Technology has changed our lives in ways that we don’t often think about. Remember when the only way to look something up was in a book? Or the only way to access the Internet was on a desktop computer? Now we have uninterrupted access to information that’s always easy to seek out -- even when it may not be good for us.
Information access, for example, is not always such a good thing when it comes to eating disorders. In a recent article at Thefix.com, a website covering addiction and recovery, a colleague, Diana Freed, discusses how technology can be detrimental to people with eating disorders. She describes working with a 24 year-old woman who constantly checks her iPhone -- a phone loaded with apps that count calories, record her weight, and track her body mass index and body fat. Though the patient severely restricts her own food intake, she has also downloaded onto her iPhone recipe apps that she can look at and think about. In other words, at the same time she is seeking treatment to help her alter her preoccupation with weight and food, technology makes it easier for her to constantly retrieve images and information fueling the very impulses she is seeking to change.
Freed’s article raises an array of technology-related issues that I need to consider in my work. It’s important to know how much time a patient is spending on the Internet or engaging in social media, and what he or she believes to be getting from those experiences. Does using a certain app make you feel worse about yourself? Or are there apps you can use in the service of recovery? These are just two of the questions about technology that I and other psychologists must now explore.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
How to Change a Habit
Habits die hard. In The Power of Habit:Why We Do What We Do and How We Can Change It, Charles Duhigg tries to make it easier, by exploring how habits develop, how entrenched they can become, and how they can be changed.
From my perspective as a psychologist, the most interesting part of the book focuses on what Duhigg calls the habit loop. A habit loop consists of a cue, a routine, and a reward. Follow the loop a few times, and the habit becomes automatic and, well, a habit. Start smoking when you have your morning coffee, and pretty soon the coffee will cue you to crave the cigarette. The cigarette becomes the routine, and the nicotine, relaxation and distraction of the cigarette and coffee become the reward.
The key to changing the habit, says Duhigg, is identifying the cue, substituting another routine, and providing the same reward. One example he uses is how Alcoholics Anonymous can help people break the cycle of alcohol abuse. AA members are encouraged to explore the triggers, or cues, to which they have responded in the past by drinking. The hope is that, when faced with these cues again, they will instead develop the routine of going to a meeting or talking with a sponsor and enjoy the reward of companionship and support, rather than the reward they felt in the past from taking a drink.
Of course, real life is not as straightforward as the habit loops Duhigg describes. Motivations and rewards can be complicated. For example, the first part of the loop, identifying the cue, is not always immediately clear. When you walk into your apartment and immediately go to the refrigerator, what is the cue? Is it boredom, hunger, or a desire to escape from responsibilities? Next, you have to change the behavior -- perhaps going into another room first or finding a different escape. The last part to identify is the reward. Is it relaxation? Numbness? Without having a real understanding of what the payoff is for you, it will be difficult to find another behavior that can provide as reliable a reward.
Nevertheless, the model of the habit loop does provide an interesting way to look at behavior and can be helpful in devising ways to cue yourself in a positive direction. If you want to exercise, for example, you can put your gym clothes out the night before. At the very least you can use the concept of the habit loop to recognize habits you may not even be aware you have.
From my perspective as a psychologist, the most interesting part of the book focuses on what Duhigg calls the habit loop. A habit loop consists of a cue, a routine, and a reward. Follow the loop a few times, and the habit becomes automatic and, well, a habit. Start smoking when you have your morning coffee, and pretty soon the coffee will cue you to crave the cigarette. The cigarette becomes the routine, and the nicotine, relaxation and distraction of the cigarette and coffee become the reward.
The key to changing the habit, says Duhigg, is identifying the cue, substituting another routine, and providing the same reward. One example he uses is how Alcoholics Anonymous can help people break the cycle of alcohol abuse. AA members are encouraged to explore the triggers, or cues, to which they have responded in the past by drinking. The hope is that, when faced with these cues again, they will instead develop the routine of going to a meeting or talking with a sponsor and enjoy the reward of companionship and support, rather than the reward they felt in the past from taking a drink.
Of course, real life is not as straightforward as the habit loops Duhigg describes. Motivations and rewards can be complicated. For example, the first part of the loop, identifying the cue, is not always immediately clear. When you walk into your apartment and immediately go to the refrigerator, what is the cue? Is it boredom, hunger, or a desire to escape from responsibilities? Next, you have to change the behavior -- perhaps going into another room first or finding a different escape. The last part to identify is the reward. Is it relaxation? Numbness? Without having a real understanding of what the payoff is for you, it will be difficult to find another behavior that can provide as reliable a reward.
Nevertheless, the model of the habit loop does provide an interesting way to look at behavior and can be helpful in devising ways to cue yourself in a positive direction. If you want to exercise, for example, you can put your gym clothes out the night before. At the very least you can use the concept of the habit loop to recognize habits you may not even be aware you have.
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