Why your brain loves a habit

Your mind loves a habit. Literally loves them. Why? Your brain thinks you are still living in the age of hunter-gatherer human, where it needs to be alert to the dangers of the sabre tooth tiger outside the cave, or the sudden rumbling that might mean a herd of bison ripe for the hunt coming over the hill. The more actions that can be packed away just below the level of consciousness then the more brain is available for here and now. (Or so the theory goes, in reality in the modern world our minds tend to be anywhere but the here and now).

So it tucks anything routine, anything that we do every day, or every week, into the realm of the subconscious. In other words, we don’t really think about, we are not fully aware of, how we go about many of the things we do day in, day out.

This has many consequences. Think about how you do your weekly grocery shop, for example. Maybe you are in the habit of cruising down the aisles of long life foods and drinks in packets and cans, the biscuits, cakes, crisps, instant noodles, cereal bars, fizzy drinks etc and popping them in your trolley without a second thought.

Or maybe you’ve decided you need to look after yourself a bit better. Maybe the trousers are a bit tighter, or maybe you’ve had a bit of a health scare. So you decide to change your habits. This is not easy. It means that you have to bring that habit into your conscious, thinking mind every time you decide what to eat today / this week, and every time you visit the supermarket. This can be a painful process when you are going through it. You know that your body would much prefer that healthy grilled salmon on stir-fried veg dressed with garlic and ginger, but that instant packet of noodles is so much easier. You might even be slightly addicted to said noodles (such is the power of many additives in food today).

But wait. If you stick at it long enough – and the amount of time depends on the person and the habit – you can turn this around. One day you may find yourself not even venturing down those aisles of the supermarket because you don’t even consider a pot noodle as a foodstuff at all, you’ll stick with your meals planned around your organic veg box, thank you very much. This is the power of habit – it can be turned in your favour.

As Dr Ben Lynch (of “Dirty Genes” fame) says, “What I tell my clients—and my kids (and myself !)—is that we’re investing the time to build good habits. A habit is an unconscious act that requires no thinking on your part. You’ve wired your brain to do it for you automatically.”

So habits can work against you, but work on them (not all at once, choose one and go from there) and you can turn them around to work for you. There are books out there about this – Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit”; and James Clear’s “Atomic Habits”.

Now turn your mind to how this might work on an Alexandrian level. By which I mean, your mind has tucked below the level of consciousness how you “use” your body day in, day out. We are not, in general, aware of how we stand, how we sit, how we walk, how we climb stairs, etc. The Alexander Technique aims to bring awareness of how we use our bodies out of the habit layer – the subconscious bit – and into the conscious mind. In an Alexander Technique lesson you will be invited to consider how you stand, how you sit, how you move between the two. And gradually you become aware of your own habits of muscular use and build a set of mental tools of how to change the bad habits of body use. But just as with the shopping and food example above, it is not always easy. It might be a bit painful. It might require you to throw away some beliefs about yourself and the world and come round to some new ones. But you are on a journey to unpeeling layers of habit to reveal a better you underneath. It should feel like moving into a space of greater ease and lightness, like coming back to your birth right.

I hope my ramblings make sense! If I am not, please reach out with your questions. Or even book a lesson, or send this blog post on to someone you think might benefit from a change in habit.

Consciously yours

Marie