Neuro-Habits

some studies have shown that the triggers for automatic behaviors are often environmental. For example, we always get out of bed, put on our slippers and reach for our phone in the same way when we’re in our own homes, but somehow, being in a hotel room for the night disrupts all these old routines.

Rewards can be small—the feeling that things are right in the world, a sense of order or stability, a feeling of completeness and familiarity

third step is the reward, which is what it sounds like: a pleasant outcome that helps to reinforce the behavior so that our brain knows what to return to the next time it encounters the same trigger.

The trigger for one behavior can be the actions of a previous behavior. For example, you always reach for a glass of wine when you get home from work. The trigger is the act of getting home, which basically tells your brain “run the get-a-glass-of-wine program now.”
Once you’re in this mode, you play out the behavior itself, or the routine.

We’ll consider habits in terms of the famous three-part habit loop outlined in Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit.

Habits are there for a reason. They are your brain’s shortcuts through life, or what are called “heuristics,” mental models used to process the familiar and expected patterns of experience.

But the fact is that habits are the external, behavioral manifestations of internal brain processes—which have very little to do with willpower.

or what are called “heuristics,” mental models used to process the familiar and expected