Our body and mind work through communication between neurons. There are separate neural pathways in the brain for each thought and action. The more often you perform a task or think a certain thought, the wider and smoother the pathway becomes. If you do not perform that thought or action regularly, then just as a road becomes covered after not driving on it for a long time, the neural pathways also become small and uneven. We have seen these things in the first part of the book.
The tasks that we do not need to think about are controlled by the Basal Ganglia part of our brain. For example, if you are an expert driver, you do not have to think about changing gears or pressing the brakes because the information for these tasks is stored in your Basal Ganglia. This Basal Ganglia is actually a part of our subconscious mind. Due to regular driving, the neural pathway for this task becomes quite smooth. But if you stop driving for two years, you will not be able to drive as well as before, even if you do not forget how to drive.
The Basal Ganglia part of the subconscious mind is so powerful that if our conscious mind were to do its work, it would get very tired. Our conscious mind is the decision-making part of our brain, called the Prefrontal Cortex; the way this part works is different from the Basal Ganglia.
When the Prefrontal Cortex makes a decision, it considers many things. The biggest disadvantage of this part is that it gets tired quickly when making big decisions because it consumes a lot of energy to make the right decision.
Suppose you have decided to quit smoking. Even if there is a cigarette shop near you, you will not smoke for a long time. This is because the initial command to follow your decision comes from the Prefrontal Cortex.
But whenever the conscious part of the brain gets tired of thinking about different things, the Basal Ganglia takes control of you. And since the habit of smoking cigarettes has become a part of your Basal Ganglia due to doing it for a long time, you will start again.
This is how our habits are actually created. By repeatedly doing a task, the process of that task moves from the Prefrontal Cortex of the conscious mind to the Basal Ganglia of the subconscious mind, so the tasks start happening automatically. This is actually a habit.
The point you need to understand here is that by practicing a new habit little by little, you will no longer have any difficulty doing it over time. So, instead of learning a habit all at once, slowly make it a part of your subconscious.
Turn the process into a habit instead of focusing on the amount of work. When the process adapts to the neural path, time or quantity does not matter; they will grow naturally. At some point, you will see that this has become a part of your life.
You cannot eliminate bad habits all at once, as this puts pressure on your brain and body. A study by Duke University in the United States shows that 45 percent of our work is done out of habit. We do not even realize how many of our mistakes are actually the result of our long-term habits. We all need to take a look at ourselves and find out which habits we need to eliminate and reorganize our lives using the Mini Habits method. The best book to read about this in detail is Mini Habits by author Stephen Guy.
Brain Fact : One of the best ways to overcome depression is meditation. According to Professor Willem Kuyken of Oxford University, meditation works like an anti-depressant drug for a person suffering from depression. In addition, meditation reduces the risk of a student suffering from depression by 31%.