Researchers estimate that around 40 percent of what we do every day is not the result of decisions, but of habits. From the way we brush our teeth to the route we take to work, much of our behaviour runs .
According to psychologists, every habit follows a simple . First comes a — a trigger such as a time of day, a place or an emotion. Then comes the routine, the behaviour itself. Finally there is a reward, which tells the brain that the is worth remembering. Over time, the and the reward become so strongly linked that the routine happens almost automatically.
Understanding this is the key to changing behaviour. Rather than trying to eliminate a bad habit through alone, experts recommend keeping the same and reward but replacing the routine. Someone who on sweets when they feel stressed at work, for instance, might go for a short walk instead. The (stress) and the reward (a feeling of ) stay the same, but the behaviour becomes healthier.
Building new habits takes longer than most people assume. A well-known study at University College London found that it took participants, on average, 66 days for a new behaviour to become automatic — not the 21 days often in . The good news is that missing a single day did not significantly affect the outcome. Consistency matters, but perfection does not.