We've come a long way...
"As creatures of habit, we often have difficulty incorporating new changes into our routines, no matter how beneficial they are for us...Even when we are motivated and make reasonable efforts to change, why is it that we are still so resistant to changing our behavior, even when these changes are healthy or beneficial to us?"
It is amazing to see how far Neuroscience research has come in just a few years. Since the below article was written, we learned:
- How subconscious habits are formed, not just in the Basal Ganglia but in neurosynaptic pathways throughout the brain.
- That there are different types of habits: habits related to things like playing a specific piece of music or nail biting are indeed activated in the Basal Ganglia, but patterns like how we respond when we are hurt or how we listen (do we listen attentively or jump to conclusions) are not.
- And perhaps most importantly from a change facilitation point of view, we learned a lot about how to guide people to change habits (how to rewire the brain and unlearn).
This is important because even just a few years ago, when the common perception was that all habits are related to the Basal Ganglia, changing deeply ingrained habits seemed very hard if not impossible (Basal Ganglia "imprints" are not easily altered). But understanding the brain more fully and learning which neurosynaptic activity leads to transformation, allows us to give our clients access to change that was not only difficult, but often seemed impossible before.
Check out this great article for a perspective in time: Here
