1. Breaking Bad Habits: The Science & Psychology of Behavior Change-Part 2
Richard Jones MA, MBA, LCAS, CEAP, CCS, SAP

2. Impulsive Decisions

3. Impulsive Decisions
Avoid Triggers

4. Impulsive Decisions
Relieve tension: self soothing; supportive people

5. Impulsive Decisions
Blow it up. Bold Moves. Get Out. Run…

6. Impulsive Decisions Abstinence Violation Effect (AVE) Shake it off…
Reward Success…

7. What makes it harder to interrupt impulse…
Decision Fatigue & Willpower
Fatigue
Emotional reserves/distractions
Behavior/lifestyle choices as a way to cope with negative emotions

8. Situation or Event Thinking Emotion Behavior /Habit Consequence
ROLE OF THOUGHTS
& EMOTIONS
Our beliefs and thoughts influence every aspect of our behavior.
The more awareness we have of our thinking, the greater control we have over our behavior.
…IN FORMING HABITS.
…for better or worse. Often we are not fully aware of why we act the way we do – our subconscious is always at play. We become conditioned to act/respond certain ways overtime.
…and less likely we are to be controlled by our habits.
Common chain of events: Situation, Distorted thinking leads to negative emotions which lead to habits which lead to consequences (effective way of coping in the moment but causes harm down the road).
Situations/Events are largely out of our control, as is the habit when fully ingrained. Therefore, change must occur in the underlying thinking about ourselves or the situation that influences the thinking that triggers the emotion and habit in order to break the cycle.
Ex: procrastination of an assignment
Situation or Event Thinking Emotion
Behavior /Habit Consequence

9. STYLES OF DISTORTED THINKING
Filtering
Catastrophizing
Personalization
Overgeneralization
Emotional Reasoning
Projection
Can be bad habits by themselves but also lead to problematic behavior…
Most of us probably have been guilty of thinking one of these ways or know others who have. Mind traps.
Filtering.
We take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation
Catastrophizing.
We expect disaster to strike, no matter what. Imagine worst possible outcome.
Personalization.
We believe everything others do or say is some kind of direct, personal reaction to us (egocentricism).
Overgeneralization.
We come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or a single piece of evidence. Failed once, will always fail.
Emotional Reasoning.
We believe that what we feel must be true automatically. I feel I’m boring, therefore I am.
Control Fallacies.
If we feel externally controlled, we see ourselves as helpless a victim of fate. Might as well do nothing.

10. WORK ON YOUR THOUGHTS TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS
Thinking through our motivation, what we value, where we want to be.
Recognizing distortions of thought within ourselves.
Reframing: for each form of distorted thinking, come up with a disputation.
Retrain the Brain: practice substituting distorted thoughts with more accurate disputations.
Identify and prioritize your values. What is important to you? What do you admire and value? What do you want to be remembered for?
Do your habits support or conflict with your values? 
Scare tactics ineffective. Desire to change must come from within.
Change must occur in thinking about oneself or situation that influences the behavior or habit in order to break the habit.
Helps to have a sudden epiphany, but more likely a realization that comes gradually over time, with repeat experience of consequences or accumulative effect. Cost/benefits analysis of our habit (ex. of the binge drinker).
Recognizing distortion of thought within ourselves or individual we are helping.
For each form of distorted thinking, come up with disputation. Challenge/Retrain the brain to consider the alternative thought.

11. SET ACHEIVABLE GOALS Awareness is the first key
Link your new habits to your LONG TERM values and goals
Use the awareness of your long term goals (willpower) to change your own reward values
Kym
How can I make this a success?
Awareness is the first key- what are your negative associations?
How has this habit become integrated into your life?
 How can you undo those connections- how will you substitute?
Link your new habits to your LONG TERM values and goals
What new habit will you instill- What goals will you set?
What is going to help you achieve this?
What is hindering your ability to achieve this?
Use the awareness of your long term goals (willpower) to change your own reward values
What is important to you?
Half habits- taking small steps to achieve your goal.
Specific
Measurable
Realistic
Incremental
Repitition and reward

12. PAVE THE WAY FOR SUCCESS
Track
Avoid
Replace
Observe
Kym
Linking the replacement behavior to the habit/ Making it a compatible replacement- context related.
Track when you display your habits and the context
Avoid triggers associated with your habit
Replace the bad habit with a compatible ‘good’ habit (taking 5 deep breaths instead of smoking- find the thing the person really cares about and link new habit to persons essential values and goals)
Observe others who have achieved the goal we want (non-smokers if we are a smoker), and mimic their habits- build new associations.

13. Solicitous Spouse Effect- THEN WHAT DEFINES “HELPING” ANOTHER?
ENABLING HABITS
Solicitous Spouse Effect-
One study showed that people who deal with chronic pain experience a measurable three-fold increase in their experience of pain when they have a ‘solicitous spouse’ present who typically dotes on their pain.
THEN WHAT DEFINES “HELPING” ANOTHER?
The report explained that “Through the feedback loops of a marriage or long partnership, the patient’s pain has shaped the helping behavior of the solicitous spouse, who in turn has become a stimulus to provoke the pain.”
Chandra One study showed that the pain suffered by people with severe, chronic backaches would increase three-fold when their “solicitous husbands and wives were present in the room when electric shocks were applied to their aching backs.
“The neural monitors showed that the more the husbands or wives dwelt on their partners’ pain, the worse it felt,” stated the lead investigator.
The report explained that “Through the feedback loops of a marriage or long partnership, the patient’s pain has shaped the helping behavior of the solicitous spouse, who in turn has become a stimulus to provoke the pain.”
In the work on spouses and pain, researchers used a technique that records brain activity, termed an electroencephalogram (EEG) to find that some husbands and wives can boost the pain response of patients with chronic back pain. "For the first time we have discovered that a social variable, namely the presence of a spouse, can influence the brain's response to pain," says the study's lead author Herta Flor, PhD, of the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
Specifically, Flor and her colleagues found that the presence of "solicitous" spouses can increase pain. These spouses had a history of dwelling on their partners' pain. "Non-solicitous spouses" caused no effect. This group did not focus on their partners' pain in the past and even tried to distract them from it.
In the study the researchers administered painful electric stimulation to 10 patients with solicitous spouses that had chronic back pain, 10 pain patients with non-solicitous spouses and 10 healthy controls. Spouses sat in the laboratory and were not allowed to interact with the patients.
"Our EEG results indicate that painful stimulation applied to the back induced brain activity in the chronic pain patients that was two and a half times higher when a solicitous spouse was in the room," says Flor. "These patients also showed more overt signs of feeling pain, such as moaning."
The anterior cingulate cortex, a brain structure that has been linked to the processing of pain, showed the most prominent increase in activity following back stimulation. "The data suggest that the painful stimulation of the back in the presence of a solicitous spouse directly activates brain regions involved in the processing of pain and leads to a more intense response," says Flor.
The presence of a solicitous spouse did not affect the brain's response to painful stimulation of the finger or non-painful stimulation.
"The findings show that the solicitous spouse has become a cue for a more intense pain experience in the back," says Flor. "Treatment of chronic pain should focus on the modification of these types of negative influences on a patient's social environment."

14. SECONDARY GAIN
Rescuing or attending primarily to negative responses can reinforce bad habits in others
Providing attention, relief, or rescuing people when they feel bad or respond inappropriately can reward bad responses and make them habitual
Talk about
These rewards can turn a negative response into a habit
If we are rewarded for doing things that make us feel bad, we tend to feel bad!

15. WHY IS WILLPOWER NOT ENOUGH?
“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.” - Mark Twain
Willpower is great for increasing perseverance through a difficult task, but is not great for preventing you from doing bad habits.
Kym
How can willpower help? -It can help if we connect our new GOOD habit to long-term, beneficial consequences.
-It also can help if we take small steps to increasing positive habits before our targeted “quit date”.
How does conscious thought modify the process?
Willpower alone is not enough to actively hold back habits
We must reframe our expectations, beliefs and values- alter value estimates
Substitution with similar contexts to override the habit
Much of our society is set up to overvalue bad habits, so it typically takes intentional reshaping of expectations, thoughts and environment to align our reward value estimates with the actual impact of the response on health.
It has been shown that our thoughts alone can control/modulate our dopamine response. When there is the expectation of reward, we respond with a dopamine release, even with a placebo
“Removing the secondary gain may trigger the brain to seek even more reward” ~PC
Ex. don’t think about a white elephant
WHY: Because holding something in active memory (frontal cortex- associated with willpower) makes the brain constantly aware of what you are trying NOT to do! i.e.- do not think of a white elephant!
How can willpower help?
How does conscious thought modify the process?

16. HABITS ARE CONTAGIOUS
We are pre-programmed to mimic/model the behavior of those we surround ourselves with.
People
Places
Things
Social reinforcement rewards habits
The “culture” of the household you work in

17. Visualization
Guided Imagery
practicing/imagining the new behavior can help us speed the learning of it.
Visualizing the action strengthens your neural pathways the same as if you had physically done the action. .
***Kym
EX: In an experiment with a group of skiers, EMG discovered that when they mentally rehearsed their downhill runs, the electrical impulses sent to the muscles were the same as when physically engaged in the runs.
Guided Imagery exercises

18. GOOD HABITS What are good habits? With handout/
ask for audience participation on what good habits could be used to replace the bad habit your group was assigned
Being on time
Meeting deadlines
Eating a healthier diet
Responding to s
Initiating projects
Completing projects
Getting organized
Budgeting money
Improving communication
Setting goals and achieving them
Regular exercise
What are good habits?

19. Final Thoughts One thing at time?
How long until new habit is established?