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Hard to Break: Why Our Brains Make Habits Stick - Hardcover | Diverse Reads

Hard to Break: Why Our Brains Make Habits Stick

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The neuroscience of why bad habits are so hard to break—and how evidence-based strategies can help us change our behavior more effectively

We all have habits we’d like to break, but for many of us it can be nearly impossible to do so. There is a good reason for this: the brain is a habit-building machine. In Hard to Break, leading neuroscientist Russell Poldrack provides an engaging and authoritative account of the science of how habits are built in the brain, why they are so hard to break, and how evidence-based strategies may help us change unwanted behaviors.

Hard to Break offers a clear-eyed tour of what neuroscience tells us about habit change and debunks “easy fixes” that aren’t backed by science. It explains how dopamine is essential for building habits and how the battle between habits and intentional goal-directed behaviors reflects a competition between different brain systems. Along the way, we learn how cues trigger habits; why we should make rules, not decisions; how the stimuli of the modern world hijack the brain’s habit machinery and lead to drug abuse and other addictions; and how neuroscience may one day enable us to hack our habits. Shifting from the individual to society, the book also discusses the massive habit changes that will be needed to address the biggest challenges of our time.

Moving beyond the hype to offer a deeper understanding of the biology of habits in the brain, Hard to Break reveals how we might be able to make the changes we desire—and why we should have greater empathy with ourselves and others who struggle to do so.

ISBN-13: 9780691194325

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Publication Date: 05-04-2021

Pages: 232

Product Dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

Russell A. Poldrack is the Albert Ray Lang Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. He is the author of The New Mind Readers: What Neuroimaging Can and Cannot Reveal about Our Thoughts (Princeton). He lives in San Francisco. Twitter @russpoldrack

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“An authoritative guide to habit, with vivid examples and an author who really knows his stuff! Russell Poldrack is the rare scientist who can push the frontier of knowledge forward and also reach back, offer his hand, and help the rest of us catch up.”—Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

“Hard to Break is a brilliant and supremely readable account of the neuroscience of behavior change, combining the latest science with practical advice, and—above all—hope in the bottom of the box."—Daniel J. Levitin, author of Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives

“This book is for anyone who has ever wondered why self-control isn’t enough. In clear, engaging writing shot through with striking personal experiences, entertaining examples, and the latest neuroscience findings, Poldrack introduces us to the hidden brain systems that control our behavior.”—Wendy Wood, author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick

"Although we love to attend to our conscious thoughts, our brains succeed mostly thanks to deeply burned-in programs—from our speech to our movements to our behaviors. Poldrack takes us on a wonderful journey, highlighting just how much of our lives are defined by habits, why they are so sticky, and what might (or might not) work to loosen their grip."—David Eagleman, author of Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain

“With brilliance and lucidity, Russell Poldrack tells the complex story of why we humans succumb to our huge library of habits and how we might tame some of them for a better life. Read this book!”—Michael S. Gazzaniga, author of The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes the Mind

“In this authoritative and entertaining book, Russell Poldrack explains the breakthroughs that have revolutionized our understanding of how the brain builds and maintains habits. Essential reading for anyone interested in how the mind works.”—Daniel L. Schacter, author of The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Part I The Habit Machine: Why We Get Stuck 1

1 What Is a Habit? 3

The Poet of Habits 4

The Zoo of Habits 5

Habits and Goals 7

Why Do We Have Habits? 10

Understanding Behavior 11

A Road Map for Understanding Habits and Behavior Change 12

2 The Brain's Habit Machinery 16

A System for Conscious Memory 19

Enter the Lizard Brain 23

What Are the Basal Ganglia? 26

Dopamine: It's Complicated 30

Dopamine and Brain Plasticity 34

What Does Dopamine Mean? 36

What about Pleasure? 40

Selecting Actions in the Striatum 42

3 Once a Habit, Always a Habit 45

Old Habits Never Die 46

The Transition to Mindlessness 48

Becoming One: Habits as Chunked Actions 50

Trigger Warning: How Cues Trigger Habits 52

Can't Look Away: Rewarding Stimuli Capture Attention 55

A Recipe for Stickiness 58

4 The Battle for Me 60

A Competition in the Brain? 61

Memory System Interactions in Humans 64

Formalizing the Goal-Habit Distinction 66

Model-Based versus Model-Free Reinforcement Learning 72

Can Goals become Habitual? 77

5 Self-Control: The Greatest Human Strength? 81

What's Up Front? 83

Why Is the Prefrontal Cortex Special? 86

Holding Information in Mind 90

The Waiting Is the Hardest Part 97

Now or Later? 102

Two Minds in One Brain? 106

Controlling Our Impulses 110

Stopping Ourselves 114

The Rise and Fall of Willpower 119

6 Addiction: Habits Gone Bad 123

The Intoxicating Allure of Drugs 123

"This Is Your Brain on Drugs. Any Questions?" 126

The Transition from Impulse to Habit 130

Stress and Addiction 134

Is Addiction Really about Habits? 137

"My Drug of Choice Is Food" 138

Digital Addiction? 144

Why Do Only Some People Become Addicted? 147

Part II Coming Unstuck: The Science of Behavior Change 151

7 Toward a New Science of Behavior Change 153

Behavior Change as a Public Health Problem 153

A New Science of Behavior Change 155

A New Approach to Behavior Change 157

Targets for Intervention 159

8 Planning for Success: Keys to Successful Behavior Change 161

The Architecture of Choice 161

Loss Aversion and Framing 163

Make Rules, Not Decisions 165

Trigger Warning: Intervening on Habits 166

Mindfulness: Hype or Help? 170

Can Self-Control Be Boosted? 171

Training Inhibition 174

Envisioning Change 175

Summing Up 177

9 Hacking Habits: New Tools for Behavior Change 179

Can Bad Habits Be Erased? 179

"I Forgot That I Was a Smoker" 185

Optogenetics in Humans? 187

A Neurochemical "Goldilocks Zone": Drugs to Improve Executive Function 189

Toward Personalized Behavior Change 190

10 Epilogue 194

Summing Up 195

From Individual to Societal Change 198

Notes 201

Index 213