Something You Should Know - Why You Need to Play More & The Good News and Bad News About Habits

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, the FedEx logo is considered one of the best logos ever. I'll explain why that is. Then, everyone knows it's important to incorporate more play into your life. But there is a healthy dose of reluctance. When I say to people, you know, we should all be more playful, intellectually I get a yes, definitely.

Starting point is 00:00:52 But then when I say, so when's the last time you sat at your desk and blew some bubbles? People do look at me with a little bit of, are you serious? Also, there's an interesting connection between over-the-counter pain relievers and hearing loss. And we'll take a close look at your habits, where they come from, and why you have them. Usually habits are a good thing. We notice them when they're a bad thing, you know, when we have bad habits. You know, one really important thing that neuroscientists know about habits is just how fundamentally important they are. And that's why our brains are kind of built to make them all this today on something you should know bumble knows it's hard

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Starting point is 00:02:07 Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. As you go about your day, you probably see at least one or two FedEx trucks drive by with their iconic logo on the side. Did you know that the FedEx logo is legendary among designers? It has won over 40 design awards and is considered one of the best logos of all time. Nearly every design school professor and graphic designer with a blog has at some point focused on the FedEx logo. Why? Well, it's because of how the logo uses negative space. If you look in the lower space between the E and the X, you will see an arrow, a white arrow. Usually people don't notice the arrow until it's pointed out to them. But once you see it, it's almost impossible not to see it again

Starting point is 00:03:13 every time you look at that logo. And that is something you should know. When I mention the word play, you probably think of children. Children are really good at playing. But play seems to become less important, less practical, and less necessary as we get older. But maybe that's the wrong way to look at it. Playing as an adult may be absolutely necessary for a lot of important reasons. Even just incorporating small moments of play can make a difference in your life in several different ways. And here to explain how

Starting point is 00:03:52 and why is psychotherapist Joanna Fortune, who is author of a book called Why We Play, How to Find Joy and Meaning in Everyday Life. Hi, Joanna. Thanks for being here. Great to be here, Michael. Thanks for having me. So when you look at child development, play is a big part of that. You hear all the experts talk about the importance of play. Kids need to learn how to play with each other, that play is critical in their development. And yet, as we get older, our role within the play narrative as being to support children in playing, to play with them and to let them lead the way. All of which is true, but equally true is that whether you be a parent or not, right

Starting point is 00:04:56 across the trajectory of our lives, we continue to need play. And it's about really challenging that concept of play being a box of toys in the corner of a room and really reaching into that idea that play is a state of mind. And a playful mind is one that is flexible and adaptable and is therefore amenable to change. And so as an adult, what does it mean to play? If it isn't a box of toys, what is it? Well, that's such a great question because I'm smiling as I'm answering it because for me, I still would play in what would be deemed quite a whimsical play pattern.

Starting point is 00:05:39 I like the messy play, the painting, the finger painting, the play-doh. Others amongst us are playing, but we're not calling it play, the painting, the finger painting, the play-doh. Others amongst us are playing, but we're not calling it play and we're not crediting ourselves with being as playful as perhaps we are. Some of us will have tendencies that are more intellectual-based play. You know, it could be those of us who wouldn't let a day go by without doing the crossword or wordle or sudoku or jigsaws. And we really love those complicated jigsaw puzzles or the 3D versions. Or we might play with Lego, but it's got to be one of those big complicated things where we're building the Eiffel Tower or something like that. Play that

Starting point is 00:06:17 really stimulates the mind, that is still play. And there's others amongst us who might be listening going, no, neither of those are me. But you might be somebody who has very other oriented play. You enjoy group activities, team sports, being part of a league, being part of a training session on a regular basis. And that's your type of play. How would you say people, grownups, adults do with this that are most of us pretty playful and that you're really trying to rally a small percentage of people or are most of us lacking in play or what well it's so interesting because i put out a question you know not that this is you know solid research but i put out a question on social media, asking people, you know, do you consider

Starting point is 00:07:05 yourself playful? And most people said yes. And when I asked, you know, are you happy with how much access that you have to play right now in your life? The answer was overwhelmingly no. And when I further queried what was the greatest block, it was a combination of time and opportunity, but also self-consciousness. And I'm asking that question, Michael, to people who are already following me on social media. That's what I mean. It's not proper research.

Starting point is 00:07:32 There is a bias there. They're already following me for this type of content. And while I'm talking with people who see themselves as playful, who enjoy playfulness, there's still a cohort of people who feel they are not getting enough access to play. So that was really striking for me. So I would think, I really do think this, by the way, that with very rare exception, we all have capacity to be playful. I think it's innate in us. I think for some of us, our play muscles may be a little rusty, a little stiff, a little underdeveloped. And there's

Starting point is 00:08:05 always a story behind that. But I think we all have capacity to live more playful lives. What that will look and sound and feel like for each of us is going to be different. But I think that we should all stretch ourselves a little and say, how much more playful could we be? Simply because of the benefits. You know, we know that this kind of creative, curious mind, and we, how much more playful could we be? Simply because of the benefits. We know that this kind of creative, curious mind, and it's worth holding that in mind, that a curious mind is a playful mind. So if you're somebody who likes to work out solutions to problems, who will find yourself looking at a situation and thinking, I wonder, I wonder if I did this, and I wonder, could we try it that way? You're already entering into that playful state of mind.

Starting point is 00:08:47 So is the word play part of the problem? And when you hear the word play, you think of maybe something that's fairly frivolous, unnecessary, childlike, and, you know, not something grownups do. But you also hear, you know, if you were to ask people, do you think play is important as an adult? I'm sure they would say yes. So I think, yes, most people are open to this, but there is a healthy dose of reluctance. Let me put it that way in terms of when I say to people, you know, we should all be more playful.

Starting point is 00:09:21 Intellectually, I get an overwhelming, yes, definitely. But then when I say, so when's the last time you sat at your desk at work and blew some bubbles and popped them with your finger? People do look at me with a little bit of, are you serious? And then yes, yes, I'm afraid I am. I'm serious. But you know, Michael, if you're starting something new, none of us should start at the point of greatest resistance, really. So if you heard me say blow bubbles and you're like, nope, I'm out, fear not. That is one form of play and there are many others. Maybe you're going to build up to the bubble blowing, but you're not starting there if that's where you feel greatest resistance. And so what would that ladder look like that

Starting point is 00:10:00 you're building up to blowing bubbles at your desk? Like doing things like what, for example? So for example, in my own desk drawer, I would keep a little play pack so that I have this daily play break. So in my play pack, I would have something as simple, and this is something that you could start with. Simply take a piece of paper and take a pencil into your hand.

Starting point is 00:10:21 Start, you know, you're gonna naturally pick it up in whatever your dominant hand is, but I'm now going to ask you to swap it over to your non-dominant hand. I place the pencil on a piece of paper and I close my eyes. And as I count slowly backwards from 15 to one, I just move that pencil all around the page, making a scribble, a mark. When I get to one, I open my eyes, swap the pencil back to my dominant hand, turn the page 180 degrees. So the other way around, in other words, and then I add features onto it just for a couple of minutes. And I, out of that chaos, I create order. I create something recognizable. That's a play break. Nobody's going to see you do that. Nobody's going to be like,

Starting point is 00:11:03 what are you doing doodling on that page? It's not unusual in a workspace to pick up a paper and pencil. So this is something that you can do in a much less self-conscious way. But within that play pack in my desk, while I would have something like that, I also have a small little tub of putty because sometimes when I need to concentrate on something, it helps me to roll, to stretch, to pull, to make shapes out of Play-Doh or putty. And that's something that's very sensory. It helps to pull me out of my head and anchor me down into the now moments. The only reason I mentioned bubbles is because for me, I find it a really good and playful way to regulate my breath. If I'm feeling under pressure, if I can feel myself getting a little bit stressed, because in blowing bubbles, you have to take a deep breath in

Starting point is 00:11:49 and you exhale through your mouth. But in doing it through bubbles, your focus is on playfulness, not just take a breath and calm down. Because in the history of being stressed out, anybody telling you to take a breath and calm down really doesn't calm you down. Playfulness always seems to be easier when there are children involved it it kind of gives you an excuse to do it because well the kids want to play so i guess i'll play with the kids and and it makes it more i guess it makes it more acceptable at least in people's minds they they're not quite as self-conscious about what they're doing because they're playing with children. Oh, absolutely. I mean, children are definitely handy to have around

Starting point is 00:12:29 when it comes to saying, I'm going to get more playful. But, you know, it's a different type of play when we're playing with children, because there are two ways as parents of playing with children. You know, we either follow their lead. It's very child directed. And in a way that we can avoid saying, how was your day? What did you do? Where did you go? Who did you speak to? What happened? And the children look at us and they're like, I am done with the Q&A part of my day. I'm giving you nothing. So if you want to know how their day was, join them in their world and language of play on the floor. It's all happening there. That's how they process, make meaning. Or maybe within our playing

Starting point is 00:13:03 with children, we have a little bit of an agenda. We want to do, for example, some impulse control. So we're going to play games like Mother May I, Simon Says, Red Light, Green Light, games that's, you know, start, stop, start, stop, take your cue from the adult in charge, that there is a little bit of an agenda in there. And that is child focused-led play. So when we're playing with children, it tends to be oriented around the children. Playfulness in our adult lives is about giving back to ourselves. It's really about looking at what sparks joy for me, and when is the last time I got to do that, and what is getting in the way? Could I maybe make

Starting point is 00:13:44 some space to do something like that? And what would getting in the way? Could I maybe make some space to do something like that? And what would be a small change that could make a big difference in this regard? We're talking about the benefits of play in your grown-up adult life. And my guest is Joanna Fortune. She is a psychotherapist and author of the book, Why We Play, How to Find Joy and Meaning in Everyday Life. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared.

Starting point is 00:14:23 It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars.

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Starting point is 00:15:30 Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show

Starting point is 00:15:59 one of the best podcasts a few years back. And in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Joanna, I get the idea that by doing some of the things that you're talking about, you're developing skills like critical thinking skills and all that. But what about just the psychological benefits, the mood benefits of being more playful?

Starting point is 00:16:35 Has that been studied? Well, I mean, playfulness in the life of adults in terms of its psychosocial impact is understudied, if anything. But the studies that are there and the research that is available does point to a myriad of pro-social benefits and psychological benefits. Also, the workplace, you know, Dr. Stuart Brown has done significant research about playfulness in the workplace. And, you know, what is coming up there is that when we do encourage playfulness in the workplace. And, you know, what is coming up there is that when we do encourage playfulness in our workplace, we see more productive team members, we see productivity

Starting point is 00:17:13 rates increase, we see happier employees, and a happier employee means a more productive, healthy work environment. So far from being seen that you are, you know, skiving off or not taking your work seriously, building time for play breaks, even in the workplace, is proven to improve your productivity and your flexibility and adaptability, all of which are essential skills in the workforce. So while it's under-researched, the research that's there is really encouraging that this is not just something nice for us to do. It is actually essential for us to do it. I'm wondering if people generally are given permission, the opportunity to play. Are they more likely to gravitate towards things they used to play as opposed to looking for something new to play?

Starting point is 00:18:07 Yes, yes and no. I mean, when I ask that question of people as I do within my work all of the time, it's, you know, oh, I don't play anymore. I used to, but I don't anymore. And when we go back and think about what is it you used to do and why was that fun for you and when is the last time, many people will report back that actually, you know, I is the last time? Many people will report back that, actually, you know, I did look that up, or I did try to do that again. It may not feel exactly the same as an adult as it may have done for you as a child. And also maybe our play preferences have shifted over the course of growing up. And while I used to like to play in this whimsical way, now that makes me feel a little

Starting point is 00:18:46 too self-conscious and silly. I'm not there anymore. Actually, now I like to play in a more structured and ordered way. So I've joined a team or I've joined an art class or I'm in a group with like-minded others. And that's where I'm getting a similar level of pleasure. So our play patterns change as we change. And that is the job, isn't it? The job of our over the course of our life is to grow and develop. And that's not just the journey of childhood. That's the trajectory of life. When people don't play, when they say whatever they say that, you know, they don't have time or that whatever it is, what's really going on there? I mean, what is it really that they believe that they don't have time or they believe

Starting point is 00:19:29 it's not something adults should do? Or is there some something else going on? I mean, I think whatever we think it is, there's usually something else to that. Not that what we're telling ourselves is not true, but there might be a little sub context to that as well, because modern life is frenetically paced and it's extremely busy and demanding. But if we're really honest with ourselves, could we repurpose some of the time that we are maybe devoting to social media or scrolling or screen time or TV watching? Could we maybe repurpose some of that time? So actually, we do have the time, but we need to prioritize how we're using our time because it's when we forget to play for a prolonged extended period of time

Starting point is 00:20:20 that we see the impact. And that impact initially might be the job that I once loved has now become something I endure rather than enjoy. And I've become more rigid and this is the way we do it and I will never change the way I do it. And usually when we get to that point in any aspect of our lives that we feel a stuckness, you know, I just feel stuck, something's amiss, that's usually an indicator that we have forgotten to play. And that's when we need to bring the playfulness back in. Is it safe to say that play, since everyone's play is different, what they want to do, that play is pretty much anything that you enjoy doing that you're not doing? In other words, if you don't read for pleasure and you get a book and read for pleasure, is that play or is that not play? I mean, I think it could be play depending on what you do with it. I mean, I think at one point that is can be for me, that's a good example.

Starting point is 00:21:17 For me, I would deem reading a very relaxing activity. It's something I do when actually I'm seeking to escape. I want to immerse myself, particularly if I'm reading fiction, immerse myself into another world. But to maximize the play benefit from something like reading, I would strongly advocate that when you have finished the book, that you consider if you were the author of the book, how would you change the ending? What would you put in? What would you take out? What new character would you create? What would their name be? What features and traits would they have? Who would you connect them to in the story and at what point of the story and how would that change the outcome?

Starting point is 00:21:56 Now write that new ending. I think when you can get into it at that level, now it's playfulness because now you're engaged in creative, imaginative, projective, narrative play. And books can be a great doorway into that. Do you differentiate between playing yourself versus playing with others? In other words, I might really enjoy going for a bike ride for myself, just by myself because I used to ride my bike everywhere when I was a kid and I love riding my bike but it isn't necessarily something I need to do with somebody else I get a lot of joy out of just doing that I would um I would probably say try to practice a blend of both I definitely enjoy solo play uh especially when I'm in a headspace where I know I just need to do

Starting point is 00:22:47 something to reset my busy brain, then I want to do something on my own. And that could be for me, anything from jumping in a puddle outside to doing something like the drawing technique or building with some Lego blocks on my own, just doing something that's very much me doing it. And story-based play actually lends itself very well to that. But I also think that we, in order to invest in our relationships, I think that we do need to have some openness and connection to other directed play or other oriented play, which would mean that you can engage with a play partner. And that could be, you know, if you're in a relationship, an intimate

Starting point is 00:23:25 partner, it could also be an adult sibling, an adult friend. You know, it doesn't have to be any one particular person. You may have a play partner in different parts of your life, but that you can do that serve and return and you can play with somebody. I think that's about strengthening connection and play ultimately is a relational experience. What do you think is a good goal here to play how much per day or how many times or like when do the benefits kick in to this or is everybody different? I think everybody is different but but at the same time, I don't want to just say that. I do want to emphasize that I believe when you make play a daily practice over a period of time, even consistently every day for 10 to 14 days,

Starting point is 00:24:19 you will begin to see positive impact. That doesn't mean, oh, I got the positive impact and now I stop, but that's a sign that you keep going. This is working for me. I'm going to keep doing this. But now that I'm getting comfortable, you know, you want to have fun, but you don't want it to be so predictable. It becomes a bit boring and dull for you. I think in terms of how much time every day that's going to be different in each of our lives. Some of us will benefit from having multiple mini play breaks, one to five minutes scattered throughout our day. Some of us will benefit from ring fencing a block of time and sitting down and really absorbing ourselves in the play activity. And some of us will only know which way we fall by trying out both. But I would say a minimum of 15 minutes a day is enough to start creating a new habit, a new default experience that, oh, you know,

Starting point is 00:25:11 I'm just going to quite naturally play. Because once you start doing this, you will see opportunities for play all around you. You may even be in one of those coffee shops that like to write your name on the mug and the cup. And you can actually in that moment say, well, today I'm going to be and give a new name. And what way would that person behave or speak or move? And for the duration of time that it simply takes you to pick up the cup of coffee you order every morning, you've had a play experience. So you will find openings and opportunities for playfulness without having to consciously plan them once this has become part of your daily routine. is that self-consciousness of looking childlike or looking stupid. And yet, as you've described, there are so many benefits to adding play in your life. It's certainly worth considering and putting it into practice. I've been talking to Joanna Fortune, psychotherapist and author of the book,

Starting point is 00:26:19 Why We Play, How to Find Joy and Meaning in Everyday Life. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Great, Joanna. Good having you here. Thank you so much for having me. Lovely to speak with you. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown.

Starting point is 00:26:36 I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong?

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Starting point is 00:27:33 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Something that's kind of interesting when you think about it is the fact that we do so many things without thinking about it. Kind of like on autopilot. How you walk and talk, brush your teeth, button your shirt. You don't have to think about it. You don't have to concentrate on it as you do it. You just do it. It's a habit.

Starting point is 00:28:06 Your brain is pretty good at forming these habits and making them stick, both good habits and bad habits. And it gets even more interesting when you dig beneath the surface here. Russell Poldrack is an expert on the topic. Russell is a professor of psychology at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Center for Reproducible Neuroscience. He's also author of a book called Hard to Break, Why Our Brains Make Habits Stick. Hey, Russell, welcome. Glad to have you on Something You Should Know.

Starting point is 00:28:38 Hi, thanks for having me. So what's a habit? How do you define it in your world? I guess I think of a habit as something that we do that's kind of triggered by the world without us thinking about it. You know, so we there's lots of things that we do every day in our behavior that we don't really think about at all. Right. Take driving. Right. You know, you get into your car and you have to press pedals and move levers and all these various things. And when you're first learning to drive a car, you have to think about all of those different things, right? You know, which pedal is which, which is the brake, which is the gas. But if you've been driving for 20 years, you never think about which pedal is doing which thing, right? You just get in the car and drive and you're thinking about where do I need to go and what's the traffic going to be like and all those sort of things. So, you know, habits are the things that our brains do to basically kind of offload us

Starting point is 00:29:31 needing to think about all these things that kind of don't change in the world. And usually habits are a good thing. We notice them when they're a bad thing, you know, when we have bad habits that we want to get rid of and we can't. But I think, you know, one really important thing that neuroscientists know about habits is just how fundamentally important they are. And that's why our brains are kind of built to make them. So I have always thought of a habit as not so much like what pedals to push when you're driving because you don't feel compelled to do that. You don't have to go do that, but smoker has to smoke.

Starting point is 00:30:08 You know what I mean? That a habit is something that you feel compelled to do, not just something you do automatically. I think that's certainly true. habits that we talk the most about are the ones that have this kind of like um this emotional or what we what neuroscientists call incentive salience right that there's something in the world that we really want to get and it's almost like a craving or a like a like a powerful drive to to do the thing um and and you're right that most of the habits that we have in the world we don't you know when I'm going to you know lock the door as i leave the house i don't feel a craving to do that um but what we know is that you know it's actually the same machinery in our brains that that creates the habit of locking your

Starting point is 00:30:56 door when you leave and the habit of um you know of needing to go have another cigarette um the main difference is that you know if you think about what are the things in the world that cause these kinds of habits we're talking about, the ones where we kind of feel compelled to do something, they're mostly driven by these features of the modern world that weren't there when we were evolving millions of years ago, the world has these really powerful stimuli that impinge on our brains. And the chemicals that we ingest are the big ones. So think about why is it that you have to have the cigarette? Well, it's because every time you have the cigarette, the nicotine goes into your bloodstream and it goes and affects some neurons in your brain. And those ultimately

Starting point is 00:31:43 cause changes that strengthen that habit. It's happening through the same machinery that generates all the other habits. It just, it's such a much more powerful driver of brain activity than anything we ever kind of ran. And, you know, if you think about what were the things people were eating, you know, back when we were, you know, sort of hunter gatherers, they weren't, they weren't as tasty as, you know, potato chips or candy bars, right? They were like, you know, you might find a little berry or maybe you go like, you know, kill an animal and eat some bone marrow or something like that. We now have these stimuli

Starting point is 00:32:18 that affect our brain and, you know, just a fundamentally different way than the things that we evolved with. And that's often what kind of drives these sorts of habits so the habits that people talk about when they say you know i i want to do i want to exercise i want to make it a habit and then we hear things like well in order to for a habit to take effect that you have to do it a certain number of times Talk about that kind of pop culture view of habits and is it accurate or not? I think in general, it's true that if you take exercising, the way to get yourself to exercise regularly in the long term is to make it part of a routine. And a routine is kind of like a habit, right? One way to think about it is you don't have to like think about whether you're going to the gym or you don't want to have to think about whether to go to the gym today. You want to just have that

Starting point is 00:33:11 be what you do on, you know, every Tuesday and Thursday, I go to the gym and I don't want to have to get up every morning and decide whether I'm going. I just know that that's what I do on Tuesday and Thursday. And if you have that sort of routine in place, then it becomes kind of self-sustaining, right? Whereas if you kind of pick and choose every morning, well, will I go to the gym today? And if I am, will I go at 9 a.m. or 3 p.m.? That becomes a much harder thing to ingrain in part because it's open to you having to think about it. And then it's easier for you to decide at each point in time kind of not to do it. And the only way something becomes a routine is when you do it over and over again. There are these kind of pop culture ideas about, you know, it takes 28 days to create

Starting point is 00:33:57 a habit or whatever the number might be that the person will give you. And in general, you know, what we know from the little bit of research that's been done on this is that it really varies across people and it varies across habits but you know for the same habit one person might need a month to make it kind of you know a part of their routine and one person might need a lot longer and i don't i don't think we understand you know where those differences between people come from but we know that they exist. So in a quick shorthand way, what's the difference between a habit, a routine, and an addiction? Yes. A routine is often going to be kind of a chain of different things. Like, you know, going to the gym involves putting on your gym clothes and then, you

Starting point is 00:34:39 know, getting to the gym and then signing in at the gym and then going and getting on the treadmill. Right. So there's a whole bunch of things there. We usually think of habits as more sort of smaller, like atomic pieces of behavior. So like each of the little things I have to do, you know, putting on my clothes or getting in the car or driving to the gym, each of those little things we might think of as a habit and a routine, you can sort of think of as like a bunch of habits put

Starting point is 00:35:01 together in some sense. You know, addictions are, I think of addictions as kind of like the hijacking of the habit system by these, you know, unnaturally strong stimuli that the modern world gives us. And the thing that differs about, you know, when we think about what is an addiction versus a habit, the thing that really differs is this kind of, you know, as you mentioned earlier, this kind of emotional craving or this kind of like, you know, incentive to need to do something. A few people really feel like they need to go for a run or need to go to the gym, but not in the same way that, you know, somebody who's addicted to a drug feels the need to get

Starting point is 00:35:42 that drug. And the one other kind of difference, you know, what we, one of the things that we've learned about addiction is that one of the reasons that addictions are so hard to break is because over time, instead of, you know, sort of taking the drug and getting a high out of it, the drug just gets the person from sort of an emotional low back to their normal state. So, you know, the brain in general is a is a kind of an adaptive machine and it'll adapt to whatever the world is doing. And so, you know, that's one of the big changes is people, you know, people who who become addicted when they're in withdrawal, they feel this very kind of, you know, like unpleasant, you know, negative emotion and

Starting point is 00:36:20 the drug just sort of takes them back to their normal emotion. So this idea of creating a habit that people say they're going to go to the gym or they're going to whatever it's going to be, is that a worthy goal? I mean, do you create habits or is there a different road to get there or what? You certainly can create habits. And I think the thing that's most important for creating a new habit is sort of consistent, regular experience or practice, if you will. So if you decide, for example, that you want to, let's say that you want to start flossing every night because your dentist told you that you need to floss. What you need to do is first have a way to trigger that behavior. Once it becomes a habit, then you'll walk into the bathroom and start doing it without really thinking about it. But when you're starting out, it's not going to just happen on its own. And so

Starting point is 00:37:19 you can imagine sort of building scaffolding to help make it happen, right? Put a post-it note on the mirror saying, hey, did you remember to floss? Or some other way to kind of to remind you to do the thing. And then once you've done it often enough, then it can become a sort of a thing that you just do without thinking about it. So is it harder to break a bad habit or create a good one? You know, I think it's hard to say in general. It's, you know, it's generally hard to do both. Like nicotine addiction is incredibly hard to break. Of people who try to stop smoking, you know, the data show that after a year, only about a third of them have succeeded in not smoking for a year.

Starting point is 00:38:02 And so that's incredibly hard. I don't know what the numbers are on people who decide they want to start exercising. They're probably not much better. But I think that the reason that bad habits are so hard to break, in part, depending on the bad habit, if you're talking about things like addictions, has to do with the fact that our bodies have these physiological reactions that go along with the mental stuff we have like our bodies have these kind of physiological reactions that go along with the kind of you know the mental stuff that that happens in a habit whereas you know we're mostly not having cravings to you know floss our teeth or go to the gym or anything like that and and we also we don't get a physiological rush out of those things so in general you know i think

Starting point is 00:38:41 that many you know there's some bad habits that aren't that hard to break. I used to bite my it and then figuring out strategies to get around that. And that's a lot easier for habits like fingernail biting than it is for things like ingesting substances or food or things like that. And so what do we do with this? So knowing what you know, I mean, what's the advice regarding people wanting to start a habit or break a habit? It would almost seem like if you want to break a habit, doing something in the negative is harder than, you know, you ought to figure out, like, what do you want to replace it with rather than just stop doing something. I think that's definitely one of the important ingredients. Because one of the things we know is that once a habit gets triggered, it's really hard to kind of stop oneself. And so a much more effective way to prevent oneself from engaging in the habit is just

Starting point is 00:39:58 avoiding the trigger. So if you're a smoker, a well-known trigger of smoking is walking into a bar right you you smell smoke you you know you have a drink and that that often will drive people to smoke avoiding the bar is a is a pretty good way to do that now we you know not everybody can avoid the triggers of their of their bad habits and then you have to think about you know how can i not engage in the habit even when the triggers are there? One of the techniques that comes from psychology that seems to be useful, there's evidence of this working, is it's called an implementation intention. And the idea is basically that you kind of role play in your mind how you're going to behave. So let's say you'll say you don't want to smoke and you have a friend who

Starting point is 00:40:42 you always smoke with, sort of think through some scenarios of how you're going to actually behave when you see them and they bring out the cigarettes and you want to tell them that you're not interested in smoking. And the more kind of detailed the plans, the better. On the flip side of kind of building new habits, I think giving yourself as much scaffolding as you can to help keep the behavior going in the early days until it becomes more of a routine, that's probably one of the most effective ways to do it. I think one of the other things to take away from a lot of this research is that both breaking and creating habits is really hard. And, you know, neuroscience tells us why in a lot of ways. And so we shouldn't be so hard on ourself when we fail to either, you know, change our behavior to break a habit or to generate a new one and sort of, you know, have a little more empathy for

Starting point is 00:41:41 ourselves and for other people who we see in our lives who are having trouble changing their behavior. You sometimes hear people say things like, he has a habit of interrupting people, or she has a habit of being very negative. Are those habits? Certainly, yeah. I mean, I think that they're, you know, just as we can have habits in terms of like, you know, the things we eat or drink or, you know, put in our bodies, there are sort of, you know, social habits and emotional habits. One common thing in couples, right, is that, you know, people start to have habitual responses. They start to have, you know, a particular negative response to like something that their partner does, right? And those can be,

Starting point is 00:42:23 those can become like really overwhelming to a relationship, right? And those can become like really overwhelming to a relationship, right? And similarly, once you've worked with colleagues for a number of years, you can come to predict how they're going to behave in certain situations. And those are very persistent behaviors. So they have many of the same hallmarks as habits. Now, whether those are much harder things to study, part of the reason we know a lot about the habits of, you know, like ingesting things is because we can study them in rats. Well, it certainly seems from most people's experience that the more you do something, the easier it gets to keep doing it because you keep doing it.

Starting point is 00:42:59 It goes back to this idea that in general, the brain is always trying to kind of automate as much as it can right and if you do something a lot that will tend to get automated so it might be you know either because of you know a particular personality quirk or just because of some experiences that a person has they start doing something and over time that thing becomes more and more of a you know kind of a routine that they engage in or, you know, like anytime they're in this situation, they behave in that particular way. And often that's good because we don't have to think about how we're behaving in any particular situation, but sometimes it can lead to these sorts of, you know, bad behaviors. It seems pretty clear that in order to change a habit one way or the other, that there's got to

Starting point is 00:43:43 be some real motivation to do it. You can't just think, well, you know, that'd be a good idea. Yeah, I guess I'll give that a try and hope for much success that you somehow you've got to pull something out from inside and that motivation has to push you through. That's definitely true. You know, it's like, you can't really read about how to play guitar, right. And be able to play guitar, like, you know, based on just that you need to, it, it requires kind of, you know, personal experience and motivation and actually doing the thing because the, you know, the systems in the brain that develop habits are basically the same systems that allow us to kind of choose what we're doing from moment to moment. We call it the action selection system. It's basically determining, am I going to go left or right at this particular fork in the road? Am I going to pick the candy bar or the piece of

Starting point is 00:44:35 fruit at the grocery store? Am I going to say something nice or something mean to this particular person? That the systems in our brain that let us do that are kind of fundamentally tied in with how habits are built. It seems, I think for most of us, for me anyway, that if you want to change a behavior, if you want to change a habit, the best insurance you can have is if you're accountable to somebody else. If other people know that you're trying to do this, you're more likely to succeed. That's exactly right. And so, you know, one of the things that people in the behavior change literature talk about is something called a commitment device, which is basically a way of, you know, kind of announcing your particular intention and having there be some kind of consequence if you fail to uh to achieve it so for example um there's a there's a radio lab episode a while ago that talked about this

Starting point is 00:45:33 woman named zelda gamsen who had been a kind of a like lifelong activist for racial equality and she really wanted to stop smoking and so basically, she at some point said to one of her friends, if I ever smoke again, I'm going to give $5,000 to the Ku Klux Klan. And so, you know, that and assuming that she was going to be held to that bargain, you know, that's a very powerful motivator, right, for much more powerful than you can imagine it would have been if she had said that to herself. And there's some work showing that people have set up kind of apps to do these kind of like commitment devices. And the research shows that if you do it publicly, it's substantially more powerful than if you just kind of do it for yourself. Is there anything on the horizon,

Starting point is 00:46:21 any kind of new technology that would help with this whole issue of getting rid of bad habits or incorporating good habits? I think that in the future, we may understand more about exactly how to more kind of almost surgically get rid of habits. stuff, some findings with people, a small number of people who've had strokes in a particular part of the brain who basically wake up after their stroke and are no longer interested in smoking. They were smokers before their stroke. The stroke causes a lesion in this particular part of the brain called the insula. And suddenly they no longer have the desire to smoke. And so the question is whether you can harness, obviously we don't want to go like, you know, damage people's brains just to stop them from smoking because that could have other impacts as well. But, you know, to the degree that that tells us something about how we might go in and sort of,

Starting point is 00:47:11 you know, more precisely alter the function of the brain for people where that sort of thing would be worthwhile to help break a really kind of a life damaging habit. I think that, you know, in the next few decades, we're going to understand a lot more from neuroscience about how to potentially do that. Well, habits, particularly bad habits, those are the things that I think people worry about because it seems oftentimes to be out of our control, and it's helpful to understand how this all works. I've been speaking with Russell Poldrack. He's a professor of psychology at Stanford University. The name of his book is Hard to Break, Why Our Brains Make Habits Stick. And as always, there is a link to that book in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:47:56 Appreciate you being here, Russell. Thank you. Sure thing. All right. Thanks a bunch. If you take pain relievers like ibuprofen more than twice a week, you could end up with hearing loss. Researchers say women under the age of 50 are at particular risk. Apparently, the same elements in ibuprofen that block the pain may also reduce blood flow to the cochlea in the inner ear,

Starting point is 00:48:24 and that can affect your hearing. Pain relievers containing acetaminophen also posed a hearing loss risk, but it was slightly less than ibuprofen. They also tested aspirin and found no risk of hearing loss there. And that is something you should know. Leaving a rating and review is one of the best ways to support this podcast. It lets other people know how much you like it, and it has something to do with the algorithms,

Starting point is 00:48:54 but it does help, having ratings and reviews. And we have a lot of them, but we could use yours as well. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:49:59 Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt,

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Something You Should Know - Why You Need to Play More & The Good News and Bad News About Habits

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