06.08.2024The Power of Habits

"Many of our daily actions are automated, and that’s actually a good thing", explains Nebe in an interview on Blümlisalpstrasse in Zurich, where his office is located. These automated behavioral patterns make our everyday lives easier and free up our brains so that we have more capacity for conscious thought. Nebe, who works in the Laboratory for the Study of Social and Neural Systems (SNS-Lab), investigates how habits are formed in the brain. His research findings have a wide range of applications – from practical tips for everyday life to clinical research into addictions and compulsive behavior.

"If we exhibit the same behavior in repetitive situations and it works, it’s efficient", he explains. This only becomes problematic when the context changes but the behavior does not. Anyone who has ever rented a car in a country where they drive on the left will be familiar with this situation: instead of operating the gearshift, your hand first hits the driver’s door a few times. This habit is usually overcome after just a short time and without much effort; other habits require more time and effort.

Rewards and triggers

What we generally refer to as bad habits often bring us positive benefits in the short term but negative ones in the long term. The opposite is usually true of good habits. How quickly a habit develops depends, among other things, on how strong the reward stimulus in the brain is. Bad habits creep in quickly and often unnoticed, as the reinforcement provided by the quick, positive reward facilitates the learning process.

"Addiction can be seen as an extreme kind of habit", says Nebe. "Nicotine, alcohol, and social media are – at least initially – used deliberately for relaxation or activation purposes. They therefore have a positive benefit. This can change over time and even turn negative."

Quitting a habit is easier said than done – despite the negative benefits. For example, some people find themselves standing at the bus stop with a cigarette in their hands just a few hours after making the firm decision to give up smoking. "The cigarette at the bus stop is a prime example of automated behavior triggered by situational stimuli. The strength of such action triggers is astonishing", explains Nebe, "but they can also be used consciously when learning new behaviors."

Practicing new habits

The time required to establish a new habit varies and depends on the complexity of the behavioral sequence and the strength of the reward stimulus. Nebe recommends breaking down complex sequences of actions into simple steps and using the power of situational cues. So if you get your running shoes ready in the morning, put them on immediately after work and then walk out of the front door again, you only need to practice three simple actions. And if you like to meet up with friends to go running, the additional reward stimulus of the shared experience reinforces the habit.

When the reward fails to materialize

Nebe’s latest project – which is being supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation – is investigating whether the mere repetition of behavior is sufficient to establish a habit, regardless of any reward. He is breaking new ground with this study, as habit development has previously always been researched using reward-based tasks.
This new type of task enables him to identify the impact that reward and repetition have on habit formation. Nebe knows from his previous study that frequent repetition alone triggers a learning process, but the effect is many times smaller than with a reward. He is now investigating exactly what this learning process looks like without any reward by analyzing the data on 220 test subjects using various mathematical learning models.

Participants came to the laboratory on five days for around two hours each to carry out various behavioral experiments. This extensive data set is supplemented by imaging methods such as MRI and EEG in the latest studies. "This is the first time that a learning process has been studied over so many days and using data from the MRI scanner and the EEG", he explains. The next phase will involve Nebe working with the Psychiatric University Hospital to investigate whether and how this learning process differs in people who are addicted to cocaine.

"From a neurological perspective there is no difference between the mechanism that causes a person to go jogging every morning and the one that causes them to smoke at the bus stop. The learning process is the same."