Essentials: The Science of Making & Breaking Habits

Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials, where we revisit past episodes for the most potent and actionable science-based tools for mental health, physical health, and performance. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we're talking all about habits. In particular, we are going to discuss the biology of habit formation and the biology of how we break habits. Habits are things that our nervous system learned, but not always consciously.

Sometimes we develop habits that we're not even aware of until they become a problem, or maybe they serve us well, who knows? But the fact of the matter is that habits are a big part of who we are. In fact, it's estimated that up to 70% of our waking behavior is made up of habitual behavior. So if habits are largely learned, consciously or unconsciously, we have to ask ourselves, what is learning?

Well, learning is neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is simply the process by which our nervous system changes in response to experience. But at the end of the day, neuroplasticity is about forming new neural circuits, new pathways by which certain habits are likely to occur, and other ones are less likely to occur. As many of you are well aware, There are popular books about habits, and there's a whole psychological literature about habits.

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