My Story - Dr Prabath

By Dr. Prabath, Founder of Millionaire Health Habits & Owner of Unique Medical Cranbourne, Australia

Live Richer in Every Way

By Dr prabath

How does the environment help in habit formation?

As explained in Atomic Habits, our environment is critical in developing good or continuing bad habits. The book describes the fascinating research done on American soldiers who got addicted to heroin while fighting in Vietnam. The prevailing theory was that addiction was due to only personal factors, and when soldiers returned to the US, they would continue to be addicts. But surprisingly, the majority of soldiers managed to break their heroin addiction once they returned home. So once the cues were removed from the environment, the habit loop stopped working.

Various researchers and observations have repeatedly proven the critical role that the environment plays, for better or worse. But people still don’t use environmental engineering to develop good habits and try to rely on willpower. But why waste the valuable and finite willpower when you can modify your environment? By modifying the environment, you are saving your finite willpower for something else more important.

Let’s put theory into practice. For years, I battled my nighttime habit of having a healthy early dinner and then ruining everything with ice cream. More often than not, I would binge eat ice cream. I tried multiple methods, like using my willpower, brushing my teeth right after dinner, and leaving the kitchen right after, but my habit loop kept rolling. My cue was finishing the dinner and craving the delicious bite of something sweet, which has been programmed into me for years. I finally broke that habit by asking my wife not to bring ice cream to our home. My kids were outraged with me! But after a few weeks, they got used to having no ice cream in the fridge, and now we have a few fruits after dinner All the research proves that people who seem to have excellent willpower are using environmental design rather than having willpower. A few other environmental strategies I used <b

- Want to stop having daily wine after dinner? Stop having wine at home
- Want to drink water in the morning? Sleep with the water bottle next to your bed
- Want to avoid looking at your phone in bed? Put the phone a few meters away on the floor
- Want to avoid feeling not good enough? Remove all social media

My home is highly organised to prevent and encourage good habits. But I don’t have superhuman willpower, and the moment that ice cream is in the fridge, I can’t resist that. So my readers, change your environment. </strong

If you can’t stop drinking energy drinks, don’t bring them home
If you can’t stop eating chips, don’t bring them home
If you can’t stop online shopping via Amazon, remove the App from your phone

My Story - Dr Prabath

Live Richer in Every Way

How does the environment help in habit formation?

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