Have you ever watched the “Backward Bike” video by rocket engineer Destin Sandlin?
In this Smarter Every Day episode, he rides a “backward bike” built by his welder friend.
The only difference from a normal bike is that when you turn the handlebars, the wheels go in the opposite direction. Knowing this, you think it would be easy to adapt. It’s not.
Each day, he practiced on this bike for five minutes. Slowly, but surely, he retrained his brain.
What he discovered was that even a simple distraction (like a cell phone ringing or a horn honking), caused his brain to jump back to its old way of riding, which led him to teeter or crash.
It took him a full 8 months (at 5 minutes/day) for the new habit to become fully ingrained in his mind.
Fortunately, research from Duke University shows that, on average, it takes 66 days for a new habit to become automatic. When I think about sitting at my desk and fighting temptation for that long, it feels like an eternity.
Plus, all the attention we divert to keeping our new habit on track literally erodes our willpower. On the positive side, once we do develop a new habit, we don’t have to think about it anymore; we transition to autopilot.
I took a deep dive into the study of habits and neuroscience to find out why. It all starts with our brain, which guzzles about 30% of the body’s energy.
When we wake up in the morning, we have a fresh allotment available for use. When it gets low, we have a hard time paying attention or thinking straight.
Ingeniously, our brain has devised a way to make its energy allotment last longer. It constantly searches for repetitive patterns of behavior that it can systematize into a habit.
We have a morning routine, a driving routine, an email routine, an exercise routine… the list goes on. Science shows that up to 40% of our day is habitual, done without thinking.
As humans, we’re creatures of habit, living on cruise control. Making changes is challenging ...
Yet it might be the most important thing we can do to achieve our goals.