This morning (or afternoon if you’re not a morning person) did you consciously decide which shoe to put first? What about shaving after or before taking a shower? Do you remember taking time to decide?

If your answer is No, then you were in the middle of a loop. A habit loop.

Yesterday I started reading a book called, The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg. The premise is that habits are as much part of our brain as memory and reason. But in contrast to the latter, when we act by habit it is normally not consciously, more like second-nature, like a reflex. Habits served an evolutionary purpose in the survival of our species many eons ago, and they still continue to pervade our daily lives in invisible ways, but sometimes they can work against our own wellbeing.

That we are not the paramounts of logic and reason as we would like to be is a shocking discovery by itself, but reading the examples the author gives of people suffering from memory disorders, addictions, and uncontrolled behaviours is eye opening to say the least.

I’m not sure this is the best place to make book reviews but I still want to say it somewhere besides the normal Goodreads review.

That’s all for now!

Last modified on 2015-02-20

You can make sure that the author wrote this post by copy-pasting this signature into this Keybase page.