About the process

What are habits?

A habit is just a shortcut. It’s a repetitive behaviour that we do a certain way because we don’t have to think too hard about it. Having habits for life’s daily necessities frees up mental attention. Some examples include: hygiene habits, eating habits and sleeping habits. I’m sure you can think of positive and negative versions of all of those: you floss regularly – or you don’t; you eat a salad with your meal – or you have fries instead; you keep a regular bed time – or you stay up until 2.00 a.m. binge-watching a new show, then feel like crap when you have to get up at 6.30 a.m. to get to work.

If we look under the hood at the engine that runs our habits, the first thing of note is that your brain and your mind are not the same thing. The brain is like a computer’s hardware, while the mind is equivalent to the software that it runs. That software can also be divided into two types: there are the specific programs, like Photoshop and Office, and then there is the operating system. The first is comparable to our conscious mind – mental processes, like decision-making and problem-solving, happen within our awareness. The unconscious mind, on the other hand, is like the operating system – it manages all of the biological systems and all of the data crunching that happens in the background. In fact, it has been estimated that up to 95% of the brain’s activity is happening outside of our consciousness. 

One other thing that’s important to note about the human mind is that some of our software is prehistoric. I mean that literally. The design of our brains is far better suited to life as a hunter-gatherer on the African savannah than to the myriad demands of the 21st century. The workings of the unconscious mind reflect this. Part of its job is to protect us from dangers in our environment – sabre tooth tigers and such like. To do this, it constantly scans our surroundings for anomalies, be they sudden movements in our peripheral vision or a missing mid-afternoon snack. Your unconscious mind is committed to keeping everything the same, even when that same is some highly destructive habits. This means that your conscious mind could be applying will-power by the spadesful to address that unhealthy or unhelpful habit, all the while your unconscious mind is just as diligently working to keep things ‘normal.’ No wonder it can be hard to change!

The Process

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and others have described a four step process that applies, not just to habits, but to all human behviour:

  1. Cue. This is a signal coming from the environment, either within our bodies or outside them.
  2. Craving. This is our – often unconscious – reaction to the cue, that relies on emotional associations stored in our memories.
  3. Response. This is the action that we take in order to address the craving.
  4. Reward. This is the result of our response – we have satisfied the craving that resulted from the cue.

Parts one and two of this process can be viewed as the problem phase, while three and four are the solution phase.

Let’s look at eating as an example. The cue can be internal – our body is low on blood glucose – or external – someone is cooking dinner and the delicious smells are wafting into our room. This triggers a craving – our bellies start to rumble and our mouths to salivate. In response, we are going to go and check on the status of dinner preparations or go foraging in the fridge. Our reward is a full belly and increased blood glucose.

If you had a habit of snacking between meals, your cue might be boredom or the need to take a break in your work day.

If you had an eating disorder, the cue that kicks off this process is likely to be something quite different. For you, the cue could be having shitty day at work or a fight with your partner. The craving in this case is for comfort or the soothing of a painful emotion and because you habitually achieve this with food, it is to food that you go for the answer.

The fix

When you and I start to work together, our first priority is to identify the habit you want to change and trace it back to its origin. For some habits, like the snacking habit example above, there may not be a compelling emotional component – you may simply have got into a popcorn and chips habit that is now showing up on your waistline. In the case of someone who is eating emotionally, the issue usually runs much deeper. When you are eating because you are angry, anxious or depressed, the underlying issue needs to be addressed before you can successfully change your eating habits.

The second step is to create a system to support you through the change process. An optimal system includes both conscious strategies and interventions that can work with the unconscious mind to gently jog you out of your habit groove and help you create better habits for yourself.

  1. Cue. Make the cues for the habit you want to let go of invisible. For example, throw away any cigarettes, give away ashtrays and thoroughly clean your home so that it no longer smells of smoke. Make the cues for the habit you want to create obvious. If you want to drink more water, have a water bottle beside you at all times. We can instruct the unconscious mind not to notice the  cues connected to your habit.       
  2. Craving. Knowing your ‘why’ is vital to the change process, especially when cravings come knocking. Why is it important to free yourself from your habit? When you lose the habit, what do you gain? Being able to remind yourself of what’s most important to you can make a huge contribution to keeping you on track. And so can the powerful techniques that I’m going to teach you that will enlist your unconscious mind to help you to combat your cravings.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
  3. Response. There are some super-simple hacks to help you respond to cravings in a way that is consistent with your goals. Having a healthy alternative to your usual habitual behaviour – such as meals that you have prepared ahead of time – can interrupt unhealthy habits. The goal is to make it easy to follow healthy new habits and setting up your home environment in such a way that it supports this can be very powerful.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
  4. Reward. While having clear and achievable goals can be immensely useful, it’s just as important to have a plan for maintaining this new version of you. Our rewards have to be consistent 
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  6. they can also have a downside. James Clear points to examples such as someone who has a goal to run a marathon who, as soon as the goal is achieved, reverts to unhealthy habits. Designing a system of rewards can help us to stay on track while we are in the process of creating new behaviours. 

Cognitive hypnotherapy - the difference that makes the difference

When you think about it, with 95% of brain activity happening outside of our awareness and habit being behaviour that is purposefully unconscious, changing a habit is going to be much, much easier if you are able to engage with the unconscious.

But, as I’ve hinted at previously, the unconscious works differently to the conscious mind. It can’t, for example, process negatives – the instruction ‘DON’T EAT CAKE’ therefore translates to ‘EAT CAKE.’ And you wonder why it’s hard to lose weight! Part of my role, then, is to translate your habit ambitions into language that your unconscious mind can work with.