How to form good habits, and break bad ones: trick your brain

如何养成好习惯、改掉坏习惯：欺骗你的大脑

Small rewards and a change of scenery can help

小奖励和换个环境会有所帮助

Did you make any resolutions this new year? If you did, are you keeping to them? Well done if you are. Polling in America suggests half of new-year resolvers give up by the end of March. More rigorous scientific studies confirm that it takes months for a new behaviour to stick, regardless of when you start.

你在新年伊始立下什么决心了吗？如果立了，你还在坚持吗？如果你还在坚持，那真是好样的。美国的民意调查显示，半数立下新年决心的人在三月底前就放弃了。更严谨的科学研究证实，无论你何时开始，一个新的行为要真正固化下来都需要数月时间。

Habitual behaviour emerges in response to dopamine, a chemical associated with pleasure, being produced as a consequence of a certain action. Two brain systems are involved. One, in the basal ganglia (a set of structures deep in the brain’s interior), responds automatically and predictably to certain stimuli. 

习惯性行为的产生，源于某种行动后随之产生的多巴胺——一种与愉悦感相关的化学物质。这涉及大脑的两个系统。一个位于基底神经节（大脑内部深处的一组结构），它会对某些刺激自动且可预测地做出反应。

For example, your morning alarm is a stimulus that activates your “getting up” habit. This will include sub-habits such as “shower”, “make coffee”, “get dressed”, “drive to office” and so on, each with their own triggering stimuli and dopamine reward.

例如，你早晨的闹钟就是一种刺激，它会激活你的“起床”习惯。这其中包括一些子习惯，比如“洗澡”“煮咖啡”“穿衣服”“开车去办公室”等等，每个子习惯都有各自的触发刺激和多巴胺奖励。

The other brain system, which is goal-directed, is located in the cortex, that organ’s outer layer. Its dopamine reward comes from a deliberate action being successfully performed. This goal-directed system can, if necessary, override the stimulus-response one. For example, if the radio tells you of a traffic problem, the “drive to office” sub-routine will need conscious modification.

另一个大脑系统是目标导向系统，它位于大脑皮层（该器官的外层）。它的多巴胺奖励来自于成功完成一个有意识的行动。如有必要，这个目标导向系统可以覆盖那个刺激-反应系统。例如，如果广播告知你交通出现问题，那么“开车去办公室”这个子程序就需要有意识地进行调整。

For one-off modifications of habits, this arrangement of routine and override works well. But permanent changes, such as either breaking an old habit or making a new one, are thought to require weakening the stimulus-driven system to reduce the pertinence of old stimuli and strengthening the goal-directed one to increase that of new ones.

对于习惯的一次性调整，这种例行程序与覆盖机制结合的方式效果很好。但永久性的改变，比如改掉旧习惯或养成新习惯，被认为需要削弱刺激驱动系统以减少旧刺激的相关性，同时强化目标导向系统以增加新刺激的相关性。

In a paper published in January, Eike Buabang and his colleagues at Trinity College, Dublin, review the evidence behind various ways in which this can be done. In practice, most proven approaches seem to operate on the stimulus-response side of the equation. 

在1月发表的一篇论文中，都柏林三一学院的艾克·布阿邦及其同事回顾了实现这一目标的各种方法背后的证据。在实践中，大多数被证实有效的方法似乎都是在处理刺激-反应这一侧的问题。

Deliberate repetition, that stalwart of hopeful resolution-makers, trains the brain so that what was once goal-directed becomes automatic. In the case of driving to work, the incentive to do this is strong (you won’t get paid otherwise). For things more easily abandoned, reinforcement with small rewards (whether the kick of having lost another kilo at your weekly weigh-in or the praise generated by language-learning or fitness apps) works similarly. 

有意识的重复——满怀希望的决心践行者所依赖的可靠方法——训练大脑，使原本目标导向的行为变得自动化。以开车上班为例，这样做的动力很强（否则就拿不到工资）。对于那些更容易被放弃的事情，用小奖励进行强化（无论是每周称重时发现又减掉一公斤的兴奋感，还是语言学习或健身应用程序带来的赞扬）也有类似的效果。

To break an unwanted habit, on the other hand, consider removing familiar stimuli. Moving house is known to help—though calling in the removal vans is a drastic approach to resolution-keeping.

另一方面，要改掉一个不良习惯，可以考虑消除熟悉的刺激。众所周知，搬家有助于改掉不良习惯——不过为了坚持决心而叫来搬家货车是一种极端做法。

Why people learn bad habits in the first place remains mysterious. Most habits form precisely because they are helpful. Automatic behaviours, such as those involved in a morning routine, reduce cognitive load and free mental resources for other tasks, such as working out what to say in the ten-o’clock meeting. 

人们最初为什么会养成坏习惯，这仍然是个谜。大多数习惯的形成恰恰是因为它们是有益的。自动化的行为，比如早晨例行公事中的那些行为，能减轻认知负担，释放脑力资源用于其他任务，例如想好在十点钟的会议上要说什么。

But these mechanisms can be subverted. The nicotine inhaled by smoking tobacco—a type of habit so powerful that it has a special name, “addiction”—stimulates dopamine production directly. This is something natural selection could not have foreseen. Non-addictive habits like procrastination are harder to explain.

但这些机制也可能被颠覆。吸烟时吸入的尼古丁——这种习惯的威力极大，甚至有一个专门的名字叫“成瘾”——会直接刺激多巴胺的产生。这是自然选择无法预见的。像拖延症这样非成瘾性的习惯则更难解释。

In the end, though, all this science continues to support the idea that, when it comes to habit-formation, good old-fashioned willpower is the way forward. As the old joke has it: “How many psychoanalysts does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.”

不过归根结底，所有这些科学研究仍然支持一个观点：在习惯养成方面，传统的好办法——意志力才是前进的方向。就像那个老笑话说的：“换一个灯泡需要多少个心理医生？只需要一个，但那个灯泡必须真心想要改变。”