THE POWER OF HABIT

According to this instructional text for readers habituated to unhelpful ways, changing those bad habits for good habits isn’t rocket science—it’s brain science.

New York Times investigative reporter Duhigg demonstrates how automatic behavior, good or bad, can grow from a repeated decision that gets lodged in the basal ganglia. The result is a fixed loop of cue, routine and reward. Animal trainers are already familiar with this information. For improvement, the trick is to keep the cue and reward, but change the routine. The belief that acquiring a new “keystone habit” can really be achieved is necessary, and that’s why support groups, like AA, are valuable. To clarify his points, Duhigg offers some simplistic diagrams with many cautionary stories of surgeons, baristas, gamblers, sex addicts and football coaches, as well as the selling of toothpaste, aluminum and room deodorizers. Along with tales of paragons of corporate management, we learn how supermarkets are arranged, how Target stores target consumers, how Marin Luther King Jr. managed the Montgomery bus boycott and how Rick Warren organized his monumental Saddleback Church. Even with such varied exemplars, the skilled narrative remains accessible. Unlike other exhortations with titles that promise empowerment, this admonitory entry is supported by interviews, neurological studies and empirical histories. Copious notes and a “Reader’s Guide to Using These Ideas” are appended.

For self-help seekers, a more convincing book than most.