The Placebo Diet by Janet Thomson MSc

Author:Janet Thomson, MSc
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hay House
Published: 2016-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

The Habit Loop

Much of what you have learned in this programme explains how neurological maps are formed to create behaviours or responses that you do automatically, without thinking. The common word for this is, of course, a ‘habit’. In this chapter we are going to learn more about how habits are formed, and a practical model for how to change them. This chapter will become even more relevant after you have read the nutrition section and the colour-code system. Then, you’ll be able to revisit the exercises here to learn how to change food preferences while still loving your food and getting comfort form it!

The basic premise for NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), which was created by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, is the study of what works in human behaviour. Most psychological therapies pay great attention to what is wrong with someone, the things they do that make them feel bad. NLP focuses on what people who don’t have the problem do. They then model these kinds of behaviours and teach them to the people with the problem. If someone already knows how to do something that would be useful for you, then model him or her and do what they do. When we use mirror neurons we are, to some extent, modelling people subconsciously, but with NLP there is a deliberate set of Instructions to follow to change how you think and make that change deliberate and conscious. If you have a spider phobia and you see a spider, then right on cue, you will probably distort the image of the spider you can see and replace it with a much bigger, fiercer, Jurassic-Park-style version. It’s not the spider you can actually see that you are afraid of; it’s the subsequent picture (or movie) that you create in your mind of the giant man-eating spider that scares you. As soon as you get the cue (which may even just be someone talking about spiders), your neural circuitry kicks in for a conditioned response. Although this isn’t technically a habit, in principle the neurology is very similar, in that there’s a cue or a trigger, and a response. The reason for the response is the reward you get by removing yourself from the threat; the fear goes away and you feel better. When you see the structure of a habit loop you will see the similarities. In therapy we know (using NLP and other techniques) how to collapse a phobic reaction and these same techniques can be equally efficient in changing a habit loop.

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