Cuyamaca College The Habit Essay

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Cuyamaca College

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Cue: sees many dishes of food

Routine: steals bits off of others’ plates

Reward: Many tastes, mouth sensation, flavors

In analyzing my bad habit loop, I can clearly define the cue, routine, and reward.

In looking at my cue, routine and reward, I can clearly identify my habit loop of food stealing.

One big problem I have is stealing food off of people’s plates, and I identify that habit loop through the cue, routine and reward.

Habit cue:

In first looking at my habit cue, I find that seeing many dishes is my trigger.

The first part of my bad habit loop is the cue of seeing many tasty dishes on the table.

As soon as I see and smell different foods, that is the cue that begins my bad habit loop.

Quote:

A cue is something that starts a routine. For example, in the Power of Habit, a monkey “came to understand through dozens of repetitions, that the shapes on the screen were a cue for a routine …” (45)

Explain: He knew when he saw the shapes he could hit the lever and get a juice reward, just like when I see the food, I can get a reward too.

Routine:

Once my cue is triggered, I begin my routine of food stealing.

The second part of my habit loop is the routine of snatching food from other people’s plates.

After being cued by the sight of tasty treats, I quickly and unthinkingly begin my routine of food taking.

Quote:

In looking at our juice loving monkey from the text, we can see that when “a yellow squiggle appeared [on the screen], he went for the lever … when a blue line flashed, he pounced” (45).

Explain:

When the monkey saw a shape, he hit the lever as part of his routine in the same was I steal food routinely after being cued.

The monkeys routine was to hit a lever everytime he saw a shape just like my routine of food stealing happens after I see many dishes near me.

Just like the monkey who hits a lever habitually after seeing a shape, I too follow my routine of food thievery after seeing many plates of yummy food.

Reward:

After completing m routine, I get a reward of happy mouth satisfaction.

As soon as I have completed food stealing, I am rewarded by yummy sensations.

Of course, there is a reward for my routine which is getting to taste all of those different dishes.

Quote:

The monkey too got a reward for tapping the lever of blackberry juice, “when the juice arrived, Julio [the monkey] would lick his lips contentedly” (45).

Explain:

Rewards make us feel good; so the monkey hit the lever to get juice, and I steal food to get many tastes.

A reward is like a prize; juice for Julio and happy taste buds for me.

We all like getting good things, so Julio gets a juice reward and I a taste reward.

One big problem I have is stealing food off of people’s plates, and I identify that habit loop through the cue, routine and reward. As soon as I see and smell different foods, that is the cue that begins my bad habit loop. A cue is something that starts a routine. For example, in the Power of Habit, a monkey “came to understand through dozens of repetitions, that the shapes on the screen were a cue for a routine …” (45). He knew when he saw the shapes, he could hit the lever and get a juice reward; just like when I see the food, I can get a reward too. After being cuedby the sight of tasty treats, I quickly and unthinkingly begin my routine of food taking. In looking at our juice loving monkey from the text, we can see that when “a yellow squiggle appeared [on the screen], he went for the lever … when a blue line flashed, he pounced” (45). Just like the monkey who hits a lever habitually after seeing a shape, I too follow my routine of food thievery after seeing many plates of yummy food. Of course, there is a reward for my routine which is getting to taste all of those different dishes. The monkey too got a reward for tapping the lever of blackberry juice, “when the juice arrived, Julio [the monkey] would lick his lips contentedly” (45). Rewards make us feel good; so the monkey hit the lever to get juice, and I steal food to get many tastes.

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THE HABIT LOOP How Habits Work I. In the fall of 1993, a man who would upend much of what we know about habits walked into a laboratory in San Diego for a scheduled appointment. He was elderly, a shade over six feet tall, and neatly dressed in a blue button-down shirt. His thick white hair would have inspired envy at any fiftieth high school reunion. Arthritis caused him to limp slightly as he paced the laboratory's hallways, and he held his wife's hand, walking slowly, as if unsure about what each new step would bring. About a year earlier, Eugene Pauly, or "E.P." as he would come to be known in medical literature, had been at home in Playa del Rey, preparing for dinner, when his wife mentioned that their son, Mi- chael, was coming over. "Who's Michael?" Eugene asked. "Your child," said his wife, Beverly. "You know, the one we raised?" Eugene looked at her blankly. "Who is that?" he asked.THE HABIT LOOP How Habits Work I. In the fall of 1993, a man who would upend much of what we know about habits walked into a laboratory in San Diego for a scheduled appointment. He was elderly, a shade over six feet tall, and neatly dressed in a blue button-down shirt. His thick white hair would have inspired envy at any fiftieth high school reunion. Arthritis caused him to limp slightly as he paced the laboratory's hallways, and he held his wife's hand, walking slowly, as if unsure about what each new step would bring. About a year earlier, Eugene Pauly, or "E.P." as he would come to be known in medical literature, had been at home in Playa del Rey, preparing for dinner, when his wife mentioned that their son, Mi- chael, was coming over. "Who's Michael?" Eugene asked. "Your child," said his wife, Beverly. "You know, the one we raised?" Eugene looked at her blankly. "Who is that?" he asked.stom- pro- pom. ted a came ed to le to and edi- rier and dle. ug- ack He ela- and can it ts, to gs nd he fi- W as e IS The Habit Loop 5 system-appeared largely unscathed. He could move his limbs and was responsive to noise and light. Scans of his head, though, re- vealed ominous shadows near the center of his brain. The virus had destroyed an oval of tissue close to where his cranium and spinal column met. "He might not be the person you remember," one doc- tor warned Beverly. "You need to be ready if your husband is gone." Eugene was moved to a different wing of the hospital. Within a week, he was swallowing easily. Another week, and he started talk- ing normally, asking for Jell-O and salt, flipping through television channels and complaining about boring soap operas. By the time he was discharged to a rehabilitation center five weeks later, Eugene was walking down hallways and offering nurses unsolicited advice about their weekend plans. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone come back like this," a doctor told Beverly. "I don't want to raise your hopes, but this is amazing." Beverly, however, remained concerned. In the rehab hospital it became clear that the disease had changed her husband in unset- tling ways. Eugene couldn't remember which day of the week it was, for instance, or the names of his doctors and nurses, no matter how many times they introduced themselves. "Why do they keep asking me all these questions?" he asked Beverly one day after a physician left his room. When he finally returned home, things got even stranger. Eugene didn't seem to remember their friends. He had trouble following conversations. Some mornings, he would get out of bed, walk into the kitchen, cook himself bacon and eggs, then climb back under the covers and turn on the radio. Forty minutes later, he would do the same thing: get up, cook bacon and eggs, climb back into bed, and fiddle with the radio. Then he would do it again. Alarmed, Beverly reached out to specialists, including a re- searcher at the University of California, San Diego, who specialized in memory loss. Which is how, on a sunny fall day, Beverly and Eu-NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE POWER OF HABIT WHAT WE DO IN LIFE AND BUSINESS WHY WE DO "SHARP, ROVOCATIVE, and USEFUL." - Jim Collins, auth C reat Charles Duhigg WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR 60The Habit Loop tories that contain what, to the casual observer, look like dollhouse versions of surgical theaters. There are tiny scalpels, small drills, and miniature saws less than a quarter inch wide attached to robotic arms. Even the operating tables are tiny, as if prepared for child-sized surgeons. The rooms are always kept at a chilly sixty degrees be- cause a slight nip in the air steadies researchers' fingers during del- icate procedures. Inside these laboratories, neurologists cut into the skulls of anesthetized rats, implanting tiny sensors that can record the smallest changes inside their brains. When the rats wake, they hardly seem to notice that there are now dozens of microscopic wires arrayed, like neurological spider webs, inside their heads. These laboratories have become the epicenter for a quiet revolu- tion in the science of habit formation, and the experiments unfolding and everyone else- here explain how Eugene-as well as you, me, developed the behaviors necessary to make it through each day. The rats in these labs have illuminated the complexity that occurs inside our heads whenever we do something as mundane as brush our teeth or back the car out of the driveway. And for Squire, these laboratories helped explain how Eugene managed to learn new habits. When the MIT researchers started working on habits in the 1990s-at about the same time that Eugene came down with his fever-they were curious about a nub of neurological tissue known as the basal ganglia. If you picture the human brain as an onion, composed of layer upon layer of cells, then the outside layers-those closest to the scalp-are generally the most recent additions from an evolutionary perspective. When you dream up a new invention or laugh at a friend's joke, it's the outside parts of your brain at work. That's where the most complex thinking occurs. back with a bered where ewalks, they ide Eugene's pus memory. ats visited the block where e was located pot the assign o the kitchen. id. She asked d up, walked r of nuts. y stroll. They ual spring of e air. Eugene they rounded med to know re he lived. "I walk, opened the television. new informa- esiding? How ay where the had no idea new patterns tive Sciences abora- 1) 13 Deeper inside the brain and closer to the brain stem-where the brain meets the spinal column-are older, more primitive struc- tures. They control our automatic behaviors, such as breathing and swallowing, or the startle response we feel when someone leaps out from behind a bush. Toward the center of the skull is a golf ball-IT ganglia, ht find inside the an ova very well, excep as Parkinson's wondering if the ney noticed tha oped problem zes or remem 000 experiment b to observe, i of rats as the d what looke into its skuli e with choco in their meanderings. It seemed as if each rat was taking a leisurely, unthinking stroll. The probes in the rats' heads, however, told a different story. While each animal wandered through the maze, its brain—and in particular, its basal ganglia-worked furiously. Each time a rat sniffed the air or scratched a wall, its brain exploded with activity, as if analyzing each new scent, sight, and sound. The rat was process- ing information the entire time it meandered. The scientists repeated their experiment, again and again, watch- ing how each rat's brain activity changed as it moved through the same route hundreds of times. A series of shifts slowly emerged. The rats stopped sniffing corners and making wrong turns. Instead, they zipped through the maze faster and faster. And within their brains, something unexpected occurred: As each rat learned how to navigate the maze, its mental activity decreased. As the route became more and more automatic, each rat started thinking less and less. It was as if the first few times a rat explored the maze, its brain had to work at full power to make sense of all the new information. But after a few days of running the same route, the rat didn't need to scratch the walls or smell the air anymore, and so the brain activity associated with scratching and smelling ceased. It didn't need to choose which direction to turn, and so decision-making centers of the brain went quiet. All it had to do was recall the quickest path to the chocolate. Within a week, even the brain structures related to memory had quieted. The rat had internalized how to sprint through the maze to such a degree that it hardly needed to think at all. But that internalization-run straight, hang a left, eat the chocolate-relied upon the basal ganglia, the brain probes indi- cated. This tiny, ancient neurological structure seemed to take over as the rat ran faster and faster and its brain worked less and less. The basal ganglia was central to recalling patterns and acting on them. The basal ganglia, in other words, stored habits even while the rest of the brain went to sleep. ed behind ly, when a d usually ners and couldn't it often wandered lly, most pattern The Habit Loop 1516 THE POWER OF HABIT To see this capacity in action, consider this graph, which shows activity within a rat's skull as it encounters the maze for the first time. Initially, the brain is working hard the entire time: Click First Section Second Section Chocolate 20 After a week, once the route is familiar and the scurrying has become a habit, the rat's brain settles down as it runs through the maze: Ker bou int 007 ben all in Jun sue all. firs trat ing turn che gea esti kee cal dis Wh lik
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Explanation & Answer

Attached.

The Habit – Outline
I.

Thesis statement: As a result, it is necessary to understand my habit of drinking coffee
to my routine and the rewards I get from drinking coffee while familiarizing it with the
cues that trigger the constant method of my bad habit.

II.
III.

Introduction
A habit is often formed from a cue which is in turn triggered by a routine and promotes a
specific reward.

IV.

It is easier to get attached to a habit through the reward it encourages. Rewards are often
the results we get from taking part in our habitual routines

V.
VI.

Rewards often make us feel better about ourselves
Conclusion


Surname 1

Name
Professor
Course
Date
The Habit
In our daily lives, we develop habits that have a significant impact on our lives. On most
occasions, such habits lead us into complicated routines, all to maintain the rewards we get from
participating in the practices. Our practices are triggered into action in one way or the other,
which are inspired by specific cues that encourage us to take action. Habits can either positively
or negatively affect our ordinary lives. They always determine our normal functioning, making it
easy for us to understand how it relates to our healthy lives. On most occasions, habits involve
both routine and rewards, which are the significant determinants of practices. In one way or the
other, we always suffer from bad habits which tamper with the normal functioning of our daily
activities. As a result, it is necessary to understand my habit of drinking coffee concerning my
routine and the rewards I get from drinking coffee while familiarizing it with the cues that trigger
the constant method of my bad habit.
A habit is formed from a cue, in turn, triggered by a routine and promotes a specific reward.
The practice of drinking coffee is triggered by the weather but also my ability to begin my daily
activities. Once my coffee drinking cue is activated, I rush to look for a cup of coffee. The
morning weather usually triggers this habit, and I was seeing people with different beverages. I
am often cued by the sight of coffee that begins my habit of taking coffee every morning and a
few times during the day. My cue is inspired by the idea of starting my day with coffee makes

Surname 2

me both active and alert, which makes the whole day productive and constructive. A signal is
something that starts a routine. For example, in the Power of Habit, a monkey "came to
understand through dozens of repetitions, that the shapes on the screen were a cue for a
routine…" (45). It shows how the constant appearance of shapes motivates the monkey to hit the
lever, which in turn gets him a reward in the form of a juice for him to drink. Similarly, the
constant reminder of having my coffee every day motivates all my mornings, making me get my
coffee as a reward before taking part in any daily activity. It develops into a regular routine and
feels like part of my life, making it a habit that is difficult to deal with at a particular time.
Furthermore, it is easier to get attached to a habit through the reward it encourages. Awards are
often the results we get from taking part in our habitual routines. Making coffee as a practice is
often triggered by the idea of enjoying both its refreshing taste and being active throughout the
day. The reward involves having a mouthful of the delicious flavor of coffee that motivates my
daily activities. The award is the primary determinant of how fast we can develop a habit,
making it an essential part of a habit's development process. After drinking my coffee each
morning, I get a reward of happiness and a satisfied body. The reward for this habit is in my
daily routine. While looking at our juice loving monkey from the text, we can see that when "a
yellow squiggle appeared [on the screen], he went for the lever … when a blue line flashed, he
pounced" (45) after finishing my coffee each day, I get a reward of satisfactory, feeling like I
have accomplished my aim of dealing with the habit for a day. Just like the monkey enjoys going
towards the lever anytime a yellow squiggle appears to get his reward, I too enjoy having to
make my coffee. The feeling of drinking coffee each morning makes me happy and relaxed. The
main rew...


Anonymous
I was having a hard time with this subject, and this was a great help.

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