how do habits work for you all?

[wispfox]

One of the books I read for one of my class talked about habits as if people do them without thinking about it. I don't think I do that - even brushing my teeth and flossing are things I have to use mental energy to start. And if I want to do them well, bring mindful about it is necessary.

I think the closest I get is getting dressed in the morning - but that's largely because I have clothing set up to be without many decisions required. So I grab the clothing and put them on, but even then I still have to think about it to not have them inside out and buttoned up right if they have multiple buttons.

Do your habits require any energy to initiate? Do you do them well or right even without paying attention? I'm trying to understand why the book would talk about adding additional habits to existing ones to make them habits as well.

I do wonder if this relates to my difficulty doing anything (except class or work, which require that) more regularly than every two weeks, or exercise that isn't because I have another reason besides exercise to do them.

And doing things that require scheduling even as often as every two weeks. Of course, I know scheduling and estimating time is really hard for me, so that last bit may be that.

Comments

[lb_lee]

We rely INTENSELY on habits because they require so much less energy than consciously pondering and planning everything out. Our daily walking route goes past the main places we may want to go (post office, library, thrift shop, grocery store), so we're more easily able to ship orders, get food, etc. We keep the same food so our basic planned recipes can be easily made without "oh shit I need bread," "oh shit how do I get the bread," mental pileups of despair.

If we didn't have habit chains, we would never get ANYTHING done while episode-hungover. We would have long since starved to death.

[wispfox]

Fascinating. Is it correct to believe that you do in fact just do the things when you would normally do them without having to think about it, or is there activation energy to start them?

(I had no idea this was a way I was unusual, assuming I even am understanding this correctly)

[lb_lee]

Rogan: Activation energy is still required, just far less of it. And a true habit, for us, causes psychological discomfort if NOT followed. (If I can't go on my walk, I get tetchy. Missing more than a day or two, even for valid reasons like illness, make me REALLY squirrely unless I am REALLY sick.)

If a habit gets broken or needs major deviation (f'rex, if I MUST do something on the computer BEFORE walking, rather than later) my performance (and thus my sanity/self-maintenance) noticeably lowers.

[wispfox]

Huh! Ok, then I definitely do not do habits like most people. There's nothing that I do regularly that causes psychological discomfort if I skip it, and that description matches what I've heard about habits. (Physical discomfort, sure - hunger or legs needing to move, but nothing psychological).

No wonder I struggle to stretch, exercise, or other useful physical health things regularly!

[lb_lee]

Another note is, since my sanity is damn near always my lowest resource, I often due things in more "labor-intensive" ways because my body's strength can compensate for my mind's weaknesses. Many people can skip a walk no problem, but I can quickly get sanity rot if I don't maintain these weird habits, all of which have small but significant effects.

Habits are another way I compensate for my batshit, reducing sanity strain.

[wispfox]

Yeah, it totally makes sense. I'm not really sure what I would do were I in your situation - going for walks is absolutely a mental health as well as physical health things for me, as well, although not to your degree.

I wonder if the reason you have to do it being so powerful has helped - like, does having such a strong negative effect make your brain make the connection and cause psychological distress if you skip? I realize that you have no way to know the answer to this! :)

[lb_lee]

Hmmmm. Thinking about it, it might be in part, we HAVE to pay attention to minor, niggling things that people with more gas in the tank can freely ignore, because the consequences for them are less extreme. If they skip a walk, maybe they'll just feel a little blah, and that's no big deal, while we need to conserve every scrap of sanity we can, and "a little blah" is thus more expensive. (And the AWARENESS of that makes us more alarmed about it, like how someone with little money will agonize over buying a book.)

(See also: why there are many things people do for recreation that we just flat-out cannot do safely. Weed, for instance, is a fine fun thing for many people, but we have low enough sanity that introducing ANY unknown psychoactive chemicals is likely a bad idea. Ditto corporeal sex: a fun diversion for many, an express train to Crazytown for us.)

[lb_lee]

Rogan: OH! Also, one other thing: the psychological discomfort of not fulfilling a habit happens regardless of whether said habit is GOOD or not.

This is why we have to be super careful what habits we build and what behaviors we repeat. It's one thing if we feel a nagging "I need to floss/brush my teeth" discomfort, it's another completely if we get tetchy if we don't mindlessly check [insert website here] a certain number of times. This can lead to a sorta vicious cycle of creating a bad habit, which causes psychological discomfort, which we try to fend off by more perfectly following the habit, leading to more discomfort...

[wispfox]

Oh _wow_, I can see that as being a problem. Is it particularly easy for you to create an accidental habit like that? Like is it a certain number of repetitions?

[lb_lee]

I dunno that "easy" is the right word, but it is fully possible for us to build a really bad habit by accident without noticing. It's why we've had to not be on social media; those sites are ALL ABOUT building that obsessive checking habit, and we don't have it in us to fight the designers all the time. It also required a fair amount of effort to build our rest/stretch breaks into our way of working.

I dunno that it's a certain number of reps so much as reps and social pressure/obligation to continue the habit. (See also: the professional handicap of not being on social media, of not having a smartphone, etc.) It's harder to resist a bad habit when a lot of people around you are pressuring you to build it.

[wispfox]

Oh, I see. Yes, things that are set up to cause habits would definitely be a problem! And the fact that they are unpleasant to do long-term would go poorly with habit formation.

I guess I'm glad that habits work weirdly on me. I was sad to leave Facebook for the loss of access to my extended family's lives, but otherwise it was not a problem.

[lb_lee]

Yeah, for us, leaving social media requires a whole detox period where we just have to wait out the mounting discomfort of not fulfilling the habit until it finally stops, and then make sure NOT TO REPEAT THE BEHAVIOR (because old habits are easier to resurrect than new ones)

[metahacker]

There are only a few things that really are habitual for me, and they tend to be things like "driving home".

Most of my 'habits' really mean "I've figured out an efficient way to make myself do this thing". Only rarely do they crest into unconscious or inertia. I am aware I am an outlier in this, though.

There's a reason I subscribe to the "encode habits into your environment" school of thought. Just like design, make it easy to do the desired thing.

[wispfox]

Yeah, driving home from a place where I know the trip well enough to zone out is really the only thing I could think of. But getting to that point is rare unless it's something I'm doing regularly - so going to work back when I had a physical location to be in every day.

[chamaenerion]

This makes me think that no one is working from the same definition of "habit". My instinct is also to reserve "habit" to mean things you really don't need to consciously think about. That would fit with some definitions of dissociating.

It's weird that driving/walking/navigating is such a really good example of something people can do unconsciously.

I'd add putting on a seatbelt as another example. A few things to do with showering.

[starandrea]

Do your habits require any energy to initiate?

Yes - for me, habits are less about not having to think about the thing and more about not having to decide about the thing. When I get up in the morning, I have to exert energy to go stretch, but I don't have to decide whether or not to do it, because for me it's a habit. It's the first thing I do when I get up in the morning. I don't do it automatically, but I don't lie in bed each morning thinking, "should I stretch today?" (I do lie in bed thinking, "should I get up now," just not "what should I do once I get up," because stretching first thing is a habit.)

ETA: Oh! Also :)

I'm trying to understand why the book would talk about adding additional habits to existing ones to make them habits as well.

For me, adding a thing that I do after stretching (foam rolling) has made that a habit as well. So my morning routine goes: stretch, foam roll, meditate. I think about it, but I don't have to decide, "what comes after stretching?" I just lie on the floor going, "ugh, okay, foam rolling next, SIGH" ♥

[wispfox]

It sounds like you are closer to me in this - but one person pointed out a thing that I definitely do _not_ have - psychological discomfort if I skip a habit. Do you have this?

[starandrea]

psychological discomfort if I skip a habit. Do you have this?

Definitely not, at least not that I can think of. If I skip stretching I'm more likely to feel secretly gleeful, like I got away with something. I do it because it makes my day easier to have a planned start with observable benefits, something that I can check off as having accomplished right away, not because I have to do that thing in particular. Anything I do first thing in the morning would serve the same benefit. In fact, when I don't follow my current routine it's almost always because I'm doing something else instead: rushing to get out the door, walking the dog, etc. so whatever the other thing is becomes the thing I accomplished, and that's fine.

Even the things I do that are more automatic (with significantly less activation energy, I guess) are just things I do unless I don't. Like counting geese as they go overhead, which it never occurred to me to question until my sister was like, "do you *always* count the number of geese?" and I was like, "well, yeah, why not?" To me it was just part of observing that there are geese: "oh look, geese, they're flying and honking and there's eight of them." But apparently not everyone counts things, is what I got out of that! :) I don't have to count them, though. Sometimes there's too many, or I'm focused on something else, so I just don't.

[wispfox]

Yeah, this is definitely more like me! :)

[randysmith]

Hmmm. For me, once I've actually made something a habit, it takes very little effort and mental energy; I just do it. It's not *quite* zero--if I really put zero energy into things I do habitually, the habit will drift and I'll find myself about to pour in the egg before I empty the pan of sauteeing veggies. But it's very low energy; it's mostly an occasional nudge to keep the ball in a track it mostly follows anyway.

I do find starting new habits is very hard; the repeated decision to do X takes a lot out of me (I think because of my ADD), and I can totally see a recommendation that it's easier if you attach it to something you're already doing anyway (e.g. I recently added some exercises to my morning exercise routine, and that took less effort than starting the routine had). But habits are also a really important part of my ADD management (presumably because the decision to do X takes so much out of me), so I'm pretty conscious about trying to pick good habits to structure my life with and lay them down as best I can.

[wispfox]

Yeah, this sounds closer to what most people mean by habits. I had no idea I was an outlier!

[corvi]

I use habits as an aid to remember to do things that ought to be done every day or nearly every day but which I might otherwise forget, like feeding the chickens. I don't know if it makes things easier, but it does make me more likely to remember them.

Habits that aren't fairly frequent don't "take" for me. I use google calendar's emailed reminders to remember things that are done on a schedule, but not a daily schedule, like washing the bedclothes, which I do every two weeks in theory (somewhat less often in practice).

For things that have to be done at irregular intervals but have a specific trigger, like "check shirts for cufflinks whenever you do laundry" I tape notes to things (like the washing machine).

Things that have to be done at irregular intervals with no particular trigger I can tape anything to, like buying paper towels, I just forget. I haven't yet figured out how to tape a note to the lack of paper towels, so we're still out of paper towels. :)

[wispfox]

"I haven't yet figured out how to tape a note to the lack of paper towels, so we're still out of paper towels. :)"

Ha! Yes, it would be awesome to be able to label a lack of things!

[matildalucet]

We seem to have settled on putting an almost empty object on the kitchen table, which gets in the way of daily food prep. I might shuffle it out of the way, but keep it on that table until replaced because it is annoying and I will buy the replacement just to get my space clearer. Right now, there is a toothpaste tube there and I know that does NOT go into tonight's supper, so I see an errand in my near future.

Also, lists. If I actually look to see if there are any spare paper towels in the cupboard instead of assuming there are when reading the grocery list, we don't run out. This doesn't always work because I've been using the same spreadsheet-stuck-to-the-fridge method for years and I sometimes skim when I shouldn't. Still works better for us than assuming anything. My Morning Lists are half in my head (upstairs stuff) like a chant, half on a scrap of paper over my desk (downstairs stuff) because I do NOT do them in the same order every day. My life would be smoother if I did, I think, but I don't so I need a reference. I do have it ingrained now to at least LOOK, whether or not I do the things.

[siderea]

TOOTHPASTE! I knew I was forgetting something.

[lb_lee]

Do your paper towels have a rack or spool they go on? If so, I can think of writing "buy towels!" On the naked spool so once the towels are gone, the secret message is revealed!

[siderea]

Yeah I don't try to remember things that way – I try not to rely on my memory at all. I have a literal list of things like paper towels that I need/want to keep in stock in my house, and when I'm preparing a grocery order, I walk around the house checking all the things on the list, and checking them off if I don't have them and they need to be added to the grocery order. (Or if I were going into a store, they go on to my shopping list to take into the store.)

The list lives on a wiki, so I can access it on my phone.

Grocery orders are not an ad hoc thing. I do one every two weeks in a regular time slot, and it's on my calendar.

[dsrtao]

Everything I do requires attentional energy to start. The more often I do it, the less energy is required -- usually. The fewer choices I have to make, the less energy is required. The fewer steps required, the better.

Making plans helps. Changing plans is dysregulating. Making plans for other people is a hundred times easier than carrying through plans for myself.

[wispfox]

Right, this is closer to what I'm like. I think the key is that I do not have psychological discomfort if I do not do a thing, in addition to the activation energy requirements.

[siderea]

Do your habits require any energy to initiate?

Some do, some don't.

When I wake up, I will go to the bathroom, then I will go make coffee. I will do this on pretty much autopilot. I started making my bed as part of that routine a few years ago, and now I find myself doing it automatically. If something thwarts my enacting this habit, my brain will glitch, and I will preservate on it ("HOW CAN I MAKE COFFEE IF I DON'T HAVE ANY COFFEE") and it will require a serious act of will to pull myself up out of the rut I am stuck in.

Contrariwise, I have brushed my hair nearly every day of the past half century, and it remains an effort to get up and go do that every. single. time.

I got nothin'.

[wispfox]

Thank you for this! I do not do anything on autopilot except driving home after work if it's something I do most days. So this is really good to know!

Fascinating that brushing your hair is _not_ automatic, though. :)