How are Habits Formed?
Our minds try to maintain for us a state of emotional comfort by handling the stimuli we perceive as best they can. We need an optimal level of positive stimuli: not too few and not too many. If there are too few stimuli we're bored, and our minds seek additional stimuli to eliminate that feeling and regain comfort. If there are too many stimuli, or if they are too strong, we're uncomfortably overstimulated. Why do people jump for joy? They need to discharge the excess stimulation that they're feeling so that an optimal stimulus level can be restored. Our minds strive to maintain an optimal stimulus level.
The Scanning Function
Imagine a radar screen in the mind constantly scanning its surroundings. The dots represent stimuli. In reality, there are many, many stimuli at any given moment. As the mind scans its surroundings, it registers all stimuli, both external (the environment) and internal (within our body and mind). We can refer to this as the "Scanning Function" of the mind.
When the scanning function registers a stimulus, the mind experiences a disturbance of its equilibrium, like when a pebble is thrown into a pond. A pebble disturbs the equilibrium of the pond, causing ripples to occur. Our minds wish to re-establish the equilibrium that was felt before the disturbance. How does the mind do this?
The Matching Function
Our minds match stimuli with responses by searching the memory for previous responses to those stimuli. We refer to this as the "Matching Function." For instance, when we feel hungry, our minds match that stimulus with the response of eating. (The concepts of a Scanning Function and a Matching Function were developed by Dr. Stanley Palumbo, a psychoanalyst.)
Once a stimulus has been matched to a response, the two are so closely associated that when the stimulus reappears, it is automatically matched to the same response. It has become locked in. This is why habits are so hard to change.
An Example
A child eats in response to hunger, but she may also eat in response to discomfort of any sort because comfort has been associatively related to eating. For example, if a young child feels insufficiently loved by her mother, and needs that love, what can she do? Because love and eating are so closely associated, she eats. And because this habit has been locked in, it is her go-to solution.
As an adult, she has other options. But because eating has been locked in, her mind will continue to match distress with eating. Even when a better solution is available the original locked-in solution will be chosen. This is how unhealthy habits arise. They are locked-in habits. The reason why the great majority of overweight people who try to lose weight are unable to keep it off is because their habit of overeating is locked in.
How can a locked-in habit be unlocked...broken...changed for a better solution? I'll describe that in the next post, Mastering our Habits Part 2.
An Inner Guide
An Inner Guide will help you conquer locked-in habits. If you don't yet have an Inner Guide, you can acquire one here: https://emotionalcomfort.com/blog/post/you-can-acquire-an-inner-guide-part-4
