Russell A. Poldrack

One of the techniques that comes from psychology that seems to be useful, there's evidence of this working, is it's called an implementation intention. And the idea is basically that you kind of role play in your mind how you're going to behave. So you'll say you don't want to smoke and you have a friend who you always smoke with.

One of the techniques that comes from psychology that seems to be useful, there's evidence of this working, is it's called an implementation intention. And the idea is basically that you kind of role play in your mind how you're going to behave. So you'll say you don't want to smoke and you have a friend who you always smoke with.

Sort of think through some scenarios of how you're going to actually behave when you see them and they bring out the cigarettes and you want to tell them that you're not interested in smoking. And the more detailed the plans, the better. On the flip side of building new habits, I think giving yourself as much scaffolding as you can to help

Sort of think through some scenarios of how you're going to actually behave when you see them and they bring out the cigarettes and you want to tell them that you're not interested in smoking. And the more detailed the plans, the better. On the flip side of building new habits, I think giving yourself as much scaffolding as you can to help

Sort of think through some scenarios of how you're going to actually behave when you see them and they bring out the cigarettes and you want to tell them that you're not interested in smoking. And the more detailed the plans, the better. On the flip side of building new habits, I think giving yourself as much scaffolding as you can to help

keep the behavior going in the early days until it becomes kind of more of a routine. That's probably one of the most effective ways to do it. But I think one of the other things to take away from a lot of this research is that both breaking and creating habits is really hard. Neuroscience tells us why in a lot of ways.

keep the behavior going in the early days until it becomes kind of more of a routine. That's probably one of the most effective ways to do it. But I think one of the other things to take away from a lot of this research is that both breaking and creating habits is really hard. Neuroscience tells us why in a lot of ways.

keep the behavior going in the early days until it becomes kind of more of a routine. That's probably one of the most effective ways to do it. But I think one of the other things to take away from a lot of this research is that both breaking and creating habits is really hard. Neuroscience tells us why in a lot of ways.

And so we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves when we fail to either change our behavior to break a habit or to generate a new one and sort of have a little more empathy for ourselves and for other people who we see in our lives who are having trouble changing their behavior.

And so we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves when we fail to either change our behavior to break a habit or to generate a new one and sort of have a little more empathy for ourselves and for other people who we see in our lives who are having trouble changing their behavior.

And so we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves when we fail to either change our behavior to break a habit or to generate a new one and sort of have a little more empathy for ourselves and for other people who we see in our lives who are having trouble changing their behavior.

Certainly, yeah. I mean, I think that they're, you know, just as we can have habits in terms of like, you know, the things we eat or drink or, you know, put in our bodies. There are sort of, you know, social habits and emotional habits. One common thing in couples, right, is that, you know, people start to have

Certainly, yeah. I mean, I think that they're, you know, just as we can have habits in terms of like, you know, the things we eat or drink or, you know, put in our bodies. There are sort of, you know, social habits and emotional habits. One common thing in couples, right, is that, you know, people start to have

Certainly, yeah. I mean, I think that they're, you know, just as we can have habits in terms of like, you know, the things we eat or drink or, you know, put in our bodies. There are sort of, you know, social habits and emotional habits. One common thing in couples, right, is that, you know, people start to have

habitual responses they start to have you know the um a particular negative response to like something that their partner does right and those can be those can become like really overwhelming to a relationship right um and similarly once you've worked with colleagues for a number of years you can come to predict how they're going to behave in certain situations and those are very persistent behaviors so they have many of the same hallmarks as habits now whether

habitual responses they start to have you know the um a particular negative response to like something that their partner does right and those can be those can become like really overwhelming to a relationship right um and similarly once you've worked with colleagues for a number of years you can come to predict how they're going to behave in certain situations and those are very persistent behaviors so they have many of the same hallmarks as habits now whether

habitual responses they start to have you know the um a particular negative response to like something that their partner does right and those can be those can become like really overwhelming to a relationship right um and similarly once you've worked with colleagues for a number of years you can come to predict how they're going to behave in certain situations and those are very persistent behaviors so they have many of the same hallmarks as habits now whether

Those are much harder things to study. Part of the reason we know a lot about the habits of ingesting things is because we can study them in rats.

Those are much harder things to study. Part of the reason we know a lot about the habits of ingesting things is because we can study them in rats.

Those are much harder things to study. Part of the reason we know a lot about the habits of ingesting things is because we can study them in rats.