The Number One Way To Change Your Habits
In 1971 a congressman visiting troops in Vietnam made a discovery which stunned the American public. On his trip he learned that 15% of his troops were heroin addicts. Later studies of the troops revealed that 35% of them had tried the drug and in actual fact 20% of the troops were in fact addicted to the drug.
This of course led to lots of panic back home and spurred on the creation of drug rehabilitation programs and finding ways to help these soldiers upon their return home.
During this process the lead researcher Lee Robins made a discovery which changed the widely accepted beliefs around behavioural addiction. He found that when the soldiers returned home only 5% of them became re-addicted to the drug and only 12% relapsed within 3 years. This essentially means that 9 in 10 soldiers eliminated their addiction overnight upon returning home.
So what caused this change? Quite simply a change in environment!
During the war soldiers were surrounded by cues to take the drug, the ease of access to it friendships which were built on using the drug and also just pure boredom… Upon their return home they found themselves in an environment which had none of these cues. Access was harder, their friends lived in different parts of the country and it was not a socially accepted norm among their family and friends.
So how can you harness the power of environment for changing your own habits?
If you’re trying to get fit surround yourself with others who have the same goal.
If you’re trying to quit alcohol, drugs or smoking going to the same store you normally buy these things from or hanging out with the people who you do this with.
If you continually scroll through social media delete the apps from your phone completely.
To change your habits you firstly need to change your environment. You may be able to resist temptation once or twice but with the amount of will power required to override these desires every time it’s only a matter of time before it runs out and you let yourself off the hook.
Use this energy instead on maintaining an optimal environment. One where the cues for good habits are clearly visible and the bad habits cues are invisible.
What's the first thing you can change in your environment?
Shaun Diachkoff
@shaundiachkoff
For further reading on the soldiers:
Lee Robins “Vietnam Veterans Three Years after Vietnam: How Our Study Changed Our View of Heroin,” American Journal on Addictions 19, no. 3 (2010), doi:10.1111/j.1521–0391.2010.00046.x.
Lee Robins, Darlene H. Davis, and David N. Nurco, “How Permanent Was Vietnam Drug Addiction?” American Journal of Public Health 64, no. 12 (suppl.) (1974), doi:10.2105/ajph.64.12_suppl.38.