I’ve noticed that sometimes I will repeat maladaptive behaviors out of habit. Not because these are the things I wish to do, but because they come so naturally to me. I don’t have to think about them– and that’s probably the root of the problem. I don’t think of them. If I were consciously thinking of them, I would repeat behaviors that were healthy and “good for me.”

So, I’ve got these “bad habits.”

How does one go about eliminating bad habits– replacing them with more productive behaviors? I believe it goes back to the basic core of our behaviors– represented and stored in our brains as memory.

There are two major categories of memories. The ones you are aware of, and the ones you are unaware of.

The latter are not to be confused with the tabloid “repressed memories,” however. Memories you are unaware of are the ones that you store when you repeat a behavior so much that it becomes ingrained– rote memories. These two different types of memories are “explicit memories” and “implicit memories.”

Explicit memories are the things that you are consciously aware of. There are many forms of explicit memory– i.e. how you acquired the information, when you acquired the information, the information you acquired itself, etc. These are “facts” that you know and can recall upon command– though as we age, our minds slow, and recall may be delayed or postponed.

Implicit memories are the habits you have, the conditioned responses, the behaviors you do without much cognitive effort. Any skill you practice and repeat is an implicit memory because you’re not consciously thinking of what you’re doing when you do it well. Mastering a musical instrument or any other motor skill has a basic agreement: that when you get caught up in thinking about what it is you are doing, you perform at a lesser level of expertise than when you just let your fingers (or whatever you’re using to perform the behavior) do what they need to do.

The primary difference is that one type of memory is conscious, whereas the other type is something you’re not entirely aware of. These two sorts of memory are stored in different parts of the brain, and are shown as obviously different when a person with amnesia loses their memories– the explicit kind– yet retain implicit memory.

My hypothesis is that the maladaptive behaviors that I’m not thinking about have somehow become implicit, whereas the pro-adaptive behaviors are explicit.

So, my proposal is this: Do you think that we can somehow move those aforementioned pro-adaptive behaviors that we are consciously doing into implicit memory, therefore eliminating the behaviors that conflict with the ones you have consciously chosen?

Perhaps. Obviously we have to practice behaviors in order to master them. We cannot expect to learn the concepts of playing a piano without actually sitting down and practicing the movements. We cannot expect to know how to solve problems in Chemistry without having practiced like problems. To become truly good at something, one must practice.

My thought is that we should practice and repeat the pro-adaptive behaviors until we become so good at them that we do not even have to think about them.

Now, let’s see how this applies to our behaviors.  One obvious behavior to me is what I think.  Believe it or not, your thoughts are things you actively think about (see how I would classify those as being “behaviors”)? I notice my thoughts more when I’m actively thinking positive things about myself… whereas I notice them less when I’m being negative– probably because then I’m caught up in the feeling emotion of blech rather than in the high emotion of being aware of myself.

Let’s start with something “simple” like thoughts.  *wink*  I say “simple” because they seem so small in the grand scheme of things… In fact, they aren’t.  They’re ginormous in the scheme of things… They have everything to do with how we behave outside of our head.  They make a difference in our attitudes, and how we experience this lifetime.

If we are able to habituate the behavior of thinking properly, would it change us?  Would it become so rote in our heads that we would no longer have any room for the behaviors which conflict– i.e. the negative thoughts? I think there might be something to this idea, though I’m not certain that always thinking positively will 100% eliminate the negatives.  But… I do recognize that we use different parts of our brain to remember different things, which in turn affect the different behaviors initiated based upon those different kinds of thoughts.  Of course, then you must also consider: if we practice thinking “right” for long enough, and it becomes part of our implicit memory, will we mess it up when we start thinking about thinking right again???

In order to really figure out if we can move our thoughts into implicit behaviors, of course, I will need to do some research.  I will need to have subjects who are willing to test this theory out.

My challenge to you is this: can you play along with me?  Can you practice thinking “right” thoughts until they become habits?

If you join me in this experiment, we will have to figure out how to measure our success.  At what point will we know if these behaviors become implicit?  I would imagine it would be the same measurement of expertise one would demonstrate upon years of practicing a musical instrument or anything else requiring dexterity.  Speaking of dexterity, what if the implicit memory only affects motor movement?  I believe that it affects more than just motor movement because we can learn to spell quickly in the same manner as we can learn to play an instrument.  Perhaps that would be the goal of the research– to identify whether implicit memory involves motor movement, or if it also involves thought.

If it involves thought, too, as I’ve proposed it does, then one way to measure the success in moving “right” thoughts into implicit memory is to measure the difference/ change in mood.  If you’re thinking “right” thoughts more rote-ly than before, that would imply a better outlook and attitude of life.    That could be huge.

Anyway, I believe I have some good material here to think about.  Please let me know if you’re interested in learning how to change your thoughts.  I’d be interested in discussing this with you!!!

2 Comments »

1. 

   Hi!
   Love the blog…great thoughts as always. Consider your blog the main dish…deep, meaty…mine is like the desert..light, fluffy…..: )

   Anyways, while I agree that changing negative thoughts can come to great action, I often find it is the action needed first. Want to steal something? Take the action NOT to steal, and then think it out later. Sometimes I find that this world puts too much emphasis on what is going on inside the brain, and not enough on our actual actions. Even if you are the best person ever..in your mind, your actions will be what defines your ultimate character. You can’t get around it.

   Comment by Colleen — December 11, 2007 @ 3:53 pm

2. 

   Thanks for your thoughts, Colleen!!! It’s sort of a chicken or the egg deal, though, isn’t it? Which comes first? The thought or the action?

   I do agree, absolutely, that there isn’t always enough emphasis on behavior. This idea gets into the hypocrisy argument… you cannot say (or think) one thing and then do something different!

   Actions do define your character– to the world at least. I think that in the case I was getting at is more along the lines as to how we define our own character, subjectively… What is it that I see (or think of) within myself?

   Comment by POHA — December 11, 2007 @ 10:10 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment