How to Make New Habits for Students — WowEssays Tips

We all have habits: brushing our teeth in the morning and evening or crunching our finger joints. These are actions that we perform without thinking, on automatic. But what is behind these habits? And how to ensure morning exercise is not more complex than a mug of coffee? You can find more educational information on the WowEssays blog.

What is a Habit

Our brain processes a lot of information every day. And to conserve some energy, it tries to take shortcuts wherever possible. If we repeat an action every day at a particular time, it’s as if our brain is programming our body to do them automatically, without extra energy input.

Habits should not be confused with routines. If you force yourself to make your bed in the morning every day, it’s not automatic. But exercise has all chances to become a habit. Repetition of typical complex activities gradually sets up neural networks in procedural memory. This kind of long-term memory manages processes that are performed without the involvement of conscious control or attention.

How Habits Work

If there is anyone among you who has tried to start running in the morning, eating right, or reading before bedtime, you may have heard of such a thing as the “21-day habit.” Or in 66. Or in 274. But here’s the rub — there is no magic number. How long it takes to form a habit depends on your motivation, mood on a given day, the Moon in Sagittarius, and many other factors. The point is not how much you repeat what should be a habit but how you do it.

Interesting Fact!

The myth of the 21-day habit came about thanks to Dr. Maxwell Moltz. He was a plastic surgeon and noticed that people usually get used to their new appearance in at least 21 days. He then decided to see if the same principle would work on habit formation. He experimented on himself and noticed it took him 21 days, too. He published this observation in his book, and motivation gurus picked up on the idea. And “at least 21 days” turned into “in just 21 days.”

You first need to figure out exactly how the habit mechanism works and the cognitive processes behind it. The principle of “shutting off your brain and sending your mind flying” will not work here.

Habit has four stages:

• A Trigger (Cue) lets the brain know that action needs to be taken. It is a signal that tells you that there is a reward somewhere nearby. A trigger can be a certain place, time, sound, or smell.
• Craving. A trigger activates a desire. It is the driving force of the habit, a mental image of the reward you will get. Whether or not you take action depends on its power. If the desire to get the bun is less than the amount of physical and mental strength you will spend on the move, you will not perform it.
• Action (Response) is your habit. If you take action, you get a reward.
• The reward is the ultimate goal of every habit.

Together, these four stages form a “habit loop”:

• The trigger activates the desire.
• The desire prompts the action.
• The action brings the reward, which satisfies the appetite and strengthens the brain’s response to the stimulus.