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Tactical Bite | The Brain’s Habit Loop: How to Work With It, Not Against It
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In this Tactical Bite episode of The Ripple Affect podcast, co-host Isa “Nibby” explores the neurobiology behind habit formation and why our brains naturally automate repeated behaviors. Drawing from psychological research, habit-based coaching, and her own personal experiments, she breaks down why habits exist in the first place and how understanding the brain’s drive for efficiency can help us reshape our daily routines.
Nibby walks listeners through a simple, actionable framework for building new habits or replacing old ones. From choosing a habit rooted in personal meaning, to visualizing the long-term impact of change, to starting with just five minutes a day, the episode emphasizes a small-changes approach that makes growth more sustainable. She also introduces the “crowding method,” habit tracking strategies, and accountability techniques that help reinforce consistency.
This episode offers a practical roadmap for anyone looking to create lasting change in their life. By the end, listeners will walk away with clear steps to begin forming meaningful habits, along with a deeper understanding of how small actions—done consistently—can reshape identity and behavior over time.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Ripple Affect Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
You're listening to The Ripple Affect with your hosts, Cheech and Nippy, a podcast that explores how individual change has the capacity to affect the whole. From neuroscience to donuts, we're two sisters with a deep curiosity for ancient wisdom and modern knowledge, and we're obsessed with learning alongside you because we don't know.
00:00:24
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Let's dive in.
Tactical Episode Announcements
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of the Ripple Affect podcast. This is your co-host Issa aka Nibby and today I'm bringing you a tactical episode which are shorter bite-sized actionable episodes for enacting change in your week.
00:00:45
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But first, a special shout out to Susan Major for recently subscribing to our Patreon. If you'd like to learn more about the many ways you can support this project and the perks associated, please head on over to our Patreon at www.patreon.com backslash ripple affect pod.
00:01:03
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That's affect with an A as always. We are so grateful for each and every one of our listeners. We truly appreciate and love all of you. But this special moment is for Susan.
00:01:15
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Susan, you have been such a positive, dedicated, and interactive listener from the very beginning. Each one of your messages of encouragement, praise, and connection have lifted our spirits more than you could ever know.
00:01:28
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Thank you for your unwavering dedication to your personal evolution and allowing the ripple effect to be a part of that. Cheers to you.
Exploring Habits and Neurobiology
00:01:39
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This week, we are going to dive in, shallow end, because I don't have hours with you, to habits.
00:01:46
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In this episode, we're going to talk about the neurobiology of habits, just a little bit, a few very easy, actionable steps to create a new habit or break an old one, and some personal anecdote around what has and hasn't worked for me.
00:02:03
Speaker
Let's dive in. First of all, I love this subject. I've read many books about habits. I've read psych studies on habits. I have used myself as a human experiment on habits. I'm also a habit-based nutrition coach, if you didn't know. I am fascinated by habits. Guarantee you, whether you know it or not, have habituated many things in your life.
00:02:30
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Some of them probably serve you well, like driving, and others really don't. Let's start with why our brains create habits. This is almost too simple to be true.
00:02:43
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It's most likely for simple metabolic efficiency, aka the body being smart with how it spends its energy. The brain creates a habit so that it doesn't have to run as much caloric energy to neurons firing, figuring things out over and over and over again. Once it's sequenced, it'll just run that pattern.
00:03:05
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Habits are cognitively efficient because the automation of common actions frees mental resources for other tasks. The brain can rely on long-term memory and it can use a lot less energy to run the program.
00:03:20
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So that's why, for example, when you're first learning to drive a vehicle, there's a lot of brain activity. But once you've learned to drive, you look up and think, I don't remember the last 30 miles.
00:03:34
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And if you're me, you ponder whether you've been abducted in that time. Okay, that's the basics. The brain loves efficiency. It's a little lazy, as Dr. Thayer would say.
00:03:47
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I can go into the areas associated with these things, but I don't know that anybody cares. Plus, we have an episode dropping soon with the one and only Dr. Barbara Thayer, PhD neurobiologist, who can break this down better than I. Okay, so let's just stop there. Today I'm giving you habit formation advice paired with a small changes approach that has been tested as a behavioral change strategy.
Motivation and Habit Formation
00:04:15
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Ready? First things first, pick your habit. Make sure this new thing is meaningful to you. That's really important. After you've picked, you're going to take a piece of paper and write for five minutes, write a reality of what life will be like for you if you don't follow through with this habit.
00:04:35
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If nothing changes, where are you? What does life look like? Paint that picture for yourself. Okay. And then once the timer goes off, you're going to reset it for another five minutes and you're going to write out what life looks like.
00:04:51
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If you do stick to this habit and it becomes part of you and your daily activity and your identity, and it is just, it is, it's working. Write down all the things that you'll gain from integrating this habit into your identity.
00:05:07
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Okay. This will cement in your why in a real way. There's evidence that a behavior change selected on the basis of personal value rather than to satisfy external demands like a physician's recommendations is an easier habit target. So find something that is meaningful to you.
00:05:27
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Okay. Step two, keep it small. Do less than you're capable of. This should be something that takes no more than five minutes to start.
00:05:38
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Five minute meditation minimum, five minute run, five minute creativity time, five minute play with your kid, five minute practice your instrument, whatever the thing, just do it for five minutes. Okay.
00:05:52
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Forming one small healthy habit may increase self-confidence for working towards other self-promoting habits. We don't want to go all in, fail, and then fall into that loop. What we want to do is we want to go a little bit in, not fail, and let it build us up. So just stick to this one small thing and it will change other things.
00:06:17
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Okay, step three, use the crowding method. Listen, it is not possible to form a habit by not doing something.
00:06:28
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It doesn't work like that. Do you need that again? do you need that again? It's important. It is not possible to form a habit by not doing something. You have to do the new thing.
00:06:40
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Hence, crowd in the new good thing. Do not cut out the bad. Select a new behavior. For example, eat an apple daily rather than giving up an existing behavior. Stop eating fried food.
00:06:53
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Crowding in the good thing, not cutting out the bad thing. Okay, here we go. These are two caveated tips.
Accountability and Habit Success
00:07:02
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Track it. Track the habit. We have a hard time with not instant gratification.
00:07:10
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We love dopamine hits in our society right now. It is all the rage. So it's challenging to start a habit that's going to take time to start seeing the actual benefit. But what doesn't take time and what gives you a short burst of dopamine is tracking your personal progress with that habit. So track the personal progress, create a calendar, create I printed one out when I was doing my habit and just mark it off every day you do it. And then it gets addicting and you just start marking it off. And then you don't want to break your chain or your streak, right? Duolingo knows this. they They're up on it.
00:07:53
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Second bonus. This one really worked for me. Call someone and tell them, that you're doing this thing and that you want to keep this habit for yourself. And if you don't, if you fail to keep this habit, you will pay them $300.
00:08:08
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three hundred dollars Or whatever amount motivates you to stay on track that you you would actually be able to afford, but it would be like, oh, I don't want to pay that for not doing five-minute action, okay? Find that number for yourself. That's it. These are short. These are actionable. These are tactical. So one, decide on the goal you would like to achieve for yourself.
00:08:30
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Make it meaningful to you. Two, write down everything that life will be like if you don't change it. Get real with yourself. If it's smoking, I might die 20 years sooner.
00:08:44
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Then set your timer for another five minutes. Everything that can change, everything that you'll gain, your new identity and experience, five minutes. Next, you choose a simple action that will get you towards your goal, which you can do on a daily basis in five minutes or less.
00:09:03
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Three, do not restrict yourself from anything. Simply add in the new behavior. It can help to have a time and a place where you do the new action, but you don't need it. As long as you do the thing daily, you're good.
00:09:18
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Four, track your action, stay accountable, gamify it if need be. Okay, gamify it. Five, It will get easier with time.
00:09:30
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If you don't follow through, you didn't do anything wrong. You know what? I'm going to insert a snippet from a not yet released Sofa Series episode with Dr. Barbara Thayer on habits.
00:09:45
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This will help.
The Role of Grace and Persistence in Habits
00:09:46
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So for people who feel stuck in patterns that are tied to stress and trauma or an emotional regulation, how much of habit changes that agency, that willpower that we talked about of taking the time to say, hey, this is what I'm doing. And how much of it is nervous system regulation?
00:10:02
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or do you think it takes both to be able to actually change a habit? This is going to sound so hippy-dippy, but I'm going to let it fly anyway. But I think there's something else. i think there's something about grace in that.
00:10:16
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There I've, and i I, because I feel like as much as I wish I could will myself in a new ways of being, you know, ah so sometimes it happens. And I feel like, how did that happen? that was so magical.
00:10:29
Speaker
You know, there's some element of, and I think of it as some sort of grace from whatever there is in the universe where, I get on the beam, you know, and I'm lined up with whatever it is that the universe is trying to generate and it happens, you know, and then there's other times when I feel like I'm trying to force it and I may have all the pieces in place, but there's something that's not happening yet. And I don't know what that thing is. And I think it's a magic thing.
00:10:53
Speaker
I agree. And I just, I wonder how you trust and how you navigate when, when it's not the grace, when the grace isn't there, when the habits aren't being formed, when you really know you want to genuinely change something and you just aren't doing it or you can't seem to do it. How do you navigate the surrender and the trust and not self-criticize? Oh gosh, i mean I have no idea.
00:11:17
Speaker
Million dollar question. How do you not self-criticize? Right, boy. You go to ACA, you go to ACA and you learn how to be your own loving parent. That's how you do You need better guests than me on your podcast who have the actual because you got me no All I know is to keep trying.
00:11:35
Speaker
You know, that's literally all know. Keep trying. Just don't give up. If that's what I want, then I know. and ah and if the thing that I want is the thing that I think is really good for me, good for the world, you know, the people in my life, the people that I may encounter, I know that if I just keep trying, eventually it will come. And I don't know when that is.
00:11:55
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And sometimes it's just a test of persistence, but I feel like that's the only way for me to get there. You know, I know that this is something I want in my life. I know it And even though I fail, sometimes, you know, if I get back up and I keep trying and I keep trying, eventually that thing will happen. You know, I mean, how many times did I try to quit smoking? I don't know much. I didn't keep track of that. I try not to keep track of my failures. And generally, I don't find it a helpful thing. No, you just let what they say about the past, like, look, but don't stare. Yeah, yeah exactly. Yeah.
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's impolite to stare. Yeah. I just, I really do. I think there's some sort of magic universe. Ask your guide, your ancestors, whoever is there helping you, you know, to help you to manifest that, to bring that to the fore, you know?
00:12:46
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There you have it. Thank you, Dr. Thayer. We're complex beings and life is dynamic. Health is an evolving goal and healing is nonlinear. So try this out.
00:12:58
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See what sticks if you stick to it. If it doesn't work, you can always try again. But I'm telling you, it's going to work. It's going to work. That's it for this week.
Episode Wrap-Up and Call to Action
00:13:08
Speaker
Happy habit making. If you'd like the show notes, including my favorite resources on habits, the book that I attribute to my seven month streak of meditation, a smart goal sheet to set you up for success and a step-by-step process that I just explained in a PDF form. You can find all of that on our Patreon page.
00:13:28
Speaker
Become a member to drop in deeper with us. Catch you next week. Issa signing off. Okay. i i think we did it. Listen, I don't know what we did, but we did it.
00:13:43
Speaker
Thanks for listening to another episode of The Ripple Affect. We're looking forward to exploring a different facet of change with you next time. If you found value in this episode, please take a second to leave us a review and share with a friend.
00:13:55
Speaker
Every little bit helps The Ripple go farther. Thanks for being a part of this experiment with us. and remember, We're way more connected and deserving than society's false sense of separation dictates us to be. You're not just one person. Your singular efforts do make the collective change possible. We're going to keep showing up and we'll never get to perfection. But if we allow the process to be the solution, we can trust that small ripples will make big waves.
00:14:22
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Changing yourself changes the ripple. And what if a collective almost is good enough?