chop that Loop in half number nine you can and should shorten your emotional reactions when you've got a strong emotional reaction to something your entire system shouts at you to pay attention to what caused it when you pay attention to the cause you take a snapshot of it and that

becomes a memory then the neurological moves into the chemical the snapshot or memory gets attached to an emotion and when you remember the snapshot you feel that emotion too you can control how long you want that reaction to last this is called a refractory period it can last for minutes hours days and years and the longer it lasts the more it becomes a part of your personality when you constantly think and remember this it's not just creating a habit it's creating your temperament now controlling the refractory period can be hard because it becomes addictive you

get a rush of energy with the memory and so it starts to feel good so you shorten that refractory period if something shitty happens look at it take one or two lessons away from it and only focus on those lessons every time that memory comes up think of the lessons right now we can bet that you've got a memory from years ago that you'd like to call up and get that Rush again even if it makes you feel bad that memory is attached to some bad habit if you want to break that habit you have

got to get over that memory number 10 reprogram your brain's reward system your most basic Primal function above all else is to survive right if your brain sees something that it thinks is going to help you survive and reproduce it's going to attach a high reward to it the higher the reward the stronger the habit for that reward is for most people the highest reward is calorie dense food Foods why well because more calories equals better chances of survival it's an old far outdated system that we don't need in today's world but these Primal functions

haven't caught up yet so you have to trick your brain with high rewards for good habits not bad ones when you don't perform your usual bad habit give yourself a reward but obviously make sure it's something healthier otherwise it kind of defeats the purpose think about the things that give you smaller doses of dopamine over for a longer time don't compare the rewards side by side because when you weigh things up like going for a walk reading a few pages of your book or listening to a podcast against scrolling social media binge watching shows or

procrastinating well you can clearly see what's easier and what takes less energy so don't even think of them that way you have your list of rewards and that's it every time you don't do the Habit you choose a reward from your list you don't let your brain and body choose from whatever list they've been leaning on because well that is clearly not working here number 11 be curious not critical they say that to break the autopilot mode you're running on you have to pay attention but paying attention can be so hard you have to focus

on what you're doing what you're thinking what you're feeling all the time it's so easy to forget to pay attention even when you're feeling free easy and good so a little hack for this is to be curious about your surroundings because curiosity is one of your brain's superpowers it breaks autopilot mode and forces you to activate its higher thinking centers so get curious about the most random things and you'll slowly train yourself to be more aware of what you're doing like look at a plant but really look at it go close to it pick up

a leaf look at the lines on that leaf look at the bugs on the plant maybe it's kind of gross but whatever you might look silly to everyone else but your curiosity trains your brain to take charge of your body instead of just allowing it to be an autopilot you're still breaking that autopilot mode but in a way more fun and roundabout kind of way number 12 the unknown will still be scary because listen Okay your body is deathly afraid of changing its routine it'll fight you tooth and nail when you try to make a

change because it doesn't know what's coming next it's like when you have to take your pet to the vet when they're sick you know that you're helping them but to your pet well they think it's more like torture they have no idea what you're up to that's your body and brain when you're breaking a habit it's freaking out it's scared it doesn't feel good even thinking about doing it right now doesn't feel good so your body will influence your brain to do it tomorrow instead you have to get used to this feeling though it's not

because Breaking the Habit is truly uncomfortable though those emotions you're experiencing are fake they're produced by your body to keep you in a more predictable and safe state to your body the unknown is way worse than the guilt and suffering you feel from The Habit that's why it's so hard to just get started and then once you do it you're like oh that wasn't so bad and when you try to do it again it's hard again but not as hard as it was the first time that's your body putting up its defenses and slowly learning

that unpredictability isn't so terrible and also it's not in charge anymore so it's putting up a fight that it actually cannot win eventually your body will get the message that it should be sitting in the back seat But first you have to get used to feeling afraid of the change and just doing it anyway number 13 you have to stop starting your day in the past every morning when you wake up and you have a thought 99% of you are starting your day in the past that thought is connected to a memory and that memory

is connected to a feeling and so when you think about that and you remember and feel it you're literally reliving that event all over again and you're doing it the moment you wake up it's crazy okay you can minimize this incredibly powerful force just by focusing on what you're doing right now and making yourself sound like a toddler who's just discovering the world oh hey I'm waking up there's my feet touching the floor and as you narrate these small present moments in your mind you can be begin to add some future stories in there too

like I've got a meeting today about the state of customer service I've prepared everything so let's just get to it hey lxer we know this sounds childish and at times Well way too simple but your complicated brain is actually controlled by pretty simple motives and yet you know it's actually because these motives are so simple and easy to ignore that we even struggle to take that control at all number 14 don't wait for something out there to change Joe dispenza an author and expert in Mind Body Connection he says that one of the most dangerous

lies that people tell themselves is that they'll change when something else changes so they'll break a habit when some other situation that is causing them to stress out ends the end of that situation is not going to change your habits though in fact it makes it harder because you're delaying that change and the more you perform the Habit the harder it is to break you're also still going to experience stress even if it's in a aler form your body isn't going through the motions because of that external issue it's doing it because of an internal

feeling and you're going to have that feeling for most of your life to different degrees you absolutely cannot wait for someone else for another situation for another day it has to start now okay even with the smallest change and number 15 meditation and mindfulness will Fast Track everything you'll notice that so many of these hacks need you to go into your mind and intentionally change what's happening in there many of them are tools in meditation and mindfulness you don't have to practice them to use these hacks but if you do it will help a lot

with these hacks unlike with traditional meditation you're not sitting in silence for ages watching your thoughts go by you are actively creating new thoughts and situations so it's a little bit more entertaining for sure but having the control over your mind that meditation brings can make the process easier then instead of waiting for the morning or evening to get into your subconscious mind you can put yourself into that state whenever you want add in some experiences and thoughts and then come out of it again meditation also helps you to develop metacognition your ability to think

about your own thinking with metacognition you can look at your impulses objectively instead of following them blindly so it becomes much easier to break a bad habit so it becomes much easier to break a bad habit and the more you practice it the more control you give yourself so your entire personality doesn't lie in the hands of your kind of lazy brain and body and Al alexir that's a wrap on this one today tell us what's your favorite Jedi mind trick for breaking your bad habits we always love hearing from you in the comments we'll

see you back here next time my friend until then take care [Music]