Page 42 - Prevention (February 2020)
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W E L L NE S S
fastest ways to satisfy that dopamine
Building a healthy
craving; alcohol and cigarettes can do
the same. Plenty of behavioral habits
can give us the same buzz: Dating apps, habit is a matter
“likes” on social media, and online shop-
ping all provide an instant dopamine of harnessing your
rush, reinforcing those habit loops.
But once a new pleasure becomes mental system to
ingrained, it can start to feel very dif-
ferent. “The first time you realized you work for you, not
could check your phone while waiting in
line, it felt interesting and fun,” explains
Uma Karmarkar, Ph.D., a consumer against you.
neuroscientist and an assistant pro-
fessor at University of California, San
Diego. “You thought, Oh, I was bored,
but now I’m interested.” Soon enough,
though, Scrolling While Bored becomes 1. Make it easy for
your new normal. “Now, it’s no longer a yourself to succeed
pleasant surprise; in fact, not being able In 2017, an analytics company examined
to check your phone while bored actu- data collected from 7.5 million mobile
ally makes you feel uncomfortable.” devices to see how far people tended
In other words, it became a habit. to travel to work out. It found that the
Karmarkar pointed out a similar shorter the distance people had to go
pattern of behavior among longtime to do so, the more likely they were to
smokers. “They don’t talk as much follow through. That in itself might not
about the pleasure they get from having be surprising, but what was interesting,
a cigarette during a smoke break, but says Wood (who wasn’t involved with
they do talk about how much they miss the research), was that those with an
that smoke break if they can’t have it.” average round trip of 3.7 miles hit the
Since willpower isn’t enough to over- gym five or more times a month, while
come millennia of hardwiring to break those who had to travel about 5.1 miles
a pattern that makes you feel really went only once. “Less than a mile and
good—or keeps you from feeling really a half made all the difference between
bad—it’s time to dive into the research someone with a regular exercise habit
and figure out how to replace the old and someone without,” she says.
habits with newer, more desirable That extra mile and a half (which is
ones. Try these strategies that experts really just a few extra minutes in the
say give you the best chance of success: car), Wood says, is what habit formation
38 PREVENTION.COM • F E B RUARY 2020
