CONVERSATIONS WITH DR. AMY JOHNSON
What leads us to form habits? What goes inside the brain during
the habit-formation process? And more importantly, how can we
break the destructive habits that could lead us to failures or poor
life decisions?
DR. AMY JOHNSON—psychologist and author of The Little
Book of BIG Change: The No-Willpower Approach to Breaking Any Habit
(New Harbinger Publications, 2016)—offers ways to understand
urges and embrace insights in order to change behaviors.
PULSE: Your book title is interesting. Can you
expound more on what you mean by “the nowillpower approach” to breaking any habit?
Dr. Amy Johnson: This approach is about insight—seeing
something from within that changes our understanding of
ourselves and our habits. Willpower, on the other hand, is
about changing our behavior first; trying to do things differently and hoping the new behaviors stick. Willpower is doing
without seeing, which is why it’s hard and rarely leads to deep
or permanent change.
P: What leads us to form destructive habits?
J: Habits are born out of an attempt to feel better; to get closer
to “home.” Home base for all humans is peace and wellness.
So when we aren’t there (and we humans are often not there!)
we do what occurs to us from our current understanding to feel
better. When a smoker or compulsive eater or obsessive smartphone checker starts to get away from home base (i.e., not feel
so great), their brain gives them a solution that numbs their
discomfort a bit — smoke, eat, or check their phone. Those
actions reduce their discomfort a bit and a habit is formed.
P: You talked a lot about how the brain works in the
habit-formation process. Can you share some scientific
insights on this topic?
J: Habits are very sticky because they work when it comes to
feeling better in the moment. Of course they create problems
and far more pain for us in the long-term, but they absolutely
work to help us feel comforted in the moment. Your brain is a
very smart machine and it wants you to feel better—it notices
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when you’re feeling badly and then, you take a drink, for
example, and suddenly feel a bit better.
The part of the brain from which habits operate (referred to
as the lower brain in the book) is the same part of the brain
responsible for fight or flight and your basic survival. Your habit
and your survival get a little confused—what starts as a simple
action that produces some happy neurochemicals can quickly
begin to look like a matter of life or death to your lower brain.
Anyone who has been in the grips of a strong habit can attest
to the fact that urges can absolutely feel like a matter of life or
death even though we all logically know they aren’t.
P: You wrote in your book that “insights” changes
behavior? What do you mean by this?
J: In terms of our moment-to-moment behavior, we all do what
occurs to us to do from the thoughts and understanding about
life we have in that very moment. When we don’t see or understand much, our options are limited. Our behaviors will be
what occurs to us to do from that particular view of the world.
But when we insightfully see things differently, new behaviors
and ways of being become available to us. Our behavior
naturally changes as a result.
Our understanding is a little like being on a glass elevator. If
you’re stuck on the bottom floor, you can only see so much.
Your behavior is limited by what you see. But as you understand more and more about yourself, life, your habit, it’s like
rising up to the upper floors on that elevator. From the top floor
of a glass elevator, you see a very different reality than from the
basement floor. The behaviors and options available to you
from that place are very different.