HealthyGamerGG - The Real Reason Your Bad Habits Keep Winning

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

Join Dr. K, a former monk turned psychiatrist, as he reveals the secret to breaking bad habits that monks have mastered! 🧘‍♂️ Discover how cultivating awareness, rather than relying on willpower, can transform your relationship with habits. 🔄 Explore the neuroscience behind habit formation and learn practical techniques to strengthen control over your behaviors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Kay. I spent seven years studying to become a monk and then dropped out, went to med school, and became a psychiatrist. And today, what I want to share with y'all is how monks break bad habits. So the basic problem is that when we struggle with habits, we sort of have this natural inclination, right? I wake up first thing in the morning, I check my phone, I hop onto the computer, and then I open up some sort of distracting thing like social media or Reddit or something like that. And then I try to use willpower to break that habit. And I may succeed for a day or two, but that natural inclination, the habit to check your phone or use technology or eat unhealthy food, seems to linger. And inevitably, our willpower runs out. And then what do we conclude? We conclude that, okay, there are people out there who are disciplined, who aren't lazy like I am, and they can break bad habits, they can build good habits, but I struggle with it. Hey, just a quick note.

A lot of people will ask us, what do I do next? And that's why we built Dr. Kay's guide. It's a comprehensive resource that distills over 20 years of my experience, both as a monk and as a psychiatrist. And it's designed in a way that's tailored to fit your needs. So if you're interested in better understanding your mind and taking control of your life, check out the link below. And what I want to share with you all today is fascinating. Because if we think about monks, all monks will break their bad habits. If you go to a monastery that has 300 monks, none of them will smoke,

none of them will drink, they will all wake up at 4 a.m. every single day. And if you sort of think about it, does that mean that only disciplined people can become monks? No. The monks do something very, very specific. They learn how to break bad habits, and it works for 100% of them. And we're going to teach that to you today. So we have to start by understanding how a habit forms. So generally speaking, when I engage in a behavior for the first time and it's pleasurable or there's some kind of positive reinforcement of it. That is governed by dopamine. So anytime I have fun, my brain releases dopamine.

That sort of reinforces the behavior, right? So if I eat a tasty food and I like it, it's pleasurable. I will want to eat it again. Over time, though, what happens in our brain changes a little bit. So at the beginning, when a behavior is new, it's governed by dopamine. mean, and we reinforce that behavior. But over time, our brain actually activates a completely different circuit, which is actually the cannabinoid circuit or the habit circuit. And so you may have sort of noticed this that when you start doing things habitually, you don't gain the same pleasure

from them. I certainly noticed this when I was struggling with video game addiction. And when I started playing a game, it was like lots of fun. But over time, I stopped enjoying the game, but it almost became habitual. Like, I couldn't stop even though I wasn't having fun. The first half hour or maybe hour I enjoyed it, but hour three, hour four, hour five, I'm not even enjoying it, but I can't stop the behavior. And at this point, what's happened is that sort of behavioral reinforcement has moved into this automatic mode. This is our habit circuitry is actually governed by a completely different neurotransmitter, which are endocannabinoids.

Those are the same things that are involved with marijuana, but our body produces them. It's kind of complicated. We don't need to get into it. The point is that at that point, the behavior is not being positively reenoboes. forced by dopamine. Once our cannabinoid system activates, this is what becomes a habit. So we sort of do it automatically. We do it without thinking about it. Now that we understand how habits form, let's dive into a little bit of precisely what a habit is. So a habit is an unconscious behavior, right? By definition, if I have a habit of doing something, let's say I have a habit to like itch my arms, the whole point

is that it's unconscious. I don't think about doing it. It is an automatic behavior. And then we run into a slight problem because if we try to change the habit, what do we end up doing? We try to control it using a third part of our brain, which is our frontal lobes. So our frontal lobes are sort of the master control system of the brain. When you're feeling negative emotions and you force yourself to do something, that's your frontal lobes being active. When we have a bad habit that we're trying to control, that's our frontal lobes exerting that kind of control. But the basic problem that we run into is that our habits are formed through pleasure, right? So when I enjoy something over time, if I do it every day, it will become a habit. The basic problem with breaking bad habits is that I'm not

recruiting the same circuitry. So when I try to restrain myself from, let's say, eating a piece of cake or eating french fries, there's no pleasure, there's no dopamine, so there's no behavioral reinforcement. And so this is why people tend to fail at breaking bad habits, because there's nothing enjoyable about them. And so you may stop and think, and you may think, okay, so now this guy is going to teach us how to make unfun things fun, which we can absolutely do, but we're actually going to teach you a secret trick that monks use, okay? So what do monks do? Let's understand this. So monks break all of their bad habits, but it's not like they do lots of pleasurable stuff, right? So that's actually not what they do. What they do is recruit a completely different circuit,

a third circuit, which is related to the frontal lobes. What monks actually do is they're hyper aware of all of their actions. So all they do is become aware. Now, how does this help? Let's think about it, right? So remember that a habit is an unconscious action. If I take the action consciously, literally in my brain, it is no longer a habit. We're using different parts of the brain. And I'm not even using willpower to control the habit. I'm not trying to restrain myself and not eat the cake, what monks actually start with is very, very intentional usage of their bad habits. So when I was studying to become a monk, I had a teacher who sort of taught me this principle by overcoming their addiction to potato chips. So they sort of, it's kind of bizarre, right?

But this is what monks struggle with. So one of my teachers struggled with being addicted to potato chips. And they would resist for a while, but eventually they'd have to leave the monastery. And they'd have to go into town. And in India, like on the side of the road, you have to people who are frying fresh potato chips. And so like this person would smell these like fresh fried potato chips and someone's like hollering, right? And it smells like so good. Like the smell of fresh fried food. And this is the only thing that this guy makes. So it's like absolutely delicious, right? Because he's a master. All he does is fry potato chips all day long every day, 365 days a year. And so eventually my teacher would cave and he'd eat the

potato chips. So he went to his guru and he asked him, how do I overcome this? This is the one thing that I can't break. And what his teacher told him was actually kind of bizarre. He said, don't resist the craving at all. Just eat potato chips with full awareness. Anytime you want a potato chip, eat it. And he actually told them that instead of just buying one bag and resisting, I want you to buy three bags of potato chips.

Eat one when you're out in town and bring the other two back to the monastery. Keep them with you at all times. And the moment you want to eat one, give into it, but give into it with awareness. Pay attention to what does this craving look like? How do I want the potato chip to taste? Is my mouth, am I salivating? Is my mouth watering? When you eat the potato chip, do you enjoy it?

And what happens to the desire after? Engage with the potato chip with full awareness. And this is literally what monks do. They don't practice restraining themselves. What they really practice is cultivating awareness. And the cool thing about it is that the moment that you take an action with awareness, you are no longer operating in that habit circuitry. You are chipping away at that habit circuitry.

And this is what's happening kind of neuroscientifically in the brain, which we understand from people with addictions. So when people have addictions, what we sort of figured out, and this is something I learned clinically, is that people with addictions are not aware of what they're doing. So I'll have patients who will be sober for six months, and they'll come in one week and they'll say,

I don't know what happened, Doc. I just woke up and then I slipped up. right? I just started drinking again. I have no idea what triggered it. And if you look at neuroscience studies of people who have addictions, they lack, they have a lack of awareness of their internal emotional state. So what's literally happening with people with addictions is they'll try to break the habit, right? That's really what an addiction is. It's a really powerful habit. And so what they'll do is resist with willpower over time, but eventually they'll slip up because over that six month period, at some point, stress is going to start increasing.

At some point, there's conflict within their relationship. They're worried about getting fired or getting promoted or their friends aren't inviting them to stuff. So that internal stress builds up. And as that internal stress builds up, they're not really aware of it. And then eventually the stress gets so bad that they have to use something like alcohol as a coping mechanism. But the whole point is that people with addictions are blind to this process.

And this is why scientifically mindfulness is so helpful with addiction. And the cool thing about mindfulness is that it doesn't work in the way that other things work. So we know that, for example, Alcoholics Anonymous or peer support is effective for addictions. We know certain medications are effective for addictions. We also know that like psychotherapy is effective for addictions, but all those three things work in different ways. When I'm doing psychotherapy with a patient, they may have some sort of deep-rooted trauma, which causes them to sort of engage with alcohol as like a coping mechanism.

But mindfulness works in a completely different way. All it really does is raise awareness. And so what's happening in the brain when we raise awareness? So literally what's happening is right now when we try to control a behavior, our frontal lobe is trying to control or restrain that habit. Okay? So if you struggle with bad habits, the basic problem is that the connection between your frontal lobes and your habit circuitry is very small.

It's like a small straw. So we have to use a lot of willpower or a lot of energy to regulate that kind of habit. Instead, every time we do something with awareness, even if you fail, and this is where people trip up, they say, oh, I failed at controlling the habit, I screwed up. But if you do it with awareness, the goal is not actually to succeed or even like stop the behavior at all. The goal is every time you do it with awareness, you are increasing the size of your straw. You are literally strengthening the connections between your frontal lobe and your habit circuitry. And we don't even need pleasure. We don't need to use the dopamine circuit at all.

And this is precisely what monks do. So as they strengthen those connections, they increase the size of their straw. And then what ends up happening is they don't need to use a lot of energy or willpower to break a habit. And this is the secret through which monks actually break all of their habits. They don't actually focus on controlling anything. they don't focus on developing a lot of willpower. They are not naturally disciplined people, right? Because if you think about monks, there's 300 of them,

and they have a methodology that they teach to each and every monk who when they enter the monastery is a normal human being. And at the end of this methodology, by using these techniques, you have 300 people who are free of all of their addictions. So if you're struggling with a bad habit, what I would strongly recommend is that you engage in the habit with awareness. And this is also where you've got to be kind of careful because even if you screw up, even if you're not able to resist the piece of cake or using the cell phone or something like that, try to garner as much awareness as you can when you use it. Just notice. Like look at it and say like, oh, wow, like I really want to use this phone right now. And it seems too hard to stop. So let me use it. It's okay. Or if you're trying to eat something, pause for a second and like, look at that piece of cake and be like, okay, I really want to eat this. Let's see how it tastes. And the cool thing is. is that as you do that over and over and over again,

you will be strengthening this connection between your frontal lobe and your habit circuitry, and then you will discover this tipping point, which is exactly what happened to me, and this is why I decided to become a monk in the first place, is I struggled so much with video game addiction, all these bad habits, and I went to India, and I was like, wow, this is amazing.

Like, suddenly things are becoming easier for me. Controlling my own behaviors, and my bad habits are starting to feel easy to handle. And so each time you do something with awareness, What ends up happening is you're chipping away at that bad habit. And eventually you'll hit this tipping point and suddenly you will need a very small amount of willpower to actually enact a strong behavioral change. So definitely try this out and cultivate awareness. And even if you screw up, not a big deal.

Just wake up the next day and cultivate more awareness.