360 ‒ How to change your habits: why they form and how to build or break them

1. 0:00 – 1:20

   Intro

   1. PAPeter Attia0:00

      Charles, did you say negative reinforcement is 1/20th

   2. CDCharles Duhigg0:03

      As effective as positive reinforcement

   3. PAPeter Attia0:05

      That's a staggering difference

   4. CDCharles Duhigg0:07

      It's a staggering difference. We can think of willpower as a muscle, and like all muscles, it gets stronger the more we practice using it, but it also gets fatigued in the short term.

   5. PAPeter Attia0:17

      How do we form better habits or reformat maladaptive habits around that?

   6. CDCharles Duhigg0:23

      Every habit in our life has three components. There is a cue, then there's a routine, and then there's a reward.

   7. PAPeter Attia0:28

      What do those of us with young kids need to do

   8. CDCharles Duhigg0:33

      Teaching children a sense of agency. When you bring home an A on your report card, instead of saying, "Oh, you're so smart," which is something you don't have control over, to say, "Oh, you must have worked really, really hard," because that's something you do have control over.

   9. PAPeter Attia0:45

      When adding new habits with people, we tend to start very small, and the win is basically defined by showing up-

   10. CDCharles Duhigg0:53

       Yeah

   11. PAPeter Attia0:53

       ... not by any performance.

   12. CDCharles Duhigg0:55

       The science of small wins. Regardless of how long it takes to build that habit or change a habit, every day you do it, it will get a little bit easier. Making the right choice is so much more powerful than executing really well on the wrong choice.

   13. PAPeter Attia1:09

       [upbeat music] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Drive podcast. I'm your host, Peter Attia.

2. 1:20 – 9:06

   How his background in journalism & personal experiences led to his interest in habit formation

   1. PAPeter Attia1:20

      Charles, thank you so much for making the trip out to Austin.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg1:23

      Thank you for having me. This is such a treat.

   3. PAPeter Attia1:25

      You know, in many ways, you're, you're kind of the, the OG guy when it comes to talking about habit formation. Um, and, uh, it's, it's hard to believe, we were just talking a moment ago, that it's been 13 years since your, uh, amazing book on the subject matter. Um, I probably read it eight years ago. Um, but it's a, it's a topic that is relevant regardless of what you do. That said, for what I do and how I... You know, what my job is and how I try to sort of help people, it really comes down to, uh, knowing what to do and then putting it into practice. So give folks a bit of a sense of your background and w- maybe even how that, uh, factored into you taking an interest in this topic.

   4. CDCharles Duhigg2:10

      Yeah, absolutely. Um, so before I wrote The Power of Habit, uh, I had been a, a, a reporter for quite a while, and, and a business reporter and a science reporter in particular. And I, I decided to become a journalist after I went to Harvard Business School, and I got my MBA. And about halfway through business school, I realized it's a lot more fun to write about business than to do it. [laughs]

   5. PAPeter Attia2:32

      [laughs]

   6. CDCharles Duhigg2:33

      So, so I decided to become a journalist. And one of the things that I noticed as I was writing, I was, I was working at The New York Times at that point. One of the things I noticed, because I had spent time overseas in Iraq during the war, I had reported on a bunch of different things, and two, I had two experiences that really got me interested in habits. The first is that when I was in Iraq, I got embedded with a unit that was, that was right outside of, um, Baghdad, and I was talking to a captain there. Actually, he was a major. And I, I was asking him, "How do you th- how do you train soldiers to become soldiers?" 'Cause one of the things that you see in a war zone in particular, or anyone who's spent a right time around the military, is that the behaviors are so deeply ingrained, right? The goal is to ingrain a set of behaviors that if a bomb goes off, which happened underneath my car, everyone around you, the, the 50 18-year-olds around you who probably don't know how to do anything with their lives, they know exactly what to do in that moment, and they react automatically. And so I was talking to this major, and he's this, like, little short guy, and he kind of like, you know, really muscular. He chews all the time. And I said, "How do you do this?" And he said, "Well, you know, the thing you have to understand, son," 'cause he called me son, "The thing you have to understand is the military is a giant habit change machine. This is what we do. We teach young recruits who maybe don't have any self-discipline, maybe, maybe, you know, are prone to emotional outbursts, we teach them the right habits, and we've made a science of it." And when I came back to the US, I kind of had this experience where I was thinking about that, and I was thinking to myself, "If I'm so smart and so talented," [laughs] right? "If I have this great job and I win these awards, why can't I get myself to lose weight? Like, why can't I get myself to go running in the morning every day? Why is this such a struggle for me when I'm so good at other things?" And I realized it was because I had not learned and studied how habits function in my own habits, and that once I learned that, I had the tools to change how I behave automatically, which is, of course, the most important component of our behavior because it's, it's what we do every day.

   7. PAPeter Attia4:37

      So you get back to the US what year?

   8. CDCharles Duhigg4:41

      From, from Iraq?

   9. PAPeter Attia4:42

      Yeah.

   10. CDCharles Duhigg4:42

       Uh, let's see. I, I was there '03 and '04. So, so I get back at the end of '04, beginning of '05. And I started at The New York Times. I was at The LA Times then. I started at The New York Times in '06.

   11. PAPeter Attia4:54

       And then what did you start writing about? Did it... Did... Like, when did you pick that thread up again and-

   12. CDCharles Duhigg4:59

       Yeah. So it's, um... So I did this piece that was really fascinating to me. It was for, I was writing for the business section of The Times, and I wrote a piece about the science of handwashing.

   13. PAPeter Attia5:08

       Hmm.

   14. CDCharles Duhigg5:08

       There's been really, really interesting research, particularly out of, um, the United Kingdom, about how do we incentivize people in developing nations to wash their hands? Because w- something that would happen, and a lot of this was sponsored by Unilever, the soap company. They found that people in poor communities, particularly in India and Pakistan and in other parts of Asia, would buy soap, and then they would save the soap for special occasions. It was like something you gave to a guest when they came over. It was something that you, you used before you went to mosque or for prayer. And so as a result, they weren't washing their hands every day. And of course, we know that using soap actually correlates with preventing a lot of diseases. And so a number of researchers in the UK took this on to try and figure out how do we create a soap habit, u- a handwashing habit using soap. And what they discovered was You need to be focused on the reward. Unilever in all the advertisements would talk about the benefits you got from using soap, that if you used soap, disease would go down. That was not influential, right? It's, it's just like talking-

   15. PAPeter Attia6:12

       Because it was too abstract?

   16. CDCharles Duhigg6:13

       A couple of reasons. First of all, it was too abstract. Second of all, you're trying to educate people who don't think that they're at an education deficit, right? We see the same thing in the United States around vaccine resistance and other things. Telling people, "Oh, you're, you don't know enough. I'm gonna tell you the truth," that almost never works.

   17. PAPeter Attia6:32

       Hmm.

   18. CDCharles Duhigg6:32

       What you have to do is you have to create incentives where you get an immediate reward for that behavior. And so what they did is they actually changed the scent of the soaps. They actually made the scent of the soaps less powerful because it seemed less like a perfume, less like a fancy thing. And then what they would do is they ran these ads where they equated washing your hands with taking care of your children, not necessarily your own health, not your own cleanliness, but when I wash my hands with soap, I can feed my children. And so I'm creating that sense, that identity reward that says, "By doing this, you're a good parent." And that changed everything.

   19. PAPeter Attia7:11

       Now, how long did it take them to figure out that that was the unlock? Was this iterative?

   20. CDCharles Duhigg7:18

       Absolutely.

   21. PAPeter Attia7:18

       What type of research did they have to do? I'm always intrigued by this type of problem.

   22. CDCharles Duhigg7:22

       Yeah, absolutely. And there's really interesting papers if anyone wants to read them. It took them years. It, and it, it took a really sustained exposure. And what's interesting is at, part of this research and where it came out of was trying to understand the neural roots of disgust. Disgust is a really, really powerful instinct-

   23. PAPeter Attia7:42

       Yes

   24. CDCharles Duhigg7:42

       ... that all humans have.

   25. PAPeter Attia7:44

       Yep.

   26. CDCharles Duhigg7:44

       And, and they really wanted to understand, how do we capitalize on disgust as a negative reward? So they spent years on this.

   27. PAPeter Attia7:54

       Hmm.

   28. CDCharles Duhigg7:54

       Um, but, but like everything that ends up having widespread change, it really paid off hu- enormous dividend.

   29. PAPeter Attia8:01

       By the way, when you say they, who are the types of people?

   30. CDCharles Duhigg8:04

       Yeah.
3. 9:06 – 16:59

   Science behind reinforcement: why positive rewards outperform punishment in habit formation

   1. PAPeter Attia9:06

      Now, the way you described it a moment ago, it was more avoidance of negative that got the job done. Can we talk a little bit about, and I think we're gonna come back to this over and over again, but the more examples we have, the better. Y- you can almost think of like a two-by-two, positive and negative, giving and taking.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg9:27

      Yeah.

   3. PAPeter Attia9:27

      Right? So give a carrot, uh, give a stick. Take away a carrot, take away a stick. This is like in my very simple framework, take away a stick. Disgust is bad. We're gonna remove disgust.

   4. CDCharles Duhigg9:40

      Yeah.

   5. PAPeter Attia9:40

      How do you think about or what does the science tell us about that four square?

   6. CDCharles Duhigg9:44

      I'll tell you what the research says, and, and just to give a little bit of context, the reason why this is important is because every habit that we have in our life, and about 40 to 45% of what we do every day is habits, and this comes from research by Wendy Wood at USC, every habit in our life has three components. There is a cue, which is like a trigger for that behavior to start. Then there's a reward, or then there's a routine, which is the behavior itself, what we think of as the habit, and then there's a reward. Every habit in your life delivers a reward, whether you're aware of it or not. And so you're right. There are negative rewards, and there are positive rewards. But negative rewards and positive rewards act very differently. And to be most powerful, often we have to put them in combination with each other. So let's start, start by talking about negative rewards. You would think that the threat of something unpleasant happening would be the most powerful negative reward. "Peter, if you don't run today, I'm gonna hit you with a cane," right? That's actually not what the science tells us. What the science tells us is that the best way to use negative rewards is to establish the pain and punishment prior to the behavior and then remove the tension of it afterwards. So I'm gonna give you an example. When I was in Iraq, one of the things that I learned about was the extraordinary interrogation techniques that were used by the military. And stories came out that, you know, they would take people and terrorists, and if they weren't, they weren't giving them information, they would put them in a little box and, and sort of lock them up in this physically uncomfortable position. That's not actually what happened. What happened is you capture the person, you put them in the box, and then you tell them, "I will let you out of the box if you give me the information I want." Right? The presence of a negative reward or a punishment is much more powerful when we feel it than when we anticipate it. When we put it that way, it makes sense.

   7. PAPeter Attia11:35

      Hmm.

   8. CDCharles Duhigg11:35

      The problem is negative reinforcement is about 1/20 as effective as positive reinforcement. So I have to hit you with a cane 20 times to equal the motivation that you'll feel if I let you have a really nice smoothie after you go for that run.

   9. PAPeter Attia11:54

      Sorry, say that again, Charles. Did you say negative reinforcement is 1/20 as-

   10. CDCharles Duhigg12:00

       As effective as positive reinforcement.

   11. PAPeter Attia12:01

       And we define effective as likely to produce the desired outcome.

   12. CDCharles Duhigg12:06

       Yes. Yes. The, the final is-

   13. PAPeter Attia12:08

       1/20?

   14. CDCharles Duhigg12:08

       1/20.

   15. PAPeter Attia12:10

       I, I would've guessed one half.

   16. CDCharles Duhigg12:12

       Well, and-

   17. PAPeter Attia12:13

       I, I'm not saying that I-

   18. CDCharles Duhigg12:14

       Yeah

   19. PAPeter Attia12:14

       ... you're wrong, I'm just saying that's a staggering difference.

   20. CDCharles Duhigg12:17

       It's a staggering difference, and, and it sometimes gets complicated by scale, right? Because you might really hate getting hit by a cane a lot more than you enjoy drinking a smoothie. But we know that if those two things are comparable in your head, I'm gonna have to hit you 20 times to equal the joy y- to equal the motivation you'll g- you'll find from drinking that smoothie.

   21. PAPeter Attia12:35

       [laughs]

   22. CDCharles Duhigg12:36

       And that's a normal distribution, right? There's different-

   23. PAPeter Attia12:38

       Mm

   24. CDCharles Duhigg12:38

       ... behaviors and different, different tolerances among individuals. But th- w- the reason why this is important is because when there are negative rewards or punishments available to us in the environment, then we should take advantage of those, right? If I know that you feel a sense of disgust, and I can take advantage of that to help you build a habit of br- washing your hands, I should go ahead and do so. But that's not enough on its own. I have to pair it with a positive reward, where I'm creating a scent in that soap that makes you feel like you're clean, that makes you feel like you're doing something virtuous. I have to reemphasize to you, "You're doing this for your kids. Every time you wash your hands with soap, you are a good parent."

   25. PAPeter Attia13:24

       So that's the ice cream.

   26. CDCharles Duhigg13:27

       Yep.

   27. PAPeter Attia13:27

       And taking the scent away, taking the flowery scent away is not hitting.

   28. CDCharles Duhigg13:35

       Well, it's actually, we're replacing it with a different scent. The problem with the flowery scent is that it's too associated with luxury.

   29. PAPeter Attia13:41

       Yeah.

   30. CDCharles Duhigg13:41

       So I need a scent that smells a little bit more medicinal to believe that it's doing its job.
4. 16:59 – 24:36

   How the military uses habit science to train soldiers: cues, routines, & rewards

   1. PAPeter Attia16:59

      now going back to the military example, how, um, how did you, h- how did you come to understand the ways in which a myriad set of behaviors, 'cause as you said, right, like a soldier is able to do so many things that basically become autonomic, um, that might be very counterintuitive, in fact, might be counter to the value of your own life.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg17:23

      Absolutely.

   3. PAPeter Attia17:24

      Right? Like moving this direction as opposed to that direction under threat.

   4. CDCharles Duhigg17:28

      Absolutely, or, or training people to kill-

   5. PAPeter Attia17:30

      Yeah

   6. CDCharles Duhigg17:30

      ... which the, many people have a natural reaction to not kill. It, so how does the military do it?

   7. PAPeter Attia17:36

      How, h- how do they employ s- uh, this, uh, um, re- reward, punishment-

   8. CDCharles Duhigg17:41

      Yeah

   9. PAPeter Attia17:41

      ... uh, leverage?

   10. CDCharles Duhigg17:42

       So one of the things that they do is they fa- pay very, very close attention to teaching cadets to r- to respond to cues. So it, o- one would think if I was saying, "Okay, if a bomb goes off, what are you supposed to do?" Right? Let's talk about the behavior that you do when a bomb goes off. The thing about a bomb going off is that a bomb going off is a little bundle of cues, and we need to talk about which cues you should pay attention to and which ones you shouldn't, which ones should trigger an automatic behavior. So in Iraq, the issue with bombs going off, IEDs, was dust. When there was an explosion of dust, that is when you should react, and we're gonna practice that. So we're gonna take you out into the field, and we're gonna use ordnance that does not actually produce sounds, that does not produce fire. What we're gonna do is we're gonna put stuff in the ground that creates a huge cloud of dust, and we're gonna train you to react to that. Because we have found that dust is a more predictable and reliable indicator of when you should behave than the noise of an explosion or being able to see the fire.

   11. PAPeter Attia18:45

       And to be clear, th- the noise could be coming from anywhere. You don't know where it's coming from.

   12. CDCharles Duhigg18:51

       It's oftentimes-

   13. PAPeter Attia18:51

       It could be a false alarm. It could be something that's a town away or something like that.

   14. CDCharles Duhigg18:55

       That's exactly right, and it's oftentimes overwhelming. Uh, the thing about, like, a visual stimuli in, in this context is that it's very, very recognizable, whereas an audio stimuli, it's hard to tell.

   15. PAPeter Attia19:06

       It's hard to localize.

   16. CDCharles Duhigg19:07

       It's hard to localize, but it's also... And it is als- also sort of so overwhelms you that it can kick in that fight or flight instinct that we're trying to avoid.

   17. PAPeter Attia19:14

       Okay.

   18. CDCharles Duhigg19:16

       So that's the first thing that they do, is they pay a lot attention to cues, and they think really, really hard about that training. Um, y- in one of my other books, Smarter, Faster, Better, there's a chapter about, uh, boot camp for Marines, and it's probably the most scientifically well fine-tuned training you will find on Earth because it takes in hundreds of thousands of people every year, and we have to train them to be Marines. The other thing that they pay a lot attention to is, how do we reward that behavior in a way that will make it automatic, right? We mentioned that a habit is a cue, a routine, and a reward. That's known as the habit loop. But what happens in our brain to form that habit loop is that the part of our, the basal ganglia, which every animal on Earth has a basal ganglia, the basal ganglia's job is essentially to make habits. Because without those habits, we essentially can't evolve, right? We just spend too much time in cognition. And what the basal ganglia helps encourage, and this is oversimplifying dramatically, but, is it takes that cue, that routine, and that reward, and it puts them in a kind of circuit where the neural synapses connecting the behavior centers of those three items becomes thicker and thicker and thicker, which means that as a result, an electrical impulse can travel down that synapse faster. So if I'm the general, my goal is to take these soldiers and to change their brain so that when they see smoke, they react immediately, which is they pull out their gun, they look for the threat, they go through the mental checklist of look for these five things, and then I wanna have a reward for them that's predictable and consistent. Now, in that situation, there's not a natural reward. I have to create that reward. So one of the things that I do is I have them train as a unit, and as soon as they all take position, they all say to each other, "Good job, good job. I'm in position. Good job, good job, good job." They're all positively reinforcing each other. That becomes a reward that can build this behavior, which is why looking at the unit or the platoon is so important in how we train soldiers, is because oftentimes the rewards that are reinforcing our habits are social rewards that we're getting from other individuals.

   19. PAPeter Attia21:29

       And during training, uh, let's say it's the first day they're going through this drill, and two of the guys fall out of formation. They fail to, to get in position. The absence of being able to say, "Good job," is that sufficient, m- or is there also a punishment of, "Hey, you two guys, you were in the wrong spot. Let's go do it again"?

   20. CDCharles Duhigg21:49

       Well, it's the Marines, right? [laughs] So there's, uh, cer- certainly the drill sergeants, um, they have a certain reputation to uphold about, [laughs] about yelling at people. But no, it's actually-

   21. PAPeter Attia21:59

       But it's not doing that much, correct?

   22. CDCharles Duhigg22:00

       It's not really doing that much. It's helping people correct. It's, it's creating, it's creating sort of that instead of a wicked feedback system, a positive feed... A, a good feedback system where I'm learning very quickly, but it's actually me seeking out that reward. It, one of the things that you'll find if you look at surveys of why people fight, inevitably they will say, "I joined because of patriotism, and I stayed in the military because of my-"

   23. PAPeter Attia22:24

       Camaraderie.

   24. CDCharles Duhigg22:25

       M- 'cause of camaraderie-

   25. PAPeter Attia22:26

       Yeah

   26. CDCharles Duhigg22:26

       ... 'cause of the guys next to me. I, I couldn't go home. I couldn't. I'd have to take care of them.

   27. PAPeter Attia22:30

       Yeah.

   28. CDCharles Duhigg22:31

       That be... A- and that's really encouraged by the military, and that becomes the dominant overwhelming positive reinforcement, is that you act for your fellow soldiers. And when one of them turns to you and says, "Good job, good job," what he's really saying is, "You helped protect me, and I'm gonna help protect you," and that feels amazing.

   29. PAPeter Attia22:47

       When you think about the number of people that make it through the various forms of training, and whether it be Marines, special forces elsewhere, et cetera, um, are they screening for the capacity to be able to form these habits, or is their point of view that we can basically instill this in anyone, provided some basic set of criteria of aptitude or psychological well-being is present?

   30. CDCharles Duhigg23:14

       It's the latter. It's the latter. And, and I'm kind of curious in your work how that plays out when-
5. 24:36 – 33:45

   Methods for creating good habits & eliminating bad ones: environmental control, small wins, & rewards-based motivation

   1. CDCharles Duhigg24:36

      interesting.

   2. PAPeter Attia24:36

      And I, I'll tell you, I have a very, very basic framework on habit, um, which is one of the reasons I'm excited about this discussion, is I, I'm looking to bring many more insights into what we do. Um, but the way I talk to patients about it is, "Hey, look, there's, there's, broadly speaking, additive and subtractive habits."

   3. CDCharles Duhigg24:54

      Mm-hmm.

   4. PAPeter Attia24:55

      Right? So there are, um, if you're smoking, if you're drinking too much, um, I, I want to take away something, right? I want the, the habit to be a, a habit of removal. Uh, conversely, let's say you don't exercise at all, or you barely exercise, and we want to increase the amount of exercise you do. We wanna add that thing in.

   5. CDCharles Duhigg25:15

      Yeah.

   6. PAPeter Attia25:15

      And so I, I sort of have two different strategies for how to do that. For the, for the former, it really comes down to default environment manipulation. Um, so if a person wants to eat less junk food, um, my view is you have to actually take some pretty significant steps to reduce the amount of junk food that is around you.

   7. CDCharles Duhigg25:34

      Absolutely.

   8. PAPeter Attia25:35

      It sounds obvious, and sometimes it's very difficult to do because if you don't control your environment, it's hard.

   9. CDCharles Duhigg25:40

      Yeah.

   10. PAPeter Attia25:40

       If you do control your environment, it's, it's easier. Um, and if you're in an intermediate state, you know, where you have kids and the kids eat a lot of junk food, and you're... You know, you... But, but you don't wanna be eating, like, the, the Mini-Wheats all the time, then it gets a little tougher. But you can exert sort of willpower for briefer stints. For example, when you're at the grocery store and you have to make the decision of what to buy. Um, but taking an easy example, if you live alone, if you're a single person, you, you control the food environment in your house, and that might mean one hour a week you have to control your willpower when you're in the grocery store.

   11. CDCharles Duhigg26:15

       Yeah.

   12. PAPeter Attia26:15

       But if you do that, it gives you the luxury of being surrounded by healthy choices for the other 167 hours a week.

   13. CDCharles Duhigg26:22

       Absolutely. And so that willpower muscle, you can either use it for other things, or you can let it relax.

   14. PAPeter Attia26:26

       Yeah, you just have to flex it briefly.

   15. CDCharles Duhigg26:27

       Yeah.

   16. PAPeter Attia26:28

       On the other end of the spectrum, um, and, and, and again, this has always been my way of doing things, and I don't think it's unique 'cause I've, I've read other people t-talk about the exact same idea, so clearly others have thought of this as well. Um, when adding new habits with people, we tend to start very small, and the win is basically defined by showing up-

   17. CDCharles Duhigg26:49

       Yeah

   18. PAPeter Attia26:49

       ... not by any performance.

   19. CDCharles Duhigg26:51

       The science of small wins.

   20. PAPeter Attia26:52

       Yeah. So, so when a person hasn't... If a person says, "I... You know, Peter, I hate..." I, I had this discussion two weeks ago, right? Or last week actually. "I don't, I hate doing cardio, Peter. I love strength training. Uh, I love being in the gym. But this whole zone two thing you want me to do, it's so painful."

   21. CDCharles Duhigg27:09

       By the way, I... This, this speaks to my heart. [laughs]

   22. PAPeter Attia27:10

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, and the patient said, "But, but, but Peter, you've convinced me. Like, I know I need to do this. I just don't want to." And I said, "No problem. Um, all I want you to do this week is three 15-minute sessions on a stationary bike. I don't actually care how many watts you're pushing. I don't want you to wear a heart rate monitor. I don't wanna, I don't, I don't wanna track anything other than time. Can you get on for 15 minutes? I want you to pick your favorite podcast, and I've got some great recommendations for you. Um, and I want you to just get on a stationary bike for 15 minutes, listen to this great podcast. And even if at the end of 15 minutes you wanna ride more, don't. Just get off. I want you to do that three times, and then let's discuss that in a month." And, um, and, and this tends to be a quite productive way to do it.

   23. CDCharles Duhigg28:06

       Yeah.

   24. PAPeter Attia28:06

       Um, 'cause then you can start to increase the duration, and then you can start to add other parameters around performance. "Okay, now we're gonna actually start paying attention to the level of exertion, and are we getting you in the right spot?" But if I just try to say, "All right, we're gonna go from nothing to four hours of zone two a week," and somebody-

   25. CDCharles Duhigg28:22

       It's not gonna work

   26. PAPeter Attia28:22

       ... who doesn't like it, the, the, yeah, the likelihood of success is pretty low.

   27. CDCharles Duhigg28:25

       So there's a researcher, Katy Milkman, at the, at Wharton, um, University of Pennsylvania, who studied exactly what you're talking about quite extensively. How do we reward? How do we link a reward to the behavior so that you're experiencing the reward during the behavior? And she actually uses audiobooks-

   28. PAPeter Attia28:41

       Mm

   29. CDCharles Duhigg28:41

       ... much like you use podcasts. And when she was doing this research, sh- it was right when Harry Potter had come out. She loves Harry Potter, and so she made a rule. She can only listen to the Harry Potter-

   30. PAPeter Attia28:50

       Mm, mm
6. 33:45 – 36:09

   How parents can teach kids to build habits & strengthen willpower

   1. PAPeter Attia33:45

      So not to digress, but again, I think a lot of people in our audience are parents.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg33:50

      Mm-hmm.

   3. PAPeter Attia33:50

      And so, I mean, this sounds like just good parenting 101, but let's double-click on it a little bit. What do those of us with young kids need to do to enable our kids to become the type of adults who can make behavior changes and create better habits?

   4. CDCharles Duhigg34:07

      So the single most powerful thing we can do is we can teach them how willpower works and to build willpower habits, because a willpower habit actually doesn't tax the, the metaphor of the muscle-

   5. PAPeter Attia34:18

      Mm

   6. CDCharles Duhigg34:18

      ... of the will- willpower muscle that exists inside our head. And so Angela Duckworth, who probably many of your listeners-

   7. PAPeter Attia34:23

      Mm-hmm

   8. CDCharles Duhigg34:23

      ... are familiar with because of Grit, she's done a lot of research on this. One of the things that's really powerful is to explain and demonstrate to kids how to diagnose the cue, routine, and reward so that they can begin editing their own habits. So I have a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, and one of the things that I do is I'm very ostentatious in how I reward myself for hard behavior, right? And this, this is actually kind of counterintuitive because we're, we're dads. We're supposed to be stoic, right? We go out and we run a half-marathon, and, like, it's no big deal. We don't [laughs] we don't r-... So what I do is exactly the opposite. I go out and I run, not even a half-marathon. [laughs] I just go and I run four or five miles, and I come home, and I say to my kids, "Oh man, that was a hard run, but I pushed through it. Now you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna have this really yummy smoothie I've been looking forward to. For the next 15 or 20 minutes, I'm just gonna lay on the couch and enjoy myself 'cause I feel so good right now." What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to model for them giving yourself a reward, focusing on that reward is a powerful way to, to reinforce or change your own behavior. And I'll do the same thing with cues. Oftentimes, some of the cues that I use for exercise or for other things are, aren't visible to my children because I'm, you know, putting my running shoes next to my bed so I see them when I wake up in the morning, and they don't understand the significance of that. Or, or I'm, I'm do- doing, engaged in a, in a sort of ritual before I start writing that they don't see. So what I'll do is I'll be very explicit with them and say, "You know what? I, I need to start writing in 15 minutes. Here's what I'm gonna do for the next 15 minutes to get ready for that." I'm teaching them, think about the cues in your life. Think about the rewards in your life. If you focus on those two things, you can create almost any routine, any behavior that you want or change any

7. 36:09 – 40:05

   How adults experience changes in motivation & cue effectiveness over time, & why willpower must be managed

   1. CDCharles Duhigg36:09

      behavior that you want.

   2. PAPeter Attia36:10

      So the cues in that sense are just as important for the positive behaviors as the negatives. I, I think many of us probably associate cues with negative, meaning be aware of the cue, right? If I'm trying to quit smoking, what's my cue to smoke? How do I need to spot it in advance? But you're paying just as much attention to... I, it's funny, I don't know that I really think of cues on my positive behaviors. But I'm su- I know they're there. I guess I'm just not aware of them

   3. CDCharles Duhigg36:36

      You're right. If I was wa- looking at your life, I b- I bet you ... Okay, so let me ask you, before you work out, what do you do? What do you do before you work out?

   4. PAPeter Attia36:43

      Make my electrolyte drink.

   5. CDCharles Duhigg36:44

      Okay. So that's a preceding behavior.

   6. PAPeter Attia36:47

      It's a, yeah, it's a preceding behavior. Yeah.

   7. CDCharles Duhigg36:48

      It's a ritualized behavior that's become a cue for you. And, and it's not a negative cue, right?

   8. PAPeter Attia36:53

      No.

   9. CDCharles Duhigg36:54

      It's ... Do you look forward to making the ele- like, does it feel like a little sense of like anticipation as you're making it? Like, "I'm gonna go work out. I'm gonna..."

   10. PAPeter Attia37:00

       No, because interestingly, and people will be so surprised to know this about me, but at least in th- for the past year or two, I feel I'm so busy that I don't have the desire to work out until I'm in the gym-

   11. CDCharles Duhigg37:15

       That's interesting

   12. PAPeter Attia37:15

       ... or on the bike. So in other words, it used to be that I couldn't wait to work out, but something has happened in the last two years where I really have to kick myself into the gym. Now, when I'm 15 minutes in, I feel great.

   13. CDCharles Duhigg37:29

       Yeah.

   14. PAPeter Attia37:29

       And I'm delighted to be there, and there's nowhere I'd rather be. But the 15 minutes before I go into the gym, which includes making that drink, extracting myself away from my computer, and doing my warm-up, I'm like, that is, that is actually-

   15. CDCharles Duhigg37:45

       That's the hardest part

   16. PAPeter Attia37:46

       ... it feels like pure willpower.

   17. CDCharles Duhigg37:47

       Yeah.

   18. PAPeter Attia37:47

       But also, I guess, I benefit from enough muscle memory of just I've done this my whole life.

   19. CDCharles Duhigg37:52

       Yeah.

   20. PAPeter Attia37:52

       Um, but, but I'm trying to ... I guess I'd have to think about how I-

   21. CDCharles Duhigg37:56

       Well, let me, let me posit a hypothesis, and you can tell me if you think this is right. My guess is that that preceding behavior of b- making the electrolyte r- drink and doing the stretches, that was a very ineffective cue at one point in your life, and the effectiveness of that cue has diminished over time. But you found other cues, which is that a sense of antici- th- one of it might just be a sense of anticipation that you're gonna feel good after 15 minutes.

   22. PAPeter Attia38:18

       I, I think that's a lot of it, yeah.

   23. CDCharles Duhigg38:19

       Yeah. It might also be that you know that you're gonna put on your podcast, and so, like, the, the cue of hitting start on the podcast is what gets your head in that place where you can start exercising and then experience the benefits.

   24. PAPeter Attia38:29

       Well, it's interesting. I only do the podcast for zone two.

   25. CDCharles Duhigg38:32

       Okay. Oh, interesting.

   26. PAPeter Attia38:33

       It's the only thing. For, in the gym, for some reason, I can't lift weights and concentrate on something else.

   27. CDCharles Duhigg38:39

       That's fascinating.

   28. PAPeter Attia38:39

       So I listen to music in the gym, which doesn't get me excited.

   29. CDCharles Duhigg38:43

       And that would, that would actually suggest that you are using more willpower in the gym.

   30. PAPeter Attia38:47

       Yep.
8. 40:05 – 51:16

   Keys to successful habit change

   1. PAPeter Attia40:05

      So, so let's use a, a less extreme example of, um, I really want to eat less dessert.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg40:10

      Yeah.

   3. PAPeter Attia40:11

      Right? I really just want to eat less dessert.

   4. CDCharles Duhigg40:12

      Or, or let's use smoking.

   5. PAPeter Attia40:13

      Okay. Yeah.

   6. CDCharles Duhigg40:13

      Smoking's a great one. C- because the, James Prochaska at the University of Rhode Island has spent his whole career in ... Like, the data that we have on smoking cessation is enormous. It, it vastly outpaces [laughs] almost everything else.

   7. PAPeter Attia40:25

      Yeah.

   8. CDCharles Duhigg40:26

      Okay. So let's talk about what happens. Nicotine, as you know, um, is an addictive substance, but we're only addicted to nicotine for about 100 hours after our last cigarette. By that point, nicotine is out of our bloodstream. Like, we don't have a physical dependency on nicotine, and yet we all know people who cra- who smoked for years, quit, and they crave a cigarette a decade later after they have breakfast in the morning.

   9. PAPeter Attia40:50

      Let's ... I, so I didn't, I didn't actually know that, Charles. So four days after you smoked your last cigarette or had your last exposure to nicotine-

   10. CDCharles Duhigg41:00

       You've completed withdrawal

   11. PAPeter Attia41:01

       ... you no longer have a physiologic need for nicotine?

   12. CDCharles Duhigg41:05

       Yeah. It's out of your ... You, you have, you have completed withdrawal.

   13. PAPeter Attia41:08

       That is, that, th- that is ama- I had no idea of that.

   14. CDCharles Duhigg41:12

       But what you still have-

   15. PAPeter Attia41:14

       You still have the cue

   16. CDCharles Duhigg41:15

       ... you still ha- you still have the habit

   17. PAPeter Attia41:16

       And the rewa- and you remember the reward.

   18. CDCharles Duhigg41:17

       Right. Exactly.

   19. PAPeter Attia41:18

       Yeah.

   20. CDCharles Duhigg41:18

       The habit, the habit loop still exists in your brain. Like, if you have a, if you have a cigarette with every morning cup of coffee, as soon as you pick up by that cof- cup of coffee, your brain is craving that nicotine, and that feels just like an addiction, a physical addiction. In fact, it's in some ways more powerful than a physical addiction. And so, so what, so what Prochaska did is he looked at how people quit smoking, and this gets to the point you were raising before about learning. He found that on average, a smoker needs to quit seven times in order to actually quit. So s- so a committed smoker, somebody who's been smoking for years, they will give up cigarettes seven times before it actually works, which raises this kind of interesting question. What is happening in those seven times? Like, why seven instead of four? What's happening? What the research tells us is that the first time I give up cigarettes, I focus on willpower, right? I say, like, "I'm gonna resist. I'm gonna resist these cigarettes. I, I'm throwing them out. I'm gonna change my environment a little bit." But all those cues are still there. The craving for the reward is still there. And when my willpower gets taxed, my mother-in-law comes to town, I've had a really tough day at work, my willpower is really ... My muscle, that muscle has been exercised all day. That's the moment that I give in and I pick up a cigarette and I say, "To hell with it. I'm gonna start smoking again."

   21. PAPeter Attia42:37

       And just to be clear, is What happens when you have that first cigarette? Why can you not, on that first cigarette, go, "Hey, it was just a lapse. I'm exhausted. Tomorrow's a new day."

   22. CDCharles Duhigg42:50

       Well, it's because you don't have a plan, right? So you're caught off guard by this relapse, and as a result, it tends to shake our faith in ourselves, even if it's almost subconscious. It tends to shake our faith in ourselves that we can't quit. Now, that's the first time.

   23. PAPeter Attia43:05

       That's sup- so, so I just wanna interject here. This is something that we try to talk a lot to our patients about, which is, um, accept... 'Cause again, we're not dealing with something that's as binary as smoking.

   24. CDCharles Duhigg43:16

       Right.

   25. PAPeter Attia43:16

       Let's just say it's exercise, and you're-- Look, we've set a plan that you're gonna do something for 30 minutes every day, and then you're gonna have that day when you don't. What we tend to spend a lot of time coaching on is absolutely, positively, under no circumstance do you judge yourself for that day.

   26. CDCharles Duhigg43:35

       Yes.

   27. PAPeter Attia43:35

       And the next day, just get back on the horse, and don't let two, don't let one bad day be two.

   28. CDCharles Duhigg43:41

       Yeah.

   29. PAPeter Attia43:41

       And then it's fine. Because I think what we see is a lot of times a person will go six days of an exerc- you know, of their routine. They miss a day, they beat themselves up, and then they're done. They're like, "Well, forget it. I screwed up, and..." Or, you know, it, it can happen in the reverse.

   30. CDCharles Duhigg43:56

       Yeah. Well, and it makes sense, right? Because we've, we're talking about rewards, positive rewards and negative rewards. I miss a day and I start beating up on myself. I'm flooding my, my brain with negative rewards, with recriminations-
9. 51:16 – 54:45

   Advice for parents: praise effort, model habits, & normalize failure

   1. PAPeter Attia51:17

      So let's go back to childhood.

   2. CDCharles Duhigg51:19

      Sure.

   3. PAPeter Attia51:19

      'Cause I think this is such an interesting place, right? Where, I, I mean, maybe I'm incorrect, but I'm, I'm assuming that, again, a lot of these seeds are sown in how we're raised. Um, and in the case of your kids, they're getting actually kind of like a master class because-

   4. CDCharles Duhigg51:35

      [laughs]

   5. PAPeter Attia51:35

      ... they've got, you know, a parent who's one of the world's experts in it, but who also is-

   6. CDCharles Duhigg51:39

      They, they would also-- they would not say it was a master class. [laughs]

   7. PAPeter Attia51:40

      [laughs]

   8. CDCharles Duhigg51:40

      They would say I'm a little heavy-handed. But-

   9. PAPeter Attia51:42

      Yeah

   10. CDCharles Duhigg51:42

       ... but thank you for that.

   11. PAPeter Attia51:43

       But, but, but you're being deliberate in how you're, in how you're coaching.

   12. CDCharles Duhigg51:46

       Yeah.

   13. PAPeter Attia51:47

       Um, so, uh, again, for those of us who, who, who wanna kind of take a bit of that, because I, you know, I, I really think, like, people always ask me, like, "What do you want for your kids?" And, and that's an interesting question, right? Like, I certainly don't, I don't have any aspiration for what I want them to be professionally. Like, it's not like-

   14. CDCharles Duhigg52:08

       Yeah

   15. PAPeter Attia52:08

       ... oh, I want this kid to be that and this kid to be that. I mean, you want your kids to be well-adjusted and happy.

   16. CDCharles Duhigg52:13

       Yeah.

   17. PAPeter Attia52:14

       Um, but it's hard to imagine them doing that if they don't have some command and control over themselves. So that, y- you could argue that this is one of the most important things that we want our kids to have.

   18. CDCharles Duhigg52:27

       Yeah.

   19. PAPeter Attia52:28

       And yet I don't feel like we have any adequacy in the training for it.

   20. CDCharles Duhigg52:32

       I think you're right. I think that this is something-- If, if this was more of a curriculum in schools, if it was something we taught parents, and that's one of the reasons I wrote The Power of Habit, is I wanted to, I wanted to empower parents to teach their own kids this, to recognize things in their own life. Um, I think that a number of us understand intuitively some aspect of this, right? So a lot has been written about the growth mindset, Carol Dweck's work-

   21. PAPeter Attia52:54

       Yep

   22. CDCharles Duhigg52:55

       ... out of Stanford. You know, one of the things that she emphasizes is teaching children a sense of agency. That instead of saying, when you bring home an A on your report card, instead of saying, "Oh, you're so smart," which is something you don't have control over, to say, "Oh, you must have worked really, really hard," because that's something you do have control over. I'm, I'm reinforcing your sense of agency. When we do that intuitively or deliberately, one of the things that we're doing is we're teaching our children that they have control over their habits, right? You went and you worked really hard to get that A. You developed a habit of studying. You used your willpower. I'm gonna positively reinforce that by recognizing it. Whereas if I say, "You must be really smart, you got that A," I'm not positively reinforcing your belief that you can change your behavior. So in addition to explaining to kids and being ostentatious, showing off the cues and rewards in our own life and how we change our own habits, the way that we give rewards to our children also reinforces for them whether they believe that they are in control of their willpower or not.

   23. PAPeter Attia54:00

       And I suppose the other side of that is, um, how do we hand- handle our own failures in front of them?

   24. CDCharles Duhigg54:06

       Absolutely. Do we, uh, do we dis- even admit our own failures? Right? There's a, there's a model of fatherhood from the 1950s that you don't burden your family with your ups and downs. Dad's a steady rock. But all the research tells us one of the best things you can do is if you screwed up, and I try to do this all the time, I come home and I'm like, "Oh man, I called this guy today, and I just completely screwed up this interview," because I want them to know. And then I say, "But the thing I realized from it is that next time I call, I need to have something to eat before I call, 'cause that's gonna help me." I'm modeling for them a failure is not a failure. A failure is a data point, and I'm a scientist about

10. 54:45 – 59:46

    Time required for making or breaking a habit

    1. CDCharles Duhigg54:45

       my own life.

    2. PAPeter Attia54:46

       What do we know about the length of time or the amount of friction it takes to create a habit and the difficulty in breaking it?

    3. CDCharles Duhigg54:59

       Yeah.

    4. PAPeter Attia54:59

       So maybe that doesn't make sense. I'll try to come up with an example. Um- If it takes a long time to really create a habit around exercise or meditation, let's pick something new.

    5. CDCharles Duhigg55:13

       Okay.

    6. PAPeter Attia55:13

       Okay. So, you know, not a, not an easy thing to do, right?

    7. CDCharles Duhigg55:17

       Right.

    8. PAPeter Attia55:17

       But, but let's say over years and years and years, you take a lot of time to build that memory, that muscle memory up. I assume that's creating some sort of physiologic headroom that makes it much harder for you to erode that down?

    9. CDCharles Duhigg55:29

       Yes, absolutely. So what's happening when, when you're meditating is that, as we mentioned, there's these neural, neural synapses, th- neural pathways that connect the synapses associated with the cue and the routine and the reward. They're becoming thicker and thicker and thicker over time. What's interesting is they almost never become significantly thinner. So if you develop a meditation habit, and then you stop meditating, your life changes, the cues, when you come back to meditation-

    10. PAPeter Attia55:57

        Mm

    11. CDCharles Duhigg55:57

        ... you will fall back into it much more quickly than the average person. So we know that creating habits-

    12. PAPeter Attia56:04

        Mm

    13. CDCharles Duhigg56:04

        ... both good and bad, creates this neural pathway that we need to be conscious of. But to your question of how long does it take, the answer is we actually don't know. There's this, like, old-- There's this myth or this old wives' tale that, you know, it takes 21 days to build a habit, and it takes 30 days to break a habit. What the research tells us is that there is no number because different people have different thresholds, and different kinds of habits have different timelines associated with them. If you want to create a habit of eating chocolate, you can probably do it in a couple days, right? [laughs] Like, it's an immediate r- it's an immediate positive response. Y- if you like chocolate, it's something you enjoy. The cues are plentiful around you. You just put chocolate bars in your house. But if you want to build an exercise habit, it's gonna take a little bit longer.

    14. PAPeter Attia56:51

        Yeah.

    15. CDCharles Duhigg56:51

        But here's the important thing, is that regardless of how long it takes to build that habit or change a habit, every day you do it, it will get a little bit easier. And you might not feel that increase in ease the first couple of days, right? But what's gonna happen is I'm gonna push myself to exercise day one, day two, day three. I'm gonna relapse on day four. I'm gonna not do it, but instead of beating up on myself, I'm gonna look for the science to what, what, what went wrong here, what's my plan for next time. And then I get to day 12, or I get to do w- day 20, or I get to day 365, and it occurs to me, actually, exercising is really easy for me now. Like, I hardly even think about it. It just happens almost, like, kinda automatically. I-

    16. PAPeter Attia57:30

        Now, what about the negatives?

    17. CDCharles Duhigg57:31

        Right.

    18. PAPeter Attia57:32

        So if you take two individuals, one who has been smoking for a year-

    19. CDCharles Duhigg57:36

        Mm-hmm

    20. PAPeter Attia57:36

        ... a pack a day for a year, and one who has been smoking a pack a day for 20 years, is it necessarily the case that the latter is going to have a much more difficult time quitting?

    21. CDCharles Duhigg57:48

        Probably, um, because it's a much more ingrained behavior, but this is where individual differences come into play significantly. Because if that per- first person, if they're an athlete, if they've worked on other habits in their life, if they've, if they've strengthened that muscle around habit change, they might be able to rely on that to give up smoking, whereas the 20, 20-year smoker doesn't. But, but yes, in general, the longer and more consistent a behavior becomes, the more reinforced it becomes in our brain.

    22. PAPeter Attia58:21

        And does that mean that, let's just assume both of these individuals are able to quit smoking.

    23. CDCharles Duhigg58:26

        Yeah.

    24. PAPeter Attia58:26

        It's five years later. Both of them are at a bar, and they both light up a cigarette. Are they both equally susceptible to relapse, or is the 20-year person more susceptible because his, uh, neural connections are more hardwired?

    25. CDCharles Duhigg58:46

        Well, there's a lot of compounding factors there, right? So, so when the, when the 20-year-old smoker lights up his cigarette, we're focusing on the habit loop associated with nicotine use.

    26. PAPeter Attia58:54

        Mm.

    27. CDCharles Duhigg58:54

        But there's probably other habit loops that he has developed over time, which is he might feel much more intense sense of shame over smoking than the one-year smoker. He might have emphysema or developing behav- uh, health problems, and, and those are creating mental habits for him that are countervailing the, the positive reinforcement of the nicotine. So the, the answer to your question is it's really hard to say universally. What we do know is that the more consistent a reward, whether it's a reward that rewards a positive behavior or a negative behavior, the more consistent that reward and the more consistent that cue, the faster the habit will take hold and the stronger the grip it'll have on us. But when we're trying to change it or create a new habit, there's so many other variables that we don't, we can't predict how long it's going to take, but we do know that any

11. 59:46 – 1:07:15

    Different strategies for creating new habits vs. changing existing ones

    1. CDCharles Duhigg59:46

       habit can be changed.

    2. PAPeter Attia59:47

       Is there a rule of thumb that says, on average, it is more or less difficult to break habits than to create habits?

    3. CDCharles Duhigg59:55

       So, so the science doesn't, doesn't sort of a- address that question. What we do know is that it takes a different technique to build a new habit than to change an old habit, right? So if I wanna build a new habit, if I wanna start running, what I need to do is I need to sit down, just come up, tell, come up with a cue, come up with a reward. Okay, my cue is... And, by the way, all cues fall into one of five categories. It's a time of day, a particular place or environment, it's a certain emotion you feel, it's the presence of certain other people, or it's a preceding behavior that's become ritualized. So tomorrow I want to start running. I've never run before. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take advantage of as many of those as I can, right? So my plan is set my alarm for seven o'clock. I want to be out the door by seven-thirty running, and I'm gonna put my running shoes and my running clothes on my floor next to my bed so I see them when I wake up. It's super easy to put them on. I know what I'm gonna wear. I'm gonna ask my friend Jim to meet me on the corner. We're gonna run together. I'm creating as many cues as I can.

    4. PAPeter Attia1:00:56

       Yep. If you can tap into all five, you're-

    5. CDCharles Duhigg1:00:58

       You're, you're, yeah

    6. PAPeter Attia1:00:58

       ... in the money.

    7. CDCharles Duhigg1:00:59

       Some of them are gonna stick.

    8. PAPeter Attia1:01:00

       Yep.

    9. CDCharles Duhigg1:01:00

       And then when I get home, I've already decided what reward I'm gonna give myself. I'm gonna have a nice long shower. I'm gonna drink a smoothie. I'm gonna take fifteen minutes to check social media or whatever else sort of delights me. So that's how we build a new habit, is we choose a cue and we choose a reward, and we link it to a behavior we wanna encourage. But for a bad habit, a habit that we wanna extinguish, our nomenclature is incorrect. We often talk about breaking a bad habit. But because that neural pathway exists in our brain, I, I've smoked for 20 years, I can't just extinguish that n- those neural connections. What I need to do is, instead of thinking about breaking a bad habit or extinguishing it, I have to think about changing that habit. And in that case, what I do is I identify the cue that prompts this behavior I wanna change, identify the reward that that behavior is giving me, and I'm gonna simply insert a new behavior that corresponds to that old cue, that delivers something similar to that old reward, and I'm, I'm gonna let my brain eventually shift, keep the habit loop inside my head, but change the behavior, the routine.

    10. PAPeter Attia1:02:12

        Yeah, this is... I mean, I, I just like, I love this framework so much, right? So let's, um, let's go back to the first one-

    11. CDCharles Duhigg1:02:19

        Okay

    12. PAPeter Attia1:02:19

        ... because it has so much applicability, right? So new habit.

    13. CDCharles Duhigg1:02:23

        Yep.

    14. PAPeter Attia1:02:23

        Wanna do, wanna do something new. You've identified what the behavior is. That's the thing.

    15. CDCharles Duhigg1:02:28

        Yep.

    16. PAPeter Attia1:02:28

        The playbook is pretty straightforward. I gotta come up with as many cues as possible. So if I'm gonna do single cue, not that likely I'll succeed out of the gate, but boy, you get five of them, four out of five of them, it's great. And obviously, some of them are more than others. So I know for our patients, the cues that tend to be very powerful are other people.

    17. CDCharles Duhigg1:02:47

        Yeah.

    18. PAPeter Attia1:02:47

        People never wanna let people down.

    19. CDCharles Duhigg1:02:49

        Right.

    20. PAPeter Attia1:02:49

        So we always think that one of the most powerful cues is an accountability partner.

    21. CDCharles Duhigg1:02:54

        Mm-hmm.

    22. PAPeter Attia1:02:54

        Um, w- w- sometimes we have people that literally hire trainers for the sole purpose-

    23. CDCharles Duhigg1:02:59

        [laughs]

    24. PAPeter Attia1:03:00

        ... that they, they don't wanna be embarrassed that they've not shown up.

    25. CDCharles Duhigg1:03:03

        That the-

    26. PAPeter Attia1:03:03

        It's the only reason they have-

    27. CDCharles Duhigg1:03:03

        You're kind of describing me right now. [laughs]

    28. PAPeter Attia1:03:05

        Yeah, yeah.

    29. CDCharles Duhigg1:03:08

        Uh, but you're right. Yeah, uh, the more cues that we can come up with, the better, and some are, will have more salience than others.

    30. PAPeter Attia1:03:13

        Yeah.
12. 1:07:15 – 1:17:54

    How to create habits around long-term goals when the rewards are delayed

    1. PAPeter Attia1:07:16

       I'm three years out of college. I technically make enough money that I could start putting money into my 401 [k] . I just don't want to, man.

    2. CDCharles Duhigg1:07:26

       Yeah.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:07:26

       'Cause honestly, like, I know my employer matches, and I know that it's leveraged dollars, and I know all the intellectual reasons why. But the truth of the matter is, if I start putting money into this 401 [k] , I have less money to buy things now.

    4. CDCharles Duhigg1:07:40

       Absolutely.

    5. PAPeter Attia1:07:41

       So-

    6. CDCharles Duhigg1:07:42

       And it's gonna pay off in 40 years.

    7. PAPeter Attia1:07:44

       Yeah

    8. CDCharles Duhigg1:07:44

       Right? [laughs]

    9. PAPeter Attia1:07:44

       Like, it's hard for me to get excited about 40 years from now.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg1:07:48

        Yeah.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:07:49

        So how would you coach me into making that decision, especially around the cues and the rewards?

    12. CDCharles Duhigg1:07:58

        Yeah. It's, uh... I love this question because there's actually been a bunch of research on this.

    13. PAPeter Attia1:08:01

        All right.

    14. CDCharles Duhigg1:08:02

        Uh, particularly out of researchers at, at University of Pennsylvania Wharton. So what they did is they went into a comm- a series of communities in South America, and they asked this exact question, "How do we get people, particularly people..." And the reason why they were in South America is because they wanted people who were in a cash-based economy where there wasn't a lot of credit cards. How do we get people to save more, increase their savings rates, when we know that the reward for savings is oftentimes far off in the distance, particularly if you're low income? So they had, they had two groups. The control group, they would, they set up a, a, a box for them that they could put savings into, and they said, "We'd like you, once a week, to come in and save some money. And by the way, we're gonna tell you all the good reasons to save, right? You should save because eventually you wanna send your kids to college, or you wanna buy that new truck, and we're gonna help you. We're gonna help you. We're gonna have a saving device for you." That's the control group. With the experimental group, they do the exact same thing, except there is a secretary who works in that bank who every single time someone comes in and they put money into that, that box, they say, "Man, I'm... This is the fourth week in a row you've come in. I'm so impressed to see you. You know, your kids are gonna, your kids are gonna go to college. They're gonna be amazing kids. Like, I just think about, like, someday in the future, like, they're gonna buy you a new home. This is gonna be... You are a great parent." The second group, the experimental group, savings rent rate went up over 40%. They were saving 40% more money than the first group. No, not a bigger payoff, simply someone positively reinforcing. So what happened there? It's a longterm behavior, but we need short-term rewards. And so the researchers were manufacturing a short-term reward in the form of social reinforcement.

    15. PAPeter Attia1:09:47

        Has the following experiment been done as an extension of that, where you have a third arm that gets the same reinforcement for a period of time, and then the secretary goes away after X number of months to see if the shift from extrinsic to intrinsic maintains the same savings rate?

    16. CDCharles Duhigg1:10:07

        So I haven't seen that experiment in this particular setting, but in other settings, absolutely.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:10:12

        And what is the period of time that you need to mo- to remove the extrinsic reward?

    18. CDCharles Duhigg1:10:18

        And make it intrinsic?

    19. PAPeter Attia1:10:18

        Yeah.

    20. CDCharles Duhigg1:10:19

        I think it would probably depend on the type of habit we're talking about and the type-

    21. PAPeter Attia1:10:23

        Makes sense

    22. CDCharles Duhigg1:10:23

        ... of individual, right? Yeah, and that's what-

    23. PAPeter Attia1:10:25

        Yeah, there's, there's not one answer.

    24. CDCharles Duhigg1:10:26

        Yeah, I don't think there's one answer, but we do know that at some point it will move from extrinsic to intrinsic. Um, and one of the things we do know is that social re- rewards actually become intrinsic much faster, that if I start working out and I know that Peter's gonna tell me I'm doing a great job, and I look forward to that, eventually that sense of pride that I feel, I'm just gonna get it without you having to tell me I'm doing a great job, right? Social re- social reinforcement, social rewards, sense of pride, particularly mental habits, become intrinsic much, much faster, and so that's some- that's something we can leverage. We can use those social rewards to go- move from extrinsic to intrinsic.

    25. PAPeter Attia1:11:04

        What other ways are there besides social reinforcement to reward very long-term behaviors like savings?

    26. CDCharles Duhigg1:11:12

        So I'll tell you what I do. So, um, I, uh, I have a spreadsheet. I've had it for seven or eight years now, and I use Simplify. I used to use Mint. I use Vanguard. I have, you know, different... All the websites that sort of consolidate all of my financial information. Once a week, it takes me about 15 minutes, I update my spreadsheet. I create a brand-new set for this week. I input all the numbers. Here's my bank balance. Here's my Vanguard balance. Here's my private equity balance. And then I look at whether it's gone up or down. And you know what? I love it.

    27. PAPeter Attia1:11:47

        But, but-

    28. CDCharles Duhigg1:11:47

        I, I look forward to this

    29. PAPeter Attia1:11:48

        ... many times it's going down-

    30. CDCharles Duhigg1:11:49

        Many times it's going down
13. 1:17:54 – 1:24:06

    How to stick with good habits that offer no immediate reward

    1. PAPeter Attia1:17:54

       Let's go back to the creation of other habits-

    2. CDCharles Duhigg1:17:58

       Okay

    3. PAPeter Attia1:17:58

       ... that are not immediately rewarding because unfortunately that again is in many ways the mainstay of health habits.

    4. CDCharles Duhigg1:18:06

       Yeah.

    5. PAPeter Attia1:18:07

       Um, now some things that we, we want people to do for health provide both short-term and long-term value, and it's easier for people to anchor to the long-term value. So easy example of that would be, um, you know, "Hey, uh, Sally, look, you're, you're 30 pounds overweight, and, um, I have to be honest with you, I don't particularly care that you're 30 pounds overweight from the standpoint of your weight, but you're also very insulin resistant as a result of it, and I know that if you can lose 30 pounds, it's actually gonna improve your health. You're gonna become more insulin sensitive. Your risk of diabetes, cancer, heart disease is gonna go down. This is what I care about." And Sally might say, "Yeah, I mean, in the abstract, I agree with all of that, Peter, but look, I'm only 30 years old. Like, why, y- you know, what I really care about is being 30 pounds lighter so I look great in a bathing suit."

    6. CDCharles Duhigg1:18:58

       Right.

    7. PAPeter Attia1:18:59

       And so here you have a situation where both I can and the patient can care about the same outcome, but for different reasons.

    8. CDCharles Duhigg1:19:08

       Yeah.

    9. PAPeter Attia1:19:09

       And there's a great overlap, which is great. The way we're gonna address this is we're gonna make these changes in your diet, these changes in your exercise, and there's a win for both of us.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg1:19:18

        Absolutely.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:19:18

        Because in six months you're gonna have the body that you wanna have, and I'm gonna have the numbers I wanna have to feel confident that your risk of chronic disease is down.

    12. CDCharles Duhigg1:19:27

        Right.

    13. PAPeter Attia1:19:27

        Okay. But for some things, there's-- it's very difficult to find the short-term win, and you have to grind away at doing something for a long period of time.

    14. CDCharles Duhigg1:19:39

        Yeah.

    15. PAPeter Attia1:19:39

        Now, I'll take a very simple example, which is taking medication.

    16. CDCharles Duhigg1:19:42

        Mm-hmm.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:19:42

        It's not a huge ask, but you'd be amazed, if you're not familiar with this, you might already be familiar with the literature on compliance of medication use. It's shockingly low.

    18. CDCharles Duhigg1:19:51

        Shockingly.

    19. PAPeter Attia1:19:52

        Uh, so let's take something that you don't even feel, so the medicine truly has no bearing on how you feel, which is blood pressure medication. So even though the mainstay of therapy for blood pressure is weight loss and exercise, uh, elimination of s- of sleep apnea and things like that, there's still a sizable portion of the population that has what's called essential hypertension, and no matter how much they fix their weight and they exercise, they just have hypertension. And if you don't fix it, you're really setting them up for the risk of heart attack, stroke, and even Alzheimer's disease. So I say, "Charles, I really need you to take this medication."

    20. CDCharles Duhigg1:20:25

        Yeah.

    21. PAPeter Attia1:20:25

        "And I need you to take it twice a day. And by the way, I'd also like it if you could check your blood pressure three times a week at home so that I know it's working, and do I need to adjust it up or down?" Now, for whatever reason, I might be able to get fifty percent of people to do that. So I ca- how can I create a reward around that?

    22. CDCharles Duhigg1:20:46

        Yeah.

    23. PAPeter Attia1:20:46

        What type of reward would you envision?

    24. CDCharles Duhigg1:20:48

        So, okay, so let's talk about what's been done, 'cause I think this is the key question, and it's a really interesting one. And I'm, I, I-- afterwards, I wanna ask you what you have done that you found has worked. Um, so one of the interesting things that's happened in the last five years is that vitamin use has gone up significantly. More people are taking vitamins now than before. And researchers have looked at why, and what they discovered was the big thing that changed vitamin use is making them gummies. 'Cause you can put a little bit of sugar on the exterior of a gummy, right?

    25. PAPeter Attia1:21:18

        [laughs]

    26. CDCharles Duhigg1:21:18

        So what they're doing is they're creating an immediate reward for eating that vitamin.

    27. PAPeter Attia1:21:21

        [laughs]

    28. CDCharles Duhigg1:21:22

        They're incentivizing the behavior. Let's take teeth brushing, where there's a whole chapter in Power of Habit about the history of toothbrushing. Because y- if you went back a hundred years, a little bit over a hundred years, turn of the, turn of the, the, the last century, what you saw is that there were tons of toothpaste companies, and almost nobody had a toothbrushing habit. And then this one guy comes up with a formula for how to get people to brush their teeth. What he does is he adds a little bit of mint to the toothpaste, so it makes your gums tingle when you use it. Now, that's actually a pain response, right? That's not necessarily... But what he's saying is, when you brush your teeth, you're actually doing something good. You can feel it working. You can feel it on your gums doing its job. You're protecting your teeth. He's creating a positive reward even out of a pain response. So the number one thing we can do is we can try and manufacture a short-term positive reinforcement, some type of positive reward that's gonna incentivize that behavior. That's not possible with everything, right?

    29. PAPeter Attia1:22:25

        Yeah.

    30. CDCharles Duhigg1:22:25

        So the next thing that we could do is we can work on people building a mental habit associated with that behavior that does deliver a reward. So savings is a great example. Taking my heart medication. So if I h- if I'm taking heart medication, and it's kind of a pain, uh, the pill's dry. It's like taking it with fish oil, so it's like this-
14. 1:24:06 – 1:31:36

    Potential for AI to provide social reinforcement

    1. PAPeter Attia1:24:06

       We're in this era of AI and AI chatbots and AI agents. You've already talked a lot about how social reinforcement is huge. I go back to the experiment you described in South America, forty percent increasing savings by simply having that woman there to just tell you what a good job you were doing when you were savings.

    2. CDCharles Duhigg1:24:27

       Yeah.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:24:27

       Is there a belief, has it been demonstrated that an AI agent can be as rewarding as a human being?

    4. CDCharles Duhigg1:24:33

       So the research is so nascent on this. Uh, so my latest book is actually about the science of communication, and so this question of AI has come up a lot because, and I also cover AI for The New Yorker now, this question of whether, uh, an AI system can be as good a conversationalist as another human. W- we don't really know, right? It, we're only two years into the generative AI experiment. What we do know is that I can create a reward for myself that's built around this ritualized behavior with an AI, right? So, so if I, if I create that spreadsheet, and I feel a sense of accomplishment from filling it out, I can get the same sense of accomplishment by getting into a ritualized behavior with AI. "Hey, AI, you told me that I should run two miles today, and I ran two miles." We know that it's gonna respond by saying, "Good job. You're doing a great job," right? "You're thinking about your, your health for the long term." Now, is the power there the AI system? Well, the AI system can automate it, right? But the real question is, do I, do I invest in the pride I feel from being told that by an AI? And for some people, the answer is yes. For other people, the answer's gonna be no. So the answer to your question is, yeah, AI is great because AI can help automate behav- can automate certain rewards, it can automate certain behaviors. But whether that reward is salient to me, whether that behavior is salient to me, really depends on me, and I have the power to choose.

    5. PAPeter Attia1:26:04

       Yeah, I'm just trying to think. That's really interesting because I know that... I mean, I've already figured out ways to use AI as a reward for me-

    6. CDCharles Duhigg1:26:15

       Oh, yeah?

    7. PAPeter Attia1:26:16

       ... and for my kids. Oh, for sure.

    8. CDCharles Duhigg1:26:17

       Like how so?

    9. PAPeter Attia1:26:18

       Um, my boys and I love to just do Q&A sessions with ChatGPT.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg1:26:28

        Huh.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:26:28

        Like, just, you know, go down the rabbit hole-

    12. CDCharles Duhigg1:26:31

        Yeah

    13. PAPeter Attia1:26:31

        ... right, of, okay, what is the most valuable baseball card ever sold?

    14. CDCharles Duhigg1:26:37

        [laughs]

    15. PAPeter Attia1:26:38

        Okay, it's this one. Why? What was the PSA on it? What-- Okay, and, and then wh- but why was Mickey Mantle's worth less than Babe Ruth's or whatever?

    16. CDCharles Duhigg1:26:47

        So can I ask you a question about that? So all of those questions you could have just asked Google, right? Like, and, and before, before ChatGPT-

    17. PAPeter Attia1:26:55

        Right

    18. CDCharles Duhigg1:26:55

        ... you could have just done a Google search. What is it about doing it with ChatGPT that feels more pleasurable to you?

    19. PAPeter Attia1:27:02

        Great question. Now, of course, today you're absolutely correct in that Google today is mostly powered off Gemini.

    20. CDCharles Duhigg1:27:10

        Mm-hmm.

    21. PAPeter Attia1:27:10

        If you're using the right version of Google, you're actually getting Gemini to do the work-

    22. CDCharles Duhigg1:27:13

        Yeah

    23. PAPeter Attia1:27:13

        ... and it's using a great version of Gemini. Um, I, so, so I'll give you the fav- my favorite thing I like to do with, with ChatGPT or with Grok or whichever one, they're, all the agents are really good, is I like to talk about, I like to ask history questions because-

    24. CDCharles Duhigg1:27:30

        Hmm

    25. PAPeter Attia1:27:30

        ... you know, I was an engineer in college, and I was one of those guys who even though I think in engineering school you had the option to take electives, I didn't take any. I just took more math.

    26. CDCharles Duhigg1:27:41

        Interesting.

    27. PAPeter Attia1:27:41

        Right? So I kind of feel like I didn't learn anything. I, I mean, I learned my craft, but I didn't learn about history.

    28. CDCharles Duhigg1:27:48

        Yeah.

    29. PAPeter Attia1:27:48

        And furthermore, because I grew up in Canada, I really know nothing about US history.

    30. CDCharles Duhigg1:27:52

        Oh, that's interesting.
15. 1:31:36 – 1:44:50

    Mental habits: how thought patterns & contemplative routines shape deep thinking, innovation, & performance

    1. CDCharles Duhigg1:31:36

       You know, and we've talked a lot about behavioral habits today. But most of the habits that exist in our lives are mental habits.

    2. PAPeter Attia1:31:45

       Hmm.

    3. CDCharles Duhigg1:31:46

       They're habits that we don't even recognize as habits because they're happening inside our brain, and they are incredibly powerful. They make you believe that a chatbot is more intelligent if it has a British accent than if it has a San Diego accent, right?

    4. PAPeter Attia1:32:00

       Yeah.

    5. CDCharles Duhigg1:32:00

       These mental habits make me believe that when someone cuts me off in traffic, a perfectly appropriate response is to get angry, which does not benefit me, does not change the situation. I know that I should be zen about it, but it compels me to behave a certain way.

    6. PAPeter Attia1:32:18

       So let's say more about that.

    7. CDCharles Duhigg1:32:19

       Okay.

    8. PAPeter Attia1:32:19

       Let's say more about the, the, the mental habits. And I read something the other day which didn't surprise me one bit, because anybody who has meditated will know this. Um, we have an average of, I believe, 47 thoughts per minute.

    9. CDCharles Duhigg1:32:38

       Wow. Yeah, that's-

    10. PAPeter Attia1:32:40

        Right?

    11. CDCharles Duhigg1:32:40

        That sounds-

    12. PAPeter Attia1:32:40

        You're almost one per second.

    13. CDCharles Duhigg1:32:41

        Right.

    14. PAPeter Attia1:32:42

        And again, if you, if you don't meditate or you haven't spent some time doing mindfulness meditation, you would think that's impossible. But if you've ever done the exercise of sitting there focusing on your breath, w- watching every single time you are distracted by a thought, you'll be like, "Yep, I can believe it's 47 times a minute." So-

    15. CDCharles Duhigg1:33:00

        Yeah, that actually sounds small to me-

    16. PAPeter Attia1:33:02

        Yeah

    17. CDCharles Duhigg1:33:02

        ... based on my meditation. [laughs]

    18. PAPeter Attia1:33:03

        So we've, we've got this, uh, crazy thing that is just a thought-generating machine that we can't control.

    19. CDCharles Duhigg1:33:10

        Yeah.

    20. PAPeter Attia1:33:10

        Um, but thoughts are not thinking. So what translates us from thoughts to thinking? Where, how do we form better habits or reformat, uh, maladaptive habits around that?

    21. CDCharles Duhigg1:33:24

        Yeah.

    22. PAPeter Attia1:33:24

        You give a great example, by the way, of the, the reaction to getting cut off, like, uh-

    23. CDCharles Duhigg1:33:29

        Yeah

    24. PAPeter Attia1:33:29

        ... an anger reaction.

    25. CDCharles Duhigg1:33:30

        That's absolutely right. So, so the way that we can, the way that we can influence our mental habits is that we have to deliberately choose to figure out what the cue is, and then we have to give ourselves a reward afterwards. They, they operate by the same principle as, as behavioral habits or physical habits, but it's a little bit more tricky, right? So oftentimes, let's take, um, let's take, uh, innovation. Innovation is one of the, a mental habit that's studied.

    26. PAPeter Attia1:33:56

        Hmm.

    27. CDCharles Duhigg1:33:56

        Why do some people manage to innovate on demand much better than others, right? We can all be innovative, but some people, they need the muse to strike. It takes them years, and so other people, you walk in and you say, "Hey, look, I need 30 great ideas by tonight," and they can sit down and they knock 'em out.

    28. PAPeter Attia1:34:12

        [laughs]

    29. CDCharles Duhigg1:34:12

        So what's happening there? When researchers have looked at the lives of serial innovators, what they found is that the most important t- part of that is that oftentimes the, the people who are really good at it have built up what's known as a conteta- contemplative routine to spur that innovation. Now, these contemplative routines can be something like, "Every week I sit down and I reflect on all the good ideas I had last week just for 30 minutes, and I try and think of good ideas for next, for next week." Or the contemplative routine can be, "Whenever anyone asks me to come up with 30 ideas, the first thing I do is I go take a walk, then I just think about it in my head. I'm not writing anything down. I'm not committing myself to anything. I'm just letting it percolate a little bit." I have a routine that I know works for me-

    30. PAPeter Attia1:35:01

        Hmm
16. 1:44:50 – 1:51:15

    How cognitive routines boost productivity & habit formation but may stifle creativity

    1. PAPeter Attia1:44:51

       What are some less dramatic examples of how this manifests in the lives of those of us who don't carry in, uh, in our hands-

    2. CDCharles Duhigg1:45:00

       [laughs]

    3. PAPeter Attia1:45:00

       ... the lives of 400 passengers?

    4. CDCharles Duhigg1:45:02

       So let me ask you a question. So what, um, what do you do to get ready for each week? Like, do you have, like, a, a process you go through or...

    5. PAPeter Attia1:45:10

       Yeah.

    6. CDCharles Duhigg1:45:10

       So tell me about that. What is, what is it y- that you do?

    7. PAPeter Attia1:45:13

       Um, every Friday afternoon, I make a list of everything I'm going to accomplish on Saturday and Sunday.

    8. CDCharles Duhigg1:45:21

       Hmm.

    9. PAPeter Attia1:45:21

       And every Sunday, I make a list of everything I'm gonna accomplish Monday through Friday. So I have two lists, a five-day week list and a two-day weekend list. Um, and they include the most important things that have to be done. Now, not things that are automatic, so I don't write my workouts and stuff-

    10. CDCharles Duhigg1:45:39

        Right

    11. PAPeter Attia1:45:39

        ... 'cause those are kind of on cruise control. Um, but it can be anything as mundane as gotta go to Dick's Sporting Goods and get, uh, you know, a set of baseballs. You know, we're, uh, the old baseballs are getting beat up. Um, need to, uh, finish working on this newsletter, need to prepare for this podcast, um, need to, you know, take my daughter here, go... You know, it's, it's, it's just basically, it's how I kind of organize the, you know, the blocks of the week.

    12. CDCharles Duhigg1:46:07

        And why does that feel good to you? 'Cause, 'cause you pro- you would end up taking your daughter anyways. You would probably see the baseballs and be like, "Oh, that's right, I gotta go to Dick's." There's something about that list. That's a contemplative routine for you.

    13. PAPeter Attia1:46:16

        Yeah.

    14. CDCharles Duhigg1:46:16

        What i- what reward is it providing?

    15. PAPeter Attia1:46:18

        Well, I am someone who, it's weird, but I, and this has always been the case, even in school, like, you know, high school, I really enjoy checklists, and I enjoy checking things off a list. And I... So there is actually a, a there, there is a dopamine hit that I am getting-

    16. CDCharles Duhigg1:46:38

        Absolutely

    17. PAPeter Attia1:46:38

        ... when I, 'cause I, I have a box, and I write what I'm gonna do, and then if it's in progress, it gets a single line through the box, and then when it's fully done, it gets the X through the box.

    18. CDCharles Duhigg1:46:48

        I love that.

    19. PAPeter Attia1:46:48

        So for example, if one of the things was speak, you know, connect with, uh, Charles this weekend, that's, you know, okay. So let's say, um, I call you tomorrow, and we talk for five minutes, but then you have to run. I would put a s- half slash through it, which is all right, we partially connected, but we haven't fully connected, so I know that I still have to come back to it-

    20. CDCharles Duhigg1:47:10

        Yeah

    21. PAPeter Attia1:47:10

        ... and connect with you. And if I don't, then it goes on the next list of the week or something like that.

    22. CDCharles Duhigg1:47:14

        So here's what I love about that. W- there's a need for cognitive closure that all of us feel, right? Y- if you, the research on people who'd make to-do lists find that 60% of people, when they're writing a to-do list, will write down something they have already completed because it feels so good to check it off.

    23. PAPeter Attia1:47:29

        So I used to do that.

    24. CDCharles Duhigg1:47:31

        Okay [laughs] .

    25. PAPeter Attia1:47:31

        I stopped doing it about 20 years ago. But I did. I used to take great pride in sneaking in a couple wins-

    26. CDCharles Duhigg1:47:38

        Yeah

    27. PAPeter Attia1:47:38

        ... out of the gate.

    28. CDCharles Duhigg1:47:39

        Yeah, because you have this-

    29. PAPeter Attia1:47:40

        Yeah.

    30. CDCharles Duhigg1:47:40

        So what you've done is you've take- that need for cognitive closure, it can push us to, like, do the laundry when we don't need to do the laundry, right? 'Cause we just wanna feel some sense of accomplishment. You have actually redirected it through a cognitive routine to be a very positive influence in your life. I'm gonna create the goals that I actually wanna accomplish, I'm gonna create a system where I can satisfy that need for cognitive closure, and I'm gonna have a tracking device in order to do it. And it-
17. 1:51:15 – 1:55:25

    Contemplative routines: using stillness to unlock deeper productivity & creativity

    1. PAPeter Attia1:51:15

       I want to go back to this contemplative routine idea because the first thing that came to my mind when you described it is, um, going back to something that, that, um, um, that, that Ryan Holiday wrote about the Stillness Is the Key. Have you read that book?

    2. CDCharles Duhigg1:51:32

       Yeah, I... And I'm a huge fan of Ryan.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:51:33

       Yeah.

    4. CDCharles Duhigg1:51:33

       I think he's great.

    5. PAPeter Attia1:51:34

       And, and, uh, obviously Ryan has written more books than, than I can count, but I do-- That is my favorite, right? That Stillness Is the Key-

    6. CDCharles Duhigg1:51:42

       Yeah

    7. PAPeter Attia1:51:42

       ... is, is my favorite. It's the one I've gifted the most.

    8. CDCharles Duhigg1:51:45

       Huh.

    9. PAPeter Attia1:51:46

       Um, it, it's, um, it's a book I go back to. I'm actually due to reread it, right? I've on- You know, it's probably been two, two years since I last read it, so I'm due to reread it. Um, and it's something that my brother does so well. You know, my brother, it's his superpower is making stillness time.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg1:52:05

        Interesting.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:52:06

        Um, he's very disciplined about this. He is very disciplined about time to think.

    12. CDCharles Duhigg1:52:13

        Tell me how he does that. Like, tell me a little bit more. Like, what if-- If I was watching him, what would it look like?

    13. PAPeter Attia1:52:18

        Well, you would actually think at the surface, it's quite selfish, right? He'll, he'll say, "For the next two hours, I don't..." You know, he'll tell his wife and his kids, like, "I need to be left completely alone-

    14. CDCharles Duhigg1:52:31

        Yeah

    15. PAPeter Attia1:52:31

        ... and I need to go for a walk with no phone, with no anything. Um, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk in the fields." You know, he lives on a farm, and he's like, "And I'm going to just be with my thoughts and with nothing else. And then I can come back and do my best work."

    16. CDCharles Duhigg1:52:51

        Yeah.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:52:51

        Um, but he forces that in. Um, and I think I, I am convinced that all of us could do better work if we did that, um, and yet I struggle to do it. There, there's a bit of a, a trap that I fall into, which is, yeah, but think about how much more I could get done in those two hours.

    18. CDCharles Duhigg1:53:14

        Yeah.

    19. PAPeter Attia1:53:15

        Like, I don't have the two hours to be still.

    20. CDCharles Duhigg1:53:16

        Right. So, um, Cal Newport has done a lot of work on this.

    21. PAPeter Attia1:53:20

        Yep.

    22. CDCharles Duhigg1:53:21

        And one of the things, one of the mistakes that we make, and this is just a, a cognitive heuristic that we fall into, is that we look at some types of activities as being unproductive because they don't ha- yield immediate dividends, right?

    23. PAPeter Attia1:53:38

        This actually is part of the whole habit system.

    24. CDCharles Duhigg1:53:40

        Absolutely.

    25. PAPeter Attia1:53:40

        Like, yeah.

    26. CDCharles Duhigg1:53:41

        It absolutely is. It's about building those habits to recognize pro- deep productivity, deep work, right?

    27. PAPeter Attia1:53:46

        Yep.

    28. CDCharles Duhigg1:53:46

        And so one of the things that I'm sure, it happens to me, I'm sure it happens to you, is that I say, [laughs] "If I go take a walk in the woods for two hours, like, what do I have to show for it," right? There's like the... Whereas if I sit down and I po- pound through these emails for two hours, suddenly I, like, my inbox is half the size it used to be.

    29. PAPeter Attia1:54:04

        That's right.

    30. CDCharles Duhigg1:54:04

        It feels really-
18. 1:55:25 – 2:01:31

    How habits reduce decision fatigue & enable deep, high-quality productivity

    1. PAPeter Attia1:55:25

       And so what do you think is the relationship then between productivity and habit? How implicit and how explicit is it?

    2. CDCharles Duhigg1:55:35

       So I think it's huge. I think it's huge. But, but let me be very clear how I mean that, because oftentimes the things that we do out of habit are not the productive things, but our habits can set us up to be productive. As I mentioned before, the, the most important element of productivity is deep thought, right? Because making the right choice, making the right decision, spending my time on the right task right now yields many more dividends than simply getting something done. It's the difference between productivity and busyness. So the question is, how do I set myself up To make better choices. Well, the way that I do that is I build habits that give me not only the time and space to make a choice, but the prompt to make a choice. 'Cause there's a lot of times that I'm gonna avoid making a choice if I can. My brain doesn't like making choices. It's energy. It costs energy. It feels like it's depleting me. So my brain is gonna say, "Oh, you walked in the cafeteria. Like, don't get the salad. Just get the sandwich you get every single time. You know it's gonna... You're gonna like it," right? So how do I build a habit that allows me the space to make that choice and the prompt to make that choice? That's why habits are so important, is not because they make us productive, it's because they allow us to be productive.

    3. PAPeter Attia1:56:52

       Say more about the decision fatigue, 'cause I think that's something that many people listening to us right now can relate to.

    4. CDCharles Duhigg1:56:59

       Yeah.

    5. PAPeter Attia1:56:59

       Um, I have become much more aware of it in myself recently, and I don't think it's age-related per se. I think it's just complexity related.

    6. CDCharles Duhigg1:57:08

       Absolutely.

    7. PAPeter Attia1:57:08

       So the more things you're juggling, the more I find myself unable to make simple decisions, and it's like I can't tell you how internally frustrated I get sometimes when I'm asked to make decisions.

    8. CDCharles Duhigg1:57:24

       So there's two things happening there, and you're exactly right that decision fatigue is real, right? We've seen it in dun- actually at this point, hundreds of studies, that the more decisions you have to make in a day, the more fatigued you get, but there's some, there's some elements that play into this. The first is structuring decision design. So President Obama, he, in one interview, he said that the most important habit that he developed when he was president is he bought 12 of the same suits-

    9. PAPeter Attia1:57:50

       [laughs]

    10. CDCharles Duhigg1:57:50

        ... and shirts. So every morning when he woke up, he just put... He knew exactly what he was gonna put on. It's the same. There's no other options in his closet. He just has to grab one of them.

    11. PAPeter Attia1:58:00

        Yep.

    12. CDCharles Duhigg1:58:00

        And he said the reason why is because the day was so exhausting with decisions, and each of the decisions he made was so important that he had to preserve his ability to make decisions, so, and avoid that fatigue. So the first thing is how do we design our decisions so that we're only having to make the important ones, and we're making the, the less important ones automatic, things where we don't have to make a choice, right? The second thing that happens there is that decisions are harder to make in a hot state than they are in a cold state. So if you're hungry and you go into the cafeteria, it's gonna be a lot harder for you to choose that really healthy salad over that really tasty sandwich-

    13. PAPeter Attia1:58:44

        Mm

    14. CDCharles Duhigg1:58:44

        ... because you're in a hot state.

    15. PAPeter Attia1:58:46

        Yep.

    16. CDCharles Duhigg1:58:47

        Now, in a cold state, that morning when you just had breakfast, if you say, "My implementation intention is I'm gonna eat a salad today," when I walk in, that's, I'm, and I, I know which salad I'm gonna get, it's a lot easier to make that decision. So here's what I think is happening. Number one, you don't have a mental heuristic in place to say, "I'm going to, I'm gonna curate the decisions I have to make." 'Cause if you had that, and you probably do now, but, like, the first time it comes up, you don't have the heuristic, and the heuristic is when my wife asks me where to go to dinner, I'm just gonna choose one of them. I'm not even gonna, like, think about, like, which one is the best one. I'm just gonna choose one, right? So I'm gonna create a design stru- a decision structure for myself that allows me to focus on the most important decisions and ignore the, the smaller ones. Secondly, sh- I'm gonna ask her not to ask me to make that decision at the end of the day when I'm exhausted and I've been making choices all day long.

    17. PAPeter Attia1:59:38

        Mm. Yeah.

    18. CDCharles Duhigg1:59:39

        I'm gonna say, "Look, I'm in a hot state right now. I can't think about where to go to dinner. I'm thinking about other stuff. But if you ask me two hours from now after I've had a beer and I've started watching TV, I think I'll be ready to answer that question."

    19. PAPeter Attia1:59:51

        And y- you're so right that that's the obvious answer, and yet you feel, or at least I feel like, "How can I not be more gracious?"

    20. CDCharles Duhigg1:59:59

        Oh, right.

    21. PAPeter Attia1:59:59

        Like, I feel embarrassed that I would have to say that, and obnoxious.

    22. CDCharles Duhigg2:00:04

        Absolutely.

    23. PAPeter Attia2:00:05

        Uh, but it's true of everybody in my life. Like, sometimes my assistant will email me and say, "Can you pick lunch?" Like, we're having an offsite, and, "Can you pick your lunch?" And I'm like, "I can't." Like, I literally... And it sounds silly, but, like, if it comes through on text, it's even more debilitating.

    24. CDCharles Duhigg2:00:21

        Yeah.

    25. PAPeter Attia2:00:21

        'Cause then I have to click the menu and see the menu, and, uh, it's like a restaurant. And I'm like, "I wish you could read my mind-

    26. CDCharles Duhigg2:00:28

        [laughs]

    27. PAPeter Attia2:00:28

        ... and you knew what I wanted."

    28. CDCharles Duhigg2:00:30

        It is very-

    29. PAPeter Attia2:00:30

        "But I don't wanna have to do this."

    30. CDCharles Duhigg2:00:31

        It's very Canadian of you that you feel a sense of guilt [laughs] around, around try- t- telling someone you can't make the choice right now.
19. 2:01:31 – 2:05:51

    The power of environment & social feedback in habit formation

    1. PAPeter Attia2:01:31

       It's been 12 years since you wrote what is, um, y- you know, I think arguably the, um, uh, the, the most authoritative text on, on habit creation. How much have you stayed, um, up to date on the science of habit? And, and, and if so, how much has changed in the last 12 years? If you were to rewrite that book today, what are two or three things that you think might be different or that were just outright missing?

    2. CDCharles Duhigg2:02:01

       So I've, I've tried to keep very current on the literature around it, and, and the fundamentals haven't changed, right? The fundamentals have been true for thousands of years-

    3. PAPeter Attia2:02:09

       Mm

    4. CDCharles Duhigg2:02:09

       ... about a cue, a routine, and a reward, how our brain works and forms habits. What has changed Is our understanding of how much influence we can have over those cues and r-rewards by influencing our environment. So I'll mention another au-author, uh, David Epstein, who-

    5. PAPeter Attia2:02:25

       Yeah

    6. CDCharles Duhigg2:02:25

       ... who's wonderful. He's a wonderful man.

    7. PAPeter Attia2:02:27

       I had him on the podcast-

    8. CDCharles Duhigg2:02:27

       Yeah

    9. PAPeter Attia2:02:27

       ... about six, seven years ago. Yeah.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg2:02:28

        Yeah, he's great. He's great. And, and he talks a lot about current research looking at environments where we have a lack of resources and environments where we have a lot of resources. And environments where we have a lack of resources oftentimes produce better outcomes. But not all resources are created equal, right? If I tell you you have a time limit on coming up with a new idea, and your time limit is five minutes, that's not gonna be helpful. But if I tell you, "Peter, you can't spend more than two days on this," that is helpful. So what we're learning a lot about is how to use constraints, how to create what are known as, um, wicked environments, where the feedback is ambiguous, is lo- it takes a long time to arrive, and it's not being delivered in a social context versus helpful contexts or, or good contexts where the feedback is immediate, it's very, very clear, and it's being delivered to me oftentimes in a social context, which reinforces it. We're learning a lot about how these different environments influence our ability to act in different ways. And, you know, th-this is at the core of behavioral economics. We, we've known for a long time that the decision architecture matters, that environment matters. But what we're learning is we can get much more precise. So if I was writing The Power of Habit today, one of the things that I would include is a chapter on thinking much more deliberately about your environment, not just I'm gonna put apples on my desk so that when I have a craving to eat something, I eat one of those apples instead of a donut in the break room. But also, I'm gonna structure my day so that I make my most important decisions in the morning 'cause I know that that's when it, my, my decision-making is strongest. I'm gonna structure my day so that I go and I take a walk in the afternoon because I know that if I do that, I'm gonna do better work that evening. I think that one of the things that we are learning is our environments matter much more than we thought they did, and it's worth paying attention to that.

    11. PAPeter Attia2:04:33

        Do we have a greater sense of appreciation for the social component today than we did then? I, I, um, obviously it was strong and well understood then, but it, it almost seems to me that, and I don't know if it's just coincident with social media, but we just understand the power of-

    12. CDCharles Duhigg2:04:51

        Absolutely

    13. PAPeter Attia2:04:51

        ... social influence.

    14. CDCharles Duhigg2:04:52

        And that's actually one of the reasons I wrote Supercommunicators, is because what I came to realize is that when we focus on habits, we tend to focus on ourselves, but most of our most important work, both for ourselves and professionally, is work that we do in conjunction with others. The, the value of my life and your life is largely based on the conversations we have with our spouses and our kids, right? That's whether we feel good or bad. And so what I realized is by focusing on habits exclusively, I'm missing this incredibly important part of what makes people successful and happy, which is, how do we interact with other people? And we are making-- We are living in a golden age of understanding communication like never before. Because of advances in neural imaging and data collection, we can see inside people's brains as they're having a conversation. We know what's happening there, and we're learning a tremendous amount about what kinds of social reinforcement are positive and which kinds aren't, and which kinds are powerful, more powerful than other kinds.

    15. PAPeter Attia2:05:50

        So

20. 2:05:51 – 2:16:27

    How AI may transform work, identity, & our sense of purpose

    1. PAPeter Attia2:05:51

       I'm not gonna ask you if you're working on another book 'cause I know you might not wanna talk about it, but you're, you're, you're always in a state of learning. Is there, is there something that, that is, that is brewing as the next evolution in your, in your thinking?

    2. CDCharles Duhigg2:06:05

       Yeah. So, um, and in fact, I'll tell you what the next book I wanna write-

    3. PAPeter Attia2:06:07

       Oh, great

    4. CDCharles Duhigg2:06:07

       ... and, and invite-

    5. PAPeter Attia2:06:08

       Yeah, yeah

    6. CDCharles Duhigg2:06:08

       ... and invite listeners to reach out to me if you think there's something I should know about. So I think AI is really, really interesting and really, really important. Now, I'm not one of those guys, and I interview a lot of these guys, who says AI is gonna change every single part of life. It's gonna revolutionize everything. I think there's a lot of humanness-

    7. PAPeter Attia2:06:25

       Mm

    8. CDCharles Duhigg2:06:25

       ... that's really important to us. But I do think that AI has the same potential that the indust- the First Industrial Revolution and the Second Industrial Revolution had, that the, the wide adoption of the internet had. And what's interesting to me is if you look at the history of nonfiction literature, what you see is that there were these moments of real discovery, and someone wrote a book that explained to us how to think about it. One of my favorite examples is The Right Stuff. Ma-many people have seen the movie, right?

    9. PAPeter Attia2:06:56

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CDCharles Duhigg2:06:57

        The book is fantastic. It's written by Tom Wolfe. It's an amazing book. And what he's really writing about is he's not writing about the science of the Apollo missions. He's writing about the psychology of the people who are designing those rockets and are getting on those rockets. His basic question is, what kind of a person is willing to strap themselves to a rocket before we knew that this was safe and easy, and send themselves into space before we knew we could survive there? Why? Why is someone willing to do that? Why are people competing for the opportunity to do that? And he found a lot of interesting answers. That's what I'm wondering right now about AI, and we might be a little bit too early in the process to really have any conventional wisdom or takeaways. Why h- why do some people see the world differently in a way that allows them to develop these generative AI systems and other AI systems that are so potentially transformative? And most importantly, how will it change how the rest of us think? How will it change our s- our definition of self? How will it change how we work? Those are really interesting questions, so that's, that's what I'm hoping to write about in the next book, and I think there's probably gonna be a lot of lessons in it about how we ought to behave.

    11. PAPeter Attia2:08:12

        What do you think about the importance of purpose to a, to, to our species?

    12. CDCharles Duhigg2:08:18

        I think it's incredibly important. I mean- And, and here we get, like, a little mystical, right? Because we don't know why purpose seems to light up so many parts of our brain, but we know that it does. We need, we need a why, right? That story that's inside our head, that mental model that tells us what to pay attention to and what to do next. We are a storytelling species. We look for correlative links in life. I, you know, I, I told this one funny joke, and so the girl fell in love with me. I, I started running every single day, and then, you know, I got in better shape and I was able to give up smoking. That might be correlation and not causation, right? But we look for those causal links. We look-- We want them to exist. We make sense of the world by telling ourselves a story about the world, and it-- at the core of most stories is the why. Why is the knight getting on his horse and going to fight the dragon? There's gotta be some reason for it. There's gotta be some motivation. He wants to win the hand of the princess, right? Why do you remain faithful to your spouse? I mean, there's temptations all around, right? Our biology tells us that we should probably not be faithful, but there's a why there that's at the core of our story, and the reason why that story is so important is because it's our self-identity. It is how we make sense of ourself as an individual in this world, and if we had to reinvent our self-identity every morning, it would be exhausting. That's actually what schizophrenia is. One of the contemporary ways of looking at schizophrenia is that it's someone who has biochemically a more difficult time telling themselves a consistent story from day to day, and it's awful. And so the purpose, that why, is so important because it grounds us in our story, and that tells us who we are.

    13. PAPeter Attia2:10:27

        So many of the stories then about AI's power and potential is that many of us will not be necessary from a, at least a work perspective, right? And so let's just assert that there's some truth to this, right? That, that pe- you know, and again, I, I would put myself and my career near the top of the list of things that could be outdone.

    14. CDCharles Duhigg2:10:54

        Yeah.

    15. PAPeter Attia2:10:54

        Um, so what, what do we make of a, of a, of a world in which many people no longer have a professional why? Is it something that could be substituted with a personal why? In other words, is there a world in which I'm no longer necessary in any way, shape, or form for any of the things I do? I don't n- you know, AI will do a better job at podcasting. AI will do a better job at doctoring. AI will do a better job at everything I do. Um, my kids will be too old to need me as a parent, um, but I'll, I'll become so obsessed with chess that that will become my why.

    16. CDCharles Duhigg2:11:34

        [laughs]

    17. PAPeter Attia2:11:34

        Is that a-- Is-- Does that work?

    18. CDCharles Duhigg2:11:36

        So what I would, what I would suggest is two things. We've always had this concern, right? There's always been this concern that each technological leap forward will mean that work disappears, and it's never come true.

    19. PAPeter Attia2:11:46

        Right.

    20. CDCharles Duhigg2:11:46

        It just means that work changes.

    21. PAPeter Attia2:11:47

        Changes, right.

    22. CDCharles Duhigg2:11:48

        The second thing I would argue is you're already there. I mean, look, at this point, you don't need to work for the paycheck, right?

    23. PAPeter Attia2:11:55

        No, that's my point.

    24. CDCharles Duhigg2:11:56

        Yeah, you've got enough money to liv-

    25. PAPeter Attia2:11:56

        But I, but I still choose to. I mean-

    26. CDCharles Duhigg2:11:57

        You choose to work.

    27. PAPeter Attia2:11:59

        Yes.

    28. CDCharles Duhigg2:11:59

        Right?

    29. PAPeter Attia2:11:59

        Yep.

    30. CDCharles Duhigg2:11:59

        And, and you're not working necessarily. You call it work, but it's also stuff that you would probably do in your spare time even if it was uncompensated-
21. 2:16:27 – 2:27:33

    Potential of AI-powered habit change, & the essential element of motivation

    1. PAPeter Attia2:16:27

       Yeah, which I think brings me back to one of the most exciting things that I would love to see AI have a huge impact on, is one of the things that we as humans have the biggest challenge with, with which is behavior changing. He- encouraging and helping people to change behaviors, which kind of brings it all full circle, right?

    2. CDCharles Duhigg2:16:48

       Yeah.

    3. PAPeter Attia2:16:49

       Which is if, if there is an AI agent that can be the most powerful tool for behavior change, as powerful as having you stand next to a person twenty-four/seven as their behavior coach, uh, then you really change lives.

    4. CDCharles Duhigg2:17:09

       And do you think that that's, we're gonna see that? Like, is that, is that, is that a r- is that an achievable outcome?

    5. PAPeter Attia2:17:17

       Honestly, I think, Charles, you're in a better position to answer that because I think you have a far better, uh, and a deeper knowledge of the science. Because the real question is, do we know how to-- do we have the data for how to do this under perfect, perfect circumstances that can serve as training data-

    6. CDCharles Duhigg2:17:37

       Mm-hmm

    7. PAPeter Attia2:17:37

       ... through this vehicle? Because, you know, if you take a step back and ask, is the LLM platform the right platform, I think the answer is yes, for this application.

    8. CDCharles Duhigg2:17:46

       Yeah.

    9. PAPeter Attia2:17:46

       We can debate whether the LLM is the right platform for all applications of AI. It may or may not be. Um, but given the transformer in two thousand seventeen, that was the, I mean, that took us-

    10. CDCharles Duhigg2:17:56

        Right

    11. PAPeter Attia2:17:56

        ... down this path. But I have to believe it's the right platform for this problem.

    12. CDCharles Duhigg2:18:01

        I think you're right.

    13. PAPeter Attia2:18:01

        So now the question becomes, do we have enough training data? Do we, do we know, do we know what the solution space looks like? Do we have the data to train it? And if so, then it comes down to how important is an actual human in this element versus the words.

    14. CDCharles Duhigg2:18:16

        Yeah. So I'm gonna add one more element to the, the formula that you just described. The solution space assumes that delivering the knowledge is the bottleneck, right? I need something to deliver me the right knowledge at the right moment very, very easily.

    15. PAPeter Attia2:18:33

        Not necessarily. It could be that-- Well, it depends how you define knowledge, right? It co- I, I, I, I was thinking about this more broadly, which is if you were stand- let's say I'm, I need help-

    16. CDCharles Duhigg2:18:45

        Right

    17. PAPeter Attia2:18:45

        ... changing my habits. You standing next to me, you will provide me with knowledge, you'll provide me with accountability-

    18. CDCharles Duhigg2:18:52

        Yeah

    19. PAPeter Attia2:18:52

        ... you'll provide me with reassurance.

    20. CDCharles Duhigg2:18:53

        So here, here's the thing that I'm gonna suggest, is that there's a step before that, which is, are you actually motivated to change? I mean, 'cause the truth of the matter is, if you say like-

    21. PAPeter Attia2:19:03

        Yeah

    22. CDCharles Duhigg2:19:03

        ... "Sure, I'd love to lose ten pounds, but it doesn't really matter that much to me," it doesn't matter how much I stand next to you, how much positive reinforcement I give you. If you're not, if you don't have fundamental motivation to make that change, it's probably not gonna happen, or at least not in a profound and lasting way. And so now the question becomes, AI can certainly deliver the information to me.

    23. PAPeter Attia2:19:23

        Yeah.

    24. CDCharles Duhigg2:19:23

        It can certainly deliver the positive reinforcement. It can certainly deliver all the, the subsequent parts of the formula. Can AI generate motivation in me to change?

    25. PAPeter Attia2:19:34

        What fraction of people who fail to make change fail because that is missing, or because all of the coaching, cueing, behavior modification that follows is missing?

    26. CDCharles Duhigg2:19:47

        W- uh, so let me ask you, h-how many copies of your book ha-have you sold at this point? Outlive?

    27. PAPeter Attia2:19:52

        Um, almost three million.

    28. CDCharles Duhigg2:19:54

        Three million? That's a lot. Okay, so that's three million people who have gotten fantastic information.

    29. PAPeter Attia2:19:58

        Well, maybe some didn't read it. [laughs]

    30. CDCharles Duhigg2:20:00

        Maybe some didn't read it. Yeah. Some did. As lo- as long as they bought the book, how many of those three million do you think made the change that they wanted to make after reading the book?

Episode duration: 2:27:33