Break a Habit or Make a Habit- You choose

How is it that some people seem to be addicted to working out and others struggle to get off the couch every day? Whether you're a food junkie or training junkie, you have created the cycle through repitition. The good news is, if you want to change, you can! And if you want to stay the same you can do that, too. Our brains control all and are incredibly fascinating.

So what makes the runner compelled to run every day or the lazy man well, lazy? The same mechanism controls both attributes- neuroplasticity. Through a reward-based system set-up in the brain, we "control" our habits: We can break bad habits and solidify good habits.

If we run every day and the brain interprets it as good and fun, we secret dopamine, the "feel good" hormone or "reward transmitter." Thereby telling the brain that what we're doing is good and to keep doing it so we can get this "high." But in the same regard, if we run and the brain interprets it as bad, boring, or even worse, painful, this too solidifies in the brain. A painful experience is more readily remembered than a pleasurable experience- for survival's sake of course. If an experience is painful, the brain more readily lays down the memory and can virtually retrieve it faster, making it "hardwire" faster out of safety and...survival! Our brain doesn't want our bodies doing something harmful because it threatens our existence.

How does all this brain pain and pleasure relate to training and how can we best take advantage of these innate phenomena? If you hate training but want to "get into shape," lose weight, or get stronger, you have to lay down a pleasurable training experience repetitively in your brain. We literally have a "use-it-or-lose-it" brain. (Which makes perfect sense for the conservation of energy; our ultimate survival instinct.) So if you repeatedly do something you like, you repeatedly get rewarded and the signal is reinforced. But remember, you have to do something rewarding a lot more than you have done something painful (figuratively or otherwise) in order for the good habit to take hold and hardwire in your brain and mind. If you don't practice pleasurable training, you will lose the desire and therefore lose the habit. This is both the beauty and the crux of a plastic brain bent on efficiency.

How can we optimize solidyfing a good habit: do it when we fall in love or become new parents! These two stages can and most often happen in adult life. Which means you can take advantage of their power even as you age! When we fall in love or become parents we undergo a "massive neuro-reorganization" and consequently release oxytocin. Oxytocin is bascially another feel good drug that has a more general system impact than dopamine alone. It not only makes us feel good, but it makes us mellow, which makes everything appear better. If you take up training or a new skill at these two periods, you can in fact solidify any habit you want! Success breeds success," and love follows this rule. When we're in love, we want to be happy- making it much harder to be miserable, in pain, and unhappy. So when you're happy and in love, you will be successful!

Conclusion: To be better at something, you have to practice it so the brain can "hardwire" it. Optimize success through love, happiness, and the pleasure of doing the act. :) On the flip side, don't try to get better at something by being afraid of it or creating negativity around it- or get hurt doing it!