How your state of mind helps change habits

Our brains are pretty amazing. Every thought and emotion, all our language and problem-solving abilities, and even our instincts come from our brains. 

The Triune Brain Model, developed by neuroscientist Paul MacLean in the 1960s, divides the brain into three distinct regions – the Primal Brain, the Emotional Brain, and the Rational Brain.

These regions work together; however, there is a hierarchy when it comes to functioning. Since our primal or basal ganglia was acquired first, it runs on instinct. Ever do something without thinking? For example, my first instinct when I feel angry is to isolate myself and numb myself with a Netflix show and a big bag of chips.  When it comes to changing our habits, changing the connection between the instinct and the reaction is going to make all the difference.

Typically, it is either our emotional brain (limbic system) or our rational brain (neocortex) that causes us to make a decision to change. We feel overwhelmed by the results of our bad habits and rationally decide to change our ways. Or, emotionally, we decide these new habits aren’t worth the effort after a hard day at work. 

However, it is our reptilian brain that controls our stress response. It does that automatically. When a stressful event occurs, we do not often stop to think about how to cope with the stress. Rather, we do what we have always done to make ourselves feel safe. We do it quickly and without too much thought. We’re not in the ‘thinking’ part of our brain at that point. All our best-laid plans for change go out the window when we experience stress.

Our primal stress-response

We have all experienced something that has caused us to experience the fight, flight, or freeze response. 

We sense danger, and our body instinctively reacts to keep us safe. Familiar things are the safest and most preferable because they settle our nervous system and take us out of danger. 

These familiar things are old coping patterns that work in the short term but may be a barrier to our long-term goals. 

Unfamiliar things are suspect and do not have a track record for being successful, so our primal brain will override any plans we have of coping in a new way. It works instinctually to get us out of danger, even if that means turning to food, drugs, alcohol, scrolling or any number of things that have worked for us short-term in the past.

Turning to these tried-and-true habits, we have not really done anything to calm the nervous system. We have only put a band-aid on the problem.

Changing our habits

How do we feel safe if we take away the short-term habits that we have been relying on for years? 

When we make resolutions or commit to changing our habits, we usually do well until we are faced with a stressful situation. Suddenly, we don’t have the thing that used to has helped us cope in the moment, leading to feeling overwhelmed and unable to manage without our previous habits. 

The best thing we can do when it comes to breaking habits is to add in things that will help to keep the nervous system regulated. That way, we are not as likely to get overwhelmed and reach for our trusty old habits that quickly numb us and make us feel safe.

Nervous system regulation

Keeping the nervous system regulated and better able to handle stress may be easier than you think. Rather than waiting for a stressful situation to come up and using willpower to get us through, we can add daily rituals and routines that can keep the stress from peaking and taking us in to our old coping patterns.

For example, cold therapy has been known to help train the nervous system to recover from shock. Whether you plunge into the ocean or simply run cold water at the end of a shower, you shock your system. Your breath becomes short and quick until you adjust to the cold. Your breath begins to even out and slow down. It teaches your nervous system that recovery quickly follows stress, if you give it a moment.

Breathing in general is a powerful way to bring down your nervous system and keep it in the green zone, feeling safe and in control. Even if stress takes you into a yellow zone (your fight/flight/freeze state), a few deep breaths can help you regulate back to green.

Connecting with someone you love and trust can take you from a really high-stress state (red zone) by helping you offload some of the excess stress by talking it out. When you try and put what is happening in to words, it takes you in to a different part of the brain. Out of instinctually reaching for that old coping strategy and into a calmer state.

Stages of change: Staying in action

Last month’s blog talked about various stages of change. One of the ways to stay in action when it comes to changing your habits is to use nervous system training and regulation to keep you out of the primal brain and into the more rational parts of the brain that allow change to stick. It doesn’t mean that you’ll never experience another stressful situation. But, the old habits can be replaced by other daily routines that become familiar. 

Familiar means safe. Safe means that you are not as likely to be pulled into a place where you are falling back to coping strategies that no longer serve you.