Mindfulness and Habits

Initial Experience with Meditation

• Instructions: Pay attention to breath and bring mind back when it wanders
• Challenges:
  • Difficulty in maintaining focus
  • Physical exhaustion and the need for frequent naps

Difficulty in Paying Attention

• Studies show even with effort, about half of us will drift into daydreams or distractions
• Fighting against an evolutionarily conserved learning process

Reward-Based Learning Process

• Basics: Positive and negative reinforcement
  • Process: See food -> Eat food -> Feel good -> Repeat
  • Components: Trigger -> Behavior -> Reward
• Brain's Creativity: Applying the process beyond food
  • E.g., eating comforts stress -> Repeat and form habits

Evolution of Habits

• Initially survival-based, now contributing to self-destruction (e.g., smoking, obesity)
• Emotional triggers leading to harmful habits

Mindfulness Intervention

• Approach: Shift from forcing focus to cultivating curiosity
• Example: Smoking cessation study
  • Subjects told to smoke mindfully and observe the experience
  • Realization of unpleasant sensations (e.g., tastes like chemicals)
  • Transition from cognitive understanding to visceral knowledge

Prefrontal Cortex and Cognitive Control

• Intellectual understanding vs. habit breakdown under stress
• Cognitive control: Attempts to regulate behavior,
  • Often fails under stress, leading to habitual reactions
• Importance of Disenchantment:
  • Understanding and becoming disenchanted breaks the habit's hold

Role of Mindfulness

• Objective: Clearly seeing the results of actions leads to natural letting go
  • Leads to forming new, healthier habits
• Paradox: Mindfulness involves curiosity about moment-to-moment experience
  • Benefit: Curiosity is naturally rewarding

Cravings and Body Sensations

• Mindfulness helps break cravings into manageable sensations
• Experience: Tightness, tension, restlessness
  • Understanding sensations' temporary nature eases management

Neural Mechanisms

• Self-Referential Processing: Default mode network involved
• When caught in cravings, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) is activated
• Effect of Mindfulness: Letting go quiets PCC activity

Mindfulness Training Programs

• App and online-based programs targeting unhealthy habits
• Use technology to aid mindful awareness in real-life contexts

Practical Application

• Be curiously aware of urges in different contexts (e.g., checking email, texting)
  • Explore the joy of letting go rather than acting on compulsion