Lesson: The Power of Habit

Conversation

Answer the following questions. You might be asked to write them down or answer them out-loud.

1. Do you have any habits?
2. Where do we learn our habits?
3. What bad habits bother you the most?
4. What good habits do you most admire?
5. Is it easy or difficult to get rid of a bad habit? Why?
6. How can you develop a good habit?
7. Have you ever been successful in getting rid of a bad habit?
8. Which bad habit do you think would be the most difficult to get rid of? Why?
9. Are we be born with our bad habits? Or do we acquire them from the environment surrounding us?
10. Do other people's bad habits get on your nerves?

Vocabulary

Look at the vocabulary below. Take time to explore the links for their definitions in English and their translations to Portuguese. When you are done, make a sentence with each word. Ask your teacher if you should write them down or say them out loud.

DT   tough

DT   slip

DT   end

DT   components

DT   cue

DT   behavior

DT   queue

DT   reward

DT   encode

DT   whether

DT   endemic

DT   latch

DT   intertwined

DT   inner

DT   basal

DT   sort

DT   counter

Video

Watch the following video but DON'T read the transcript yet.

After watching the video do this listening exercise.

Reading practice

Read the following transcript then do the associated reading comprehension exercise.

Transcript:

So, if you're like me, you probably have at least a few bad habits you would like to break. But it's tough, because no matter how hard I try, I seem to slip back into the same old routines again and again.

"In the last decades we've learned a lot about how habits work."

That's Charles Duhigg, author of the book "The Power of Habit".

"And in particular we've learned the neurological structure of a habit."

He says we tend to think of a habits as a single thing, but actually, "Each habit has three components. There's a cue which is like a trigger for a behavior to start. And then there is a routine which is the behavior itself, and then finally a reward, which is how our brain learns to encode that automatic behavior for the future. And one of the big differences is that for years, when people thought about habits, they focused in on the routine, on the behavior. But what we now know is that it's these cues and these rewards that really shape how habits occur and how to change them."

And Charles says that whether we like it or not, this kind of habit formation is endemic to our brain.

"And what it will do is our brain will latch on to a cue that it associates with a behavior and a particular reward. And over time, that cue and that reward become more and more and more sort of intertwined. The inner part of your brain, named the basal ganglia will relate them together. And the behavior that is associated with that, that will just sort of happen automatically."

But Charles says the good news is: We can also use this knowledge to our advantage.

"There was a big study that was done about how to create exercise habits. And so what they did is they told a group of people, “Okay, first of all choose an obvious cue: always go running at the same time every day or put your workout clothes next to your bed so that you see them first thing when you wake up”. And then they said, “and then go for a run or go workout and when you get back from exercising, give yourself a small piece of chocolate”. Now this is kind of counter-intuitive, right? Because people who are exercising are trying to lose weight, not eat more chocolate. And yet what the researchers knew is that their brain needed that reward. Their basal ganglia needed some reward. But what they found was that people who ate a small piece of chocolate after coming home from a run or a workout, they were much more likely to start exercising habitually."

So, according to Charles, whether you want to break a habit, or start a new habit, the key is to divide that habit into its component parts: Cue, routine, and reward. And design it for the result that you want.

Writing practice

Write a couple of paragraphs talking about a habit that you have and can't get rid of. Tell us what you're trying to do to solve it. Make sure to use words you learned from the text and try to make it as long as you can.

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