According to chiropractors one of the worse things to do to yourself is crack your own neck. I was unaware of this fact up until a few weeks ago; I never realized I could become paralyzed or possibly die just from simply cracking my own neck. I decided to stop once and for all but I never realized how hard it would be. I was so accustomed to cracking my neck that by the time I realized I was cracking one side of my neck, it was too late to stop and I had to “finish” the job. According to Charles Duhigg’s novel, The Power of Habit, the reason why I could not stop was because I had engraved in my brain, a habit. The reason we have habits is because our brains looks for ways to save effort and time. I began to analyze my habit and realized there
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The moment a person's cue appears, they begin to anticipate or crave their reward even before doing their routine and actually receiving the reward. Duhigg says “This explains why habits are so powerful: They create neurological cravings” (47). People would not be satisfied and often irritated when they would crave their reward but not receive it. Duhigg talks about an experiment in his book about what a man named Wolfram Schultz did with a monkey named Julio. Schultz would strap Julio onto a chair in front of a computer. Julio would have to touch a lever every time he saw a shape and he would be rewarded with blackberry juice. Once Julio knew what to do he started to get into the habit of pressing the lever every time he saw a shape. Schultz would see a spike in Julio’s brain once he received the blackberry juice. After the habit was deeply embedded in Julio’s brain, Schultz noticed that the spike would occur the second Julio saw the shape on the computer screen. Schultz then changed the experiment to wait a few seconds for the juice to come out and Julio would get mad and depressed about not getting the juice. Schultz realized this was a craving. Duhigg says “...craving, it turns out, is what makes cues and rewards work. That craving is what powers the habit loops”(19). What I didn’t know was that I crave that relaxation after cracking my neck. I did not know how badly I craved my reward up until …show more content…
If a person does not believe they can change their habit, then they will never change it. Duhigg says, “Once people learned how to believe in something, that skill started spilling over to other parts of their lives, until they started believing they could change” (85). In the beginning I had little faith in myself in began able to change my habit that I have been doing for years now. After a long process, I now believe that I can change my habit of cracking my neck. I believe that I need to do this for myself and not because someone told me to stop. Duhigg says “Belief was the ingredient that made a reworked habit loop into a permanent behavior”
The moment a person's cue appears, they begin to anticipate or crave their reward even before doing their routine and actually receiving the reward. Duhigg says “This explains why habits are so powerful: They create neurological cravings” (47). People would not be satisfied and often irritated when they would crave their reward but not receive it. Duhigg talks about an experiment in his book about what a man named Wolfram Schultz did with a monkey named Julio. Schultz would strap Julio onto a chair in front of a computer. Julio would have to touch a lever every time he saw a shape and he would be rewarded with blackberry juice. Once Julio knew what to do he started to get into the habit of pressing the lever every time he saw a shape. Schultz would see a spike in Julio’s brain once he received the blackberry juice. After the habit was deeply embedded in Julio’s brain, Schultz noticed that the spike would occur the second Julio saw the shape on the computer screen. Schultz then changed the experiment to wait a few seconds for the juice to come out and Julio would get mad and depressed about not getting the juice. Schultz realized this was a craving. Duhigg says “...craving, it turns out, is what makes cues and rewards work. That craving is what powers the habit loops”(19). What I didn’t know was that I crave that relaxation after cracking my neck. I did not know how badly I craved my reward up until …show more content…
If a person does not believe they can change their habit, then they will never change it. Duhigg says, “Once people learned how to believe in something, that skill started spilling over to other parts of their lives, until they started believing they could change” (85). In the beginning I had little faith in myself in began able to change my habit that I have been doing for years now. After a long process, I now believe that I can change my habit of cracking my neck. I believe that I need to do this for myself and not because someone told me to stop. Duhigg says “Belief was the ingredient that made a reworked habit loop into a permanent behavior”