Hard to Break
Why Our Brains Make Habits Stick
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- £13.99
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- £13.99
Publisher Description
The neuroscience of why bad habits are so hard to break—and how evidence-based strategies can help us change our behavior more effectively
We all have habits we’d like to break, but for many of us it can be nearly impossible to do so. There is a good reason for this: the brain is a habit-building machine. In Hard to Break, leading neuroscientist Russell Poldrack provides an engaging and authoritative account of the science of how habits are built in the brain, why they are so hard to break, and how evidence-based strategies may help us change unwanted behaviors.
Hard to Break offers a clear-eyed tour of what neuroscience tells us about habit change and debunks “easy fixes” that aren’t backed by science. It explains how dopamine is essential for building habits and how the battle between habits and intentional goal-directed behaviors reflects a competition between different brain systems. Along the way, we learn how cues trigger habits; why we should make rules, not decisions; how the stimuli of the modern world hijack the brain’s habit machinery and lead to drug abuse and other addictions; and how neuroscience may one day enable us to hack our habits. Shifting from the individual to society, the book also discusses the massive habit changes that will be needed to address the biggest challenges of our time.
Moving beyond the hype to offer a deeper understanding of the biology of habits in the brain, Hard to Break reveals how we might be able to make the changes we desire—and why we should have greater empathy with ourselves and others who struggle to do so.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Psychologist Poldrack (The New Mind Readers) sheds light on the neuroscience and psychology behind habits in this scholarly survey. A habit, he writes, is "an action or thought that is triggered automatically by a particular stimulus," and isn't tied to a specific goal. As he explores why humans evolved to be so habit-driven, Poldrack considers dopamine, which is crucial in forming habits for its impacts on brain plasticity; questions the efficacy of mindfulness (now a "billion-dollar industry"); and covers the formation of addictions, which he calls "habits gone bad." Poldrack's study is strongest when he describes experiments on interrupting habit formation on a cellular level, which can potentially help one shed such undesirable behaviors as smoking and overeating. (For instance, after cocaine-addicted rats were given drugs that block the formation of a protein that is important for memory, they forgot that a stimulus is associated with the drug.) A plethora of diagrams, italicized key terms (basal ganglia, subthalamic nucleus, corticostriatal loops), and chapter summaries, however, give the survey a textbook-like quality. Still, this is a worthy intellectual adventure, one that's well articulated for readers looking for rigorous study. Illus.
