The Habit Loop

The Habit Loop is a neurological loop which governs any habit. The habit loop consists of three elements: a cue, a routine, and a reward. Understanding these elements can help in understanding how to change bad habits or form good ones.

The Cue
The cue for a habit can be anything which triggers the habit. They most generally fall under the following categories: a location, a time of day, other people, an emotional state, or an immediately preceding action. For example, every day at 2:30, someone could crave chocolate from the vending machine in the other building, or the smell from the coffee house downstairs compels someone to get a latte. The cue tells the brain to go into automatic processing mode.

The Routine
A habit's routine is the most obvious element: it's the behavior you wish to change (or reinforce); for example, smoking a cigarette or biting your nails. On the other hand, taking the stairs instead of the elevator or drinking water instead of snacking could be positive habits to try to reinforce.

The Reward
The reward is the reason the brain decides the previous steps are worth remembering for the future.

Scientific Background
MIT researchers discovered the habit loop while experimenting with rats running mazes. They discovered that during initial maze runs the rats generated a great deal of activity in the cerebral cortex, navigating the mazes after numerous repetitions required less activity in the cerebral cortex, even in the parts of the brain governing memory. The brain converts the sequence of actions, "chunking" them to the primitive basal ganglia, reserving the cerebral cortex for higher or more intensive functions. This is the mechanism which operates when you're arriving home, and you have no conscious memory of actively, attentively driving all the turns.