Can Brain Science Help Us Break Bad Habits?

Just as removing friction aids in doing the activity more often, adding friction can aid to remove the bad habit, by making it difficult or cumbersome to do so.

Example: Cigarette smoking declined due to adding taxes, banning in public places and removing from vending machines.

Companies make us habitual. Companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Uber spend millions on R&D of better tools to minimize friction, to get people to use their services more and more and form a habit.

McDonald's, for example, uses brain science to create habits by:

• Asking 'Would you like some fries with that?'
• Keeping the restaurants' look and the food taste/color standardized to trigger habitual eating patterns.
• The salt and sugar in the food are making the brain feel good and happy, creating a sort of addiction.

Toothpaste companies heavily advertise scary messages of tooth decay (a cue) ensuring people buy their product.

The taste was designed to produce a certain tingle in the mouth, a fresh, irritant taste that provided a 'reward'.

A strategy to break away from a habitual activity is to:

• Recognize your dependency
• Acknowledge how the bad habit affects your life
• Control the Cues to minimize triggers.