The Conclusion of Neuroscience × Habit Formation | The Ultimate Routine to Change Your Life
Prologue: The Importance of Habits
Is there something you always do when you wake up every morning?
Is there a habit you always perform before going to bed every night?
According to a study conducted by Duke University, 45% of daily actions are performed automatically as habits is the report.
(https://jamesclear.com/habit-guide?)
Also, according to a survey conducted by Harvard University,
95% of daily thoughts and actions are the same as the previous day is the result.
(Source→https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/the-subconscious-mind-of-the-consumer-and-how-to-reach-it?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
In other words, refining your habits is the shortest route to changing yourself.
In this article, along with various information regarding habits, I will introduce the “Ultimate Morning and Night Routines to Change Your Life” based on scientific evidence.
Chapter 1. The Brain is Designed to “Take the Easy Way Out”
Our brains are constantly thinking about “how to live with energy conservation.”
As a result, about 40% of actions are left to habits, and 95% of decision-making is processed unconsciously.
Therefore, the reason why you cannot continue even if you try hard with just your willpower lies in the mechanism of the brain.
The brain only accounts for about 2% of total body weight.
However, it accounts for about 20% of energy consumption.
That is precisely why it is important to rely on “things you can do without thinking = habits” to avoid wasteful consumption.
Let’s give some familiar examples.
When you brush your teeth, touch your smartphone, or put on your shoes, you don’t think “what should I do?” every time, right?
This is thanks to the brain’s energy-saving design mentioned earlier.
However, due to that nature, bad habits such as “staying up late,” “junk food,” and “scrolling on your smartphone” also continue on their own.
Chapter 2. It is “Habits,” Not “Willpower,” That Change Your Life
Habits (Routines) Shape Your Life
As I have mentioned many times from the beginning, our daily actions are mostly due to habits.
In other words, if you can incorporate many good habits (routines), the quality of your life and life itself will naturally improve.
Conversely, the more bad habits a person has, the more their daily performance level drops without them noticing, and the quality of their life declines.
Examples of good habits
・Early to bed, early to rise
・Balanced and healthy diet
・Light exercise and stretching
・Learning and reading
Examples of bad habits
・Staying up late, irregular sleep
・Excessive intake of snacks and junk food
・Lack of exercise, sitting all day
・Scrolling on your smartphone all day
Were there any good or bad habits that apply to you?
The accumulation of such actions becomes your “habits.”
The choice of what to do and what not to do every day is very important.
Chapter 3. The Key to Changing Habits
To change habits, you need to understand the mechanism of the brain.
Human actions have three processes:
Cue → Action → Reward.
To give an easy-to-understand example,
Trigger: Place water by your bedside
Action: Drink it as soon as you wake up
Reward: Feel refreshed after waking up
It's something like this.
Furthermore, what is important for changing habits is to“start small”.
As I have mentioned many times, the brain is designed to be as lazy as possible.
Therefore, if you suddenly try to take a big action or make a major change, the brain perceives it as "something that consumes a large amount of energy" and will unconsciously try to avoid that action.
Example: If you think, "30 minutes of muscle training a day!", your brain reacts with "It's a hassle... I don't want to do it," and you end up not doing it at all.
Conversely, by starting with small things, you can avoid the brain's resistance, and by gaining a sense of success from "I did it!", you build confidence and make it easier to form a habit.
Example: Even just one push-up a day, the brain feels rewarded by "I did it"
You can also naturally increase the number of repetitions or time later
↑ In the study mentioned above, it is reported that when the brain recognizes even a small action as an "achievement," dopamine is secreted. This reinforces the feeling of "I want to do it again," which accelerates habit formation.
In other words, small successful experiences are the key to habit formation.
Chapter 4. Creating an Environment that Dramatically Increases the Success Rate of Habit Formation
Since the brain is designed to be lazy, habit building that relies solely on willpower will not last long.
That is why it is important to set up an environment and create a mechanism where the brain "wants to do it on its own."
[Creating an environment to avoid bad habits]
The best way to avoid bad habits and form good ones is todecide that you will only do X in that place and absolutely nothing else.
Decide that the desk is for studying and working, and the bed is for sleeping, etc.
And remove everything from that space except for the items needed to perform that action.
People are so sensitive to their surroundings that just having things in their field of vision can distract them.
According to a study by the University of Texas, USA,it has been shown that just having a smartphone in your field of vision reduces the cognitive ability of the subjects.Specifically, it was reported that when the smartphone was placed in another room, the cognitive test scores were better than when it was placed on the desk.
By doing just this, you can create an environment that shuts out temptations that lead to bad habits.
[Creating an environment to build good habits]
For this, it is important to place a "trigger" that elicits small actions.
Simply put,create conditions where your brain acts on its own.
Here are some concrete examples.
・I want to make it a habit to drink water as soon as I wake up in the morning
→Place water by your pillow before going to bed
・I want to study with focus
→Remove everything except what is necessary for studying, and put your smartphone in another room
In this way, small adjustments will help you form habits.
And setting up your environment like this will make your habit formation easier.
Now, assuming you have understood the content so far,
I will introduce the ultimate routine!
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Chapter 5. The Ultimate Routine to Change Your Life
✓ Night Routine
As a major premise, all the actions introduced in this night routine are aimed atimproving the quality of your sleep.
Sleep is not just "time to rest," but the most important time that supports the organization and repair of the brain and body, and emotional stability. Please understand that today's actions are directly linked to tomorrow's concentration, memory, health, and mood as you engage in them.
1. Relax your mind and body
By actually writing down the fuzziness or worries in your head and listening to your own voice, you can organize your mind and reduce anxiety and tension.
Professor Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin, who has studied the relationship between the act of writing and emotional processing for 40 years, also found that writing out emotions improved mental health.
You can purchase his actual book from the page below, so please check it out if you are interested.
【How to do it】
1. Prepare a memo pad or notebook
2. Write down all the anxieties, worries, and fuzziness you are feeling right now
3. When you finish writing, draw a circle around all of them and throw the paper away
His research has proven that just doing this leads to improvements in your physical and mental health, and can also lead to improvements in immune function.
Also, by drawing a circle around what you wrote instead of just throwing it away after finishing, it becomes an experience of acknowledging your own actions, and by thinking "I did it properly," you can gain a sense of psychological security.
2. Finish eating and bathing at least 2 hours before bed
Eating right before bed puts a burden on the digestive system and hinders falling asleep.
Effects of Diet on Sleep Quality - PubMed
The study above also shows that finishing a meal 2-3 hours before bed improves the depth of sleep (non-REM sleep).
Also, by bathing (soaking in a tub) 1-2 hours before bed, the body temperature that was raised by the bath will drop by the time you go to sleep, creating natural drowsiness.
The human sleep-wake cycle reconsidered from a thermoregulatory point of view - PubMed
This study also shows that bathing 1-2 hours before bedtime makes it easier for core body temperature to drop, making it easier to fall asleep.
3.Close your smartphone at least 1 hour before bed
Blue light from smartphones and PCs suppresses the secretion of melatonin, which makes you feel sleepy. Put away your devices at least 1 hour before bed to encourage natural drowsiness.
4. Dim the room with indirect lighting
Strong light makes the brain recognize it as "still active time" and suppresses the secretion of melatonin (sleep hormone).
Therefore, use indirect lighting or warm-colored lights before bed to gently darken the room.
5. Reading before bed
Reading a paper book before bed relaxes the brain and induces natural drowsiness.
It is best to do this with indirect lighting on.
6. Ventilate shortly before bed (10–15 minutes)
Ventilate your bedroom for 10–15 minutes before going to sleep to keep the air fresh. Increasing oxygen levels improves sleep quality.
✓ Morning Routine
1. Get sunlight immediately after waking up
According to Dr. Andrew Huberman of Stanford University, getting sunlight in the morning regulates your internal clock (circadian rhythm), increases serotonin secretion, and activates your brain and body. It also has benefits such as improving sleep quality and concentration.
2. Hydration
It is said that we lose about 500ml of water while sleeping, and since dehydration leads to decreased concentration and metabolism, it is important to properly hydrate in the morning. (National Institutes of Health: NIH).
Recommendation → 300ml to 500ml of room-temperature water (it is even better to add pink salt or electrolyte powder)
3. Ultra-simple nutritional intake
Eating high-GI foods that spike blood sugar levels, such as bread, white rice, or noodles, in the morning can lower your concentration and productivity for the morning. Therefore, it is desirable to consume things like protein, bananas, or yogurt, which provide necessary nutrients and materials for dopamine synthesis with low digestive burden.
4. Start tasks immediately (Deep Work)
Research from MIT and on Deep Work has proven that "the peak of concentration is first thing in the morning."
By keeping your routine minimal and sitting at your desk as soon as possible to tackle your most important task of the day first, you can be more productive. Additionally, finishing the most important thing first provides a sense of accomplishment and makes the remaining work psychologically easier.
5. Do not look at your smartphone in the morning
Just checking smartphone notifications or social media releases a large amount of dopamine. Dopamine is the driving force behind your motivation, and its supply is limited. To fully concentrate on your most important morning task, refrain from using your smartphone in the morning.
Points to note
A routine is ultimately an action to improve your own performance in life and work.
It is counterproductive to spend too much time on your routine.
Walking, meditation, journaling, cold showers...
These are all wonderful, but there is absolutely no need to do all of them.
Try various things through trial and error yourself, and find the actions you feel are necessary for you.
Build your own best routine so that you can use your time for actions that truly lead to the dreams and goals you want to achieve.