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getstowly 17 hours ago [-]
I was watching a Charlie Rocket interview today and I got a lot of inspiration from him. He made it a habit of staying positive, turning a loss into a win and always finding the upside. Instead of getting sucked into the despair, he takes a loss as a learning lesson. Good habits can be hard to find but once you get into the habit of something, it becomes super easy. Everything is hard to do -- if it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Once you learn to do something, and keep doing it, you understand it better and it can make your life so much easier, or happier, or better, in so many ways. There are also bad habits but those are just as easy to break as good ones.
thephyber 15 hours ago [-]
There's a fine line between what you described and toxic positivity.
It's important not to ruminate on bad thoughts (when your proposal is a good replacement behavior), but it's also important not to bottle up natural human emotions as if they are unjustified or unreal.
A thought exercise: if it wasn't your behavior that caused your own despair, but your spouse's behaviors that caused you irritation / grief. Do you think it's better to paint a smile on yourself and ignore the underlying problem, or spend a few minutes feeling your emotions, describe the cause to your partner, then politely suggest a substitute behavior? The former builds resentment and bottles up strong emotions for an inevitable outburst down the road. The other diffuses the emotion, potentially alleviates the offending behavior, and doesn't betray what you authentically emote.
xyzelement 4 hours ago [-]
In your comment and the ones responding to you there's an assumption that your partner's behavior is the bigger problem compared to your reaction to it.
In my experience I've generally fucked things up precisely because my reaction was worse and inappropriate compared to what the partner did.
I think I am "lucky" in that my wife is amazing and I don't have to be on-guard again truly malicious and inappropriate behavior from her, so I have the "luxury" of focusing on controlling my own emotions and responses.
But then - WTF! How are people in relationships with people that you have to be so on-guard against?
amanaplanacanal 3 hours ago [-]
Because they formed partnerships when they were young and didn't know any better. And then once things get going, it seems better to "go along to get along" than face the difficulty of change.
In the US, we also have ideologies that say that one partner is supposed to be subservient to the other based on gender roles, and that makes things even more insane.
galaxyLogic 2 hours ago [-]
It is a trade-off. The benefits seems to outweigh the downsides, but it can still be painful. But we can try to alleviate the problems by using our rational mind.
xyzelement 2 hours ago [-]
I am not sure about either of these things. The typical HN person doesn't seem to be someone who partnered young or was raised in anything like a "traditional US ideology"...
It mainly seems like their parents failed to pass on any cultural wisdom. Go along to get along is fine, very different than your "partner" severely transgressing upon you.
sublinear 14 hours ago [-]
I think you're only only disagreeing in the premise of your reply, and not the substance of it.
The unnecessary emotion is the problem and that emotion is 100% caused by inexperience. The surest way to stay confused is to overindulge in the emotions blinding you. Worse would be wallowing in it with your partner.
Communicating the emotions first and then rambling your unfiltered thoughts will just cause more confusion. This is exactly how most couples fuck everything up. You should instead take the time to process the emotions on your own and then find the burning question underneath it all.
The more you do this, the less time you'll need to waste on the emotions and the more effective you'll be when you choose to speak or act.
dripdry45 13 hours ago [-]
Or the more confused everything becomes, and it just gets bottled up because there’s too much going on, and the partner gets away with their bad behavior and never has to take responsibility for their actions.
forming a habit involves taking an action and having a result. A consequence. Talking about it does not work for a lot of people. They need to be pavlov’d.
Once those difficult emotions are cool, everyone can explain what you did and why, yes. I just don’t think that always waiting for things to “cool off“ is actually helpful, it robs people of the consequences of their actions. People need immediate consequences to reinforce behaviors.
goobatrooba 6 hours ago [-]
Indeed, and time also gives plausible deniability.. reacting live means the behaviour is present, evident. Three hours later it is easy to deflect reality and claim it was a misperception.
justonenote 15 hours ago [-]
Agree with most everything and will check our that interview, that attitude is how I try and live, but the last sentence is obviously not true. Taking heroin is a habit, going to a gym is a habit, and obviously one is much easier to stop whether either willfully or not.
I'd say the ease which you can pick up habits or drop them is extremely variable across the specific habit and person. (as a different example, someone with less social awareness will find it harder to pick up the habit of being a hospitable host than someone it comes naturally to, but once learned its probably fairly easy to maintain)
One of my favorite quotes is, "first the man makes the habit, then the habit makes the man" , and it works both ways, good and bad. I really think this is something that should be taught much more explicitly in school to everyone, rather than leaving it only in places like sports and the military.
shermantanktop 14 hours ago [-]
Taking heroin may be called “a habit” but it’s not a habit. It’s an addiction with physical and neurological elements.
justonenote 14 hours ago [-]
it absolutely is a habit, the fact that it affects you physiologically via pharma does not make it not a habit. a habit is something you do habitually, that is the exact definition of the word, and the reasons people do them vary wildly. I used heroin as an an extreme example.
Going for a 5k jog every morning is also a habit that affects your brain chemistry, through different mechanisms, and can also be addictive. It's obviously much healthier, but its still a habit, that is reinforced via brain chemistry rewards etc (addictive in some people). It's not as widely seen or known but there is a small cohort of people who exercise becomes a problematic habit and ends up being detrimental to their health.
I suggest you check the definition of the words. I specifically wasn't talking about addiction because that is just one axis of what can make up a habit. Drinking water is a habit that is not addictive but pretty hard to quit. If you take a wider view there are tons of habits that are either harmful or positive, but have no addictive component, and have no chemical component, and are either hard or easy to pickup / drop.
galaxyLogic 1 hours ago [-]
> a habit is something you do habitually
That soounds a tiny bit circular. Doesn't "habitually" mean to do something out of habit?
I'd suggest "habit" is something we often do, but don't really need to do, If it's something we have to do, like eating we don't call it a habit.
justonenote 36 minutes ago [-]
It's not circular, its just basic grammar, smooth, smoothly, spice, spicy.
perhaps this is one of those definitions that are in flux and we are moving from taking drugs as a habit, to first having a drug habit, and soon, no longer a habit but an addiction.
I would have to say that in light of the other definitions of habit it does seem reasonable to separate them.
justonenote 1 hours ago [-]
this is a willful misreading of the dictionary. you are pointing to habit being used colloquially as a short hand for addiction , which of course it is, as demonstrated through this thread, and is plainly obviously used that way to anyone who has lived in the last 50 years.
if you want to play pedant paddle, explain the relationship between the words habitual and habit, write an essay, and submit to webster, to oxford and any of your favorite dictionary and try and get them to change the the top definition of habit to be a synonym for addiction.
In the meantime I'll get on with my life because I know what I said was perfectly clear and accurate.
bulbar 11 hours ago [-]
> habit is something you do habitually, that is the exact definition of the word
That definition is too broad to be useful is absolutely not a definition used in the given context (psychology).
Same goes for the examples, you can generalize statements to to get common denominators (affects the brain), but it's not useful to do so, it's misleading.
justonenote 58 minutes ago [-]
the examples I used were not generalized in any way at all. They were specifically picked examples that were at or approaching the limit of the definition, which is is a well known way of examining things in order to model them better.
if you want a more specific and narrow definition for certain classes of XYZ, you can do that, I wasn't trying to do that here.
teiferer 9 hours ago [-]
> it absolutely is a habit
You can follow the definition that you like, but the typical habit is something you just do without thinking. Taking drugs is mostly something you do to get the kick and in later stages because you don't want the withdrawal symptoms. Some addictions are quite habitual too (smoking is not just for the nicotin but also having the habit of taking a break for 10 minutes out on the balcony), but arguably there is more to an addiction than the habit component which is only a minor contributor if at all.
tdrgabi 11 hours ago [-]
Could you share a link to the interview?
epolanski 6 hours ago [-]
We are easily influenced by what we say.
Complaining is a reinforcing negative loop.
Saying to yourself that you can do it, even when you think the opposite very quickly shapes your mind.
9 hours ago [-]
cindyllm 15 hours ago [-]
[dead]
mellosouls 13 hours ago [-]
(in mice)
Needs to be as mandatory a suffix here as year, video, etc
teiferer 9 hours ago [-]
Should it be? "New black hole observed" needs a mandatory "(with a radiotelescope)"? "Agentic AI is great" needs a mandatory "(according to my opinion)"?
Lots of things we know about human physiology comes from animal studies.
Mice are not just some random animal species. They are a model organism for humans, meaning that they are sufficiently close in many ways such that insights are transferable.
mellosouls 9 hours ago [-]
1. Your examples are very different; we know in both cases the qualifier. I clicked on the link fully expecting to read an article about people.
2. Mice are obviously a useful first test subject or they wouldn't be used; they are also different enough from humans for studies to have no guarantee of results transitioning either smoothly or at all to us.
So yes, let's be more responsible with our link titles if the original articles "forget" to include the limitations.
winwang 9 hours ago [-]
... I don't think the original commenter said anything about mice being a non-model organism.
But mice are far from humans, and I, at least, find the distinction rather important.
doginasuit 18 hours ago [-]
The determined mouse with the barbells and the headband is my new spirit animal.
warning: this shows a living mouse in a mouse trap.
shmoil 2 hours ago [-]
Did you even watch the whole thing?
getstowly 17 hours ago [-]
Same :D That mouse is determined. I love it.
pizzao 3 hours ago [-]
As a beginner academic, is it fine to publish cute figures like this in academic journals (Im in computer science) ?
dryanau 2 hours ago [-]
It's fine, though it isn't the norm, presumably because authors fear their work might be taken less seriously; but if the content of the paper is good, it's fine to add a little character, or flourish. Some amusing titles fall into a similar category.
davidmyr 18 hours ago [-]
What also still puzzles me about habits is the fact that once I have a routine (like going to the gym at 6am) it is super easy. But once I lost it I struggle a lot to get it back.
shermantanktop 14 hours ago [-]
When I start a habit it feels like a one-way trip to a new life. If I break it, even once, I realize it’s not, it’s just a thing that I can do or not do. Now starting that habit again feels much less consequential.
xyzelement 4 hours ago [-]
I really relate to this and see it as a problem because it feels this way but the feeling is misleading
I lately noticed that religion (at least, Judaism in my case) really embraces the opposite of what we just described. Daily action is really the thing. You don't pray once in your life, you pray every day. You follow the commandments every day. Back in the temple times, we gave sacrifices every day. Whether you take that literally or directionally - it's a powerful reminder against the thing we are struggling with that you described.
dartharva 12 hours ago [-]
The paper might explain why it is so. Routine-setting in your brain runs separately than the execution of the activity itself, meaning you need to train the two separately, at least from what I understand.
blooalien 18 hours ago [-]
I feel like it's much the same for bad habits broken, too. If you allow yourself to fall back into a bad habit (smoking, drinking, gambling, etc for example) it feels really challenging to break it yet again. Best excuse I suppose to keep those good habits and bad ones right where you wanna keep 'em.
card_zero 17 hours ago [-]
That is opposite, not the same.
davidmyr 18 hours ago [-]
This reminds me also of the Andrew Huberman <-> Jordan Peterson discussion where doing sth you do not like actually physically lets a specific region in your brain grow and if you do not do it, it shrinks (sorry for the simplification - not a neuro scientist haha)
Aurornis 16 hours ago [-]
Huberman grossly misrepresents the science on these issues. Not a good source. Yes I am aware of his credentials. He is notoriously bad at extrapolating from studies and confidently mapping it to life advice.
If believing it helps you establish better routines then there’s no harm in that. Just be careful about where you repeat this stuff because everyone who has studied even a little neuroscience groans when Huberman comes up.
abhaynayar 8 hours ago [-]
I haven't really listened to him much, didn't really like his style, just one or two of his sleep science episodes but I thought it was well-balanced and at each topic he added caveats etc. and always made sure to tell people to not just blindly trust the science but see what works for you. Can you point to any examples of him grossly misrepresenting the science on these issues. My personal hunch is most people don't watch the long-form stuff and only hear this second-hand in a short-form context where a lot of the details are stripped out.
Aurornis 2 hours ago [-]
He is the type of faux-balanced where he confidently says something and then tries to balance it with some caveats.
Almost everything he says about dopamine is flawed, as one example. It’s hard to explain how bad his statements about “dopamine detox” and low dopamine levels really are if you’ve only understood the concept of dopamine through his lens.
He’s a story teller with a lot of confidence and charisma. He will tell you any story that makes him sound smart and makes the listener feel impressed.
> My personal hunch is most people don't watch the long-form stuff and only hear this second-hand in a short-form context where a lot of the details are stripped out.
Nope! I tried to listen. It’s really bad. He uses the long form to ramble and project a sense that his knowledge is infinitely deep.
There are a lot of Huberman debunkings on the internet if you want to go look. You might also be interested to learn about his past lies to different researchers and his exaggerations about his lab affiliation (he doesn’t even live near the “Huberman lab”). He’s also not a great person by all accounts. He’s kind of the prototypical whole-package grifter podcaster.
So one circuit essentially has 2 modes:
1 I do ActionA because I want to get GoalA
2 I do ActionA because it is my routine
What would be interesting to see is IF by activating this mechanism, mice start getting habits almost instantly for behaviors performed when this circuit was in the state#2. Correct me please.
It's important not to ruminate on bad thoughts (when your proposal is a good replacement behavior), but it's also important not to bottle up natural human emotions as if they are unjustified or unreal.
A thought exercise: if it wasn't your behavior that caused your own despair, but your spouse's behaviors that caused you irritation / grief. Do you think it's better to paint a smile on yourself and ignore the underlying problem, or spend a few minutes feeling your emotions, describe the cause to your partner, then politely suggest a substitute behavior? The former builds resentment and bottles up strong emotions for an inevitable outburst down the road. The other diffuses the emotion, potentially alleviates the offending behavior, and doesn't betray what you authentically emote.
In my experience I've generally fucked things up precisely because my reaction was worse and inappropriate compared to what the partner did.
I think I am "lucky" in that my wife is amazing and I don't have to be on-guard again truly malicious and inappropriate behavior from her, so I have the "luxury" of focusing on controlling my own emotions and responses.
But then - WTF! How are people in relationships with people that you have to be so on-guard against?
In the US, we also have ideologies that say that one partner is supposed to be subservient to the other based on gender roles, and that makes things even more insane.
It mainly seems like their parents failed to pass on any cultural wisdom. Go along to get along is fine, very different than your "partner" severely transgressing upon you.
The unnecessary emotion is the problem and that emotion is 100% caused by inexperience. The surest way to stay confused is to overindulge in the emotions blinding you. Worse would be wallowing in it with your partner.
Communicating the emotions first and then rambling your unfiltered thoughts will just cause more confusion. This is exactly how most couples fuck everything up. You should instead take the time to process the emotions on your own and then find the burning question underneath it all.
The more you do this, the less time you'll need to waste on the emotions and the more effective you'll be when you choose to speak or act.
forming a habit involves taking an action and having a result. A consequence. Talking about it does not work for a lot of people. They need to be pavlov’d.
Once those difficult emotions are cool, everyone can explain what you did and why, yes. I just don’t think that always waiting for things to “cool off“ is actually helpful, it robs people of the consequences of their actions. People need immediate consequences to reinforce behaviors.
I'd say the ease which you can pick up habits or drop them is extremely variable across the specific habit and person. (as a different example, someone with less social awareness will find it harder to pick up the habit of being a hospitable host than someone it comes naturally to, but once learned its probably fairly easy to maintain)
One of my favorite quotes is, "first the man makes the habit, then the habit makes the man" , and it works both ways, good and bad. I really think this is something that should be taught much more explicitly in school to everyone, rather than leaving it only in places like sports and the military.
Going for a 5k jog every morning is also a habit that affects your brain chemistry, through different mechanisms, and can also be addictive. It's obviously much healthier, but its still a habit, that is reinforced via brain chemistry rewards etc (addictive in some people). It's not as widely seen or known but there is a small cohort of people who exercise becomes a problematic habit and ends up being detrimental to their health.
I suggest you check the definition of the words. I specifically wasn't talking about addiction because that is just one axis of what can make up a habit. Drinking water is a habit that is not addictive but pretty hard to quit. If you take a wider view there are tons of habits that are either harmful or positive, but have no addictive component, and have no chemical component, and are either hard or easy to pickup / drop.
That soounds a tiny bit circular. Doesn't "habitually" mean to do something out of habit?
I'd suggest "habit" is something we often do, but don't really need to do, If it's something we have to do, like eating we don't call it a habit.
perhaps this is one of those definitions that are in flux and we are moving from taking drugs as a habit, to first having a drug habit, and soon, no longer a habit but an addiction.
I would have to say that in light of the other definitions of habit it does seem reasonable to separate them.
if you want to play pedant paddle, explain the relationship between the words habitual and habit, write an essay, and submit to webster, to oxford and any of your favorite dictionary and try and get them to change the the top definition of habit to be a synonym for addiction.
In the meantime I'll get on with my life because I know what I said was perfectly clear and accurate.
That definition is too broad to be useful is absolutely not a definition used in the given context (psychology).
Same goes for the examples, you can generalize statements to to get common denominators (affects the brain), but it's not useful to do so, it's misleading.
if you want a more specific and narrow definition for certain classes of XYZ, you can do that, I wasn't trying to do that here.
You can follow the definition that you like, but the typical habit is something you just do without thinking. Taking drugs is mostly something you do to get the kick and in later stages because you don't want the withdrawal symptoms. Some addictions are quite habitual too (smoking is not just for the nicotin but also having the habit of taking a break for 10 minutes out on the balcony), but arguably there is more to an addiction than the habit component which is only a minor contributor if at all.
Complaining is a reinforcing negative loop.
Saying to yourself that you can do it, even when you think the opposite very quickly shapes your mind.
Needs to be as mandatory a suffix here as year, video, etc
Lots of things we know about human physiology comes from animal studies.
Mice are not just some random animal species. They are a model organism for humans, meaning that they are sufficiently close in many ways such that insights are transferable.
2. Mice are obviously a useful first test subject or they wouldn't be used; they are also different enough from humans for studies to have no guarantee of results transitioning either smoothly or at all to us.
So yes, let's be more responsible with our link titles if the original articles "forget" to include the limitations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K8lrVjT6fM
I lately noticed that religion (at least, Judaism in my case) really embraces the opposite of what we just described. Daily action is really the thing. You don't pray once in your life, you pray every day. You follow the commandments every day. Back in the temple times, we gave sacrifices every day. Whether you take that literally or directionally - it's a powerful reminder against the thing we are struggling with that you described.
If believing it helps you establish better routines then there’s no harm in that. Just be careful about where you repeat this stuff because everyone who has studied even a little neuroscience groans when Huberman comes up.
Almost everything he says about dopamine is flawed, as one example. It’s hard to explain how bad his statements about “dopamine detox” and low dopamine levels really are if you’ve only understood the concept of dopamine through his lens.
He’s a story teller with a lot of confidence and charisma. He will tell you any story that makes him sound smart and makes the listener feel impressed.
> My personal hunch is most people don't watch the long-form stuff and only hear this second-hand in a short-form context where a lot of the details are stripped out.
Nope! I tried to listen. It’s really bad. He uses the long form to ramble and project a sense that his knowledge is infinitely deep.
There are a lot of Huberman debunkings on the internet if you want to go look. You might also be interested to learn about his past lies to different researchers and his exaggerations about his lab affiliation (he doesn’t even live near the “Huberman lab”). He’s also not a great person by all accounts. He’s kind of the prototypical whole-package grifter podcaster.
So one circuit essentially has 2 modes: 1 I do ActionA because I want to get GoalA 2 I do ActionA because it is my routine
What would be interesting to see is IF by activating this mechanism, mice start getting habits almost instantly for behaviors performed when this circuit was in the state#2. Correct me please.