Did you know that 40-45% of your behaviors every day don’t results from decisions you made? They’re habits, according to Wendy Wood, an expert in habit formation and writer of the excellent book Good Habits, Bad Habits. Habits are a kind of memory for behaviors. The brain creates habits — behaviors in which people engage automatically without conscious thought — to conserve energy (thinking burns lots of energy!).

This intro to habit formation summarizes the groundbreaking neuroscience research of the past 10-15 years.

If asked, most people would probably consider their conscious thought processes to be at the core of who they are. Consciousness is a function of the prefrontal cortex, but there are other parts of the brain just as responsible for our behaviors. The prefrontal cortex is associated with the brain’s executive control functions. Behaviors in the prefrontal cortex are flexible, goal-directed, intentional, and energy intensive.

The prefrontal cortex isn’t equipped to manage all of our behaviors each day. Quite simply, it is a resource hog that is constantly in overdrive, and the hallmark of its thought processes — weighing the pros and cons of any given situation — isn’t always necessary, and can sometimes be a detriment to survival. Sometimes what’s needed is simple, quick, and decisive actions.

Luckily, the brain has a process by which repeated behaviors can be turned into habits and mediated by an older and simpler part of the brain called the basal ganglia. Habits in the basal ganglia are rigid, automatic, energy efficient behavioral routines triggered by contextual stimuli. The prefrontal cortex is only minimally engaged during a habit, so we are often not aware when we engage in these behaviors.

If you have read Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, James Clear’s Atomic Habits, then the above was nothing you didn’t already know. But it’s probably not something you learned in school. Our understanding of habits is based on research in neuroscience made within the last two decades that was made possible by advancements in imaging technology. This tech allowed scientists at MIT to see into the brain with startling clarity at the exact moment a habit was created. What these scientists learned about the brain was huge departure from the way we previously thought it worked.

For me, Duhigg’s book was quite literally a revelation. I viewed myself and the world differently after reading it, and even wrote my own slim, guerilla-style guide to the habit formation process called New Habits, New You. It is for sale on Amazon.

New Habits, New You describes the”brain hack” readers can use to create any habit they want. This brain hack is simply the habit loop given a sexier title. Of course, the habit loop, popularized by Duhigg, is an actual brain hack, and a pretty impressive one. But primarily it is a heuristic, a useful simplification of the brain’s habit formation process that has helped spread the concepts and mechanics involved broadly, at the expense of getting some of the details wrong. I think that’s okay. We are at the phase now in this learning process where people with less reach but more knowledge chime in and make the necessary corrections. Thank you, YouTube guy, for the seriously excellent video on habit formation below.