Simple Steps to Behavioral Change

Since the early part of the last decade, research of the brain has yielded discoveries that have led to a paradigm shift in the field of neurobiology. These insights have shown us that the brain is malleable, allowing us to consciously develop new neural pathways through which we can create new behaviors or eliminate undesirable ones. Over time, each small change, when pieced together, can create bigger changes that can change the tapestry of our lives. Over the coming year, I believe that interest in how the brain works will grow, leading many people to investigate and apply practical steps to change.

One way to change a behavior begins with the not so new idea of creating a habit. It has come to be accepted that repeating a behavior for a specific timeframe, usually 21 or 20 days, results in the formation of a habit. What is also well established, but perhaps less commonly known,¹ is that the act of simply taking notice and recording the occurrence of a behavior can affect the frequency in which it occurs*. For example, if you want to stop a long entrenched nervous habit of twirling your hair, then recording the number of times that this behavior occurs may reduced its rate of occurrence. Similarly, if you want to create a desirable behavior, such as taking a daily vitamin each morning, then by making a note of each time you actually take the vitamin could increase the occurrence of this behavior.

I decided to combine all of these approaches to install a new habit of setting a my timer watch when placing a pot of water on the stove to boil. While this admittedly a simple task, it is also one that I kept forgetting to do. I decided to try to instill this habit after I was distracted several times by telephone calls from another room, only to return and find a scorched pot. To keep this or something worse from happening again, I decided to set the watch each time I put a pot on to boil. To reinforce this behavior, I placed a large index card on the counter near the stove. I wrote the days of the week across the top and drew lines to create four, basically creating a mini calendar of 30 days. Each time I put water on to boil and remembered to set the watch, I put a check mark in the spot for that day. However, when I forgot to set the watch, I placed a zero on in the spot. I believe that marking both the positive and negative occurrences would help me to develop this habit, which I did.

I soon learned that I could use this same approach to create other positive behaviors and reduce or eliminate negative ones. My motivation came from understanding that what I was really doing each time was laying down a new neural pathway, essentially creating a path of least resistance for the new behavior to follow.

1. Ratey John, Johnson Catherine. The hidden epidemic. In: Shadow Syndromes. New York: Pantheon Books; 1997: 279-339.