Turning Bad Habits into Good Ones

Did you notice? On Monday, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all stopped working for about six hours. By Monday evening, when all the apps were back up again, I saw different reactions on my feed. Several friends talked about being more productive. “I have to admit, I got more work done today than I have in a long time,” said one friend. Another friend said, “Even though I missed my Facebook feed, I think part of me hoped it would never come back.” 

My first friend was acknowledging that, on a normal day, he feels compelled to check his Facebook so often that it impedes his work, while my other friend noted her realization that her use of social media, while satisfying in the short term, doesn’t make her feel great overall. 

Because their normal access to social media was interrupted, my friends had the  opportunity (even if it was involuntary!) to become more aware of their typical behaviors, and their feelings about them.

This reminded me of a book I read recently: The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love – Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits by Judson Brewer. In the book, Brewer, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who has studied the science of addictions for 20 years, describes the mechanisms of habit and addiction formation, then explains how the practice of mindfulness can interrupt these habits -- and how interrupting a habit can be a good thing.

He says: “In any type of addictive behavior, reactivity builds its strength through repetition—resistance training. Each time we look for our ‘likes’ on Facebook, we lift the barbell of ‘I am.’ Each time we smoke a cigarette in reaction to a trigger, we do a push-up of ‘I smoke.’ Each time we excitedly run off to a colleague to tell her about our latest and greatest idea, we do a sit-up of ‘I’m smart.’ That is a lot of work.” 

Not only is he saying that each time we give in to a craving, we become more addicted, and each time we interject mindfulness between craving and our next decision, we become less addicted, he is also talking about the dangers of building our sense of self around our addictions, whatever they are.

I appreciate how the book interweaves science with patient stories and Brewer’s own experience with mindfulness practice to help us understand our cravings and use the tool of mindfulness to combat them.  You can get a taste of some of what the book covers in Brewer’s ten-minute Ted Talk below.