Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?

Image by Christophe Vorle

NVDL: CON-FUSION - a mental state that begins with a fusion of old thoughts with news ones, and as such is a valuable process in and of itself. Can you become a creature of new habits? You might think this is a lame question. Fair enough. For background on why you, me and every other idiot needs to revise what we do on a daily basis, read the post below this one for background. Now that I have your attention, lets get to work:

HABITS are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd,” William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In the ever-changing 21st century, even the word “habit” carries a negative connotation.

So it seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.

Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

Read this: “Getting into the stretch zone is good for you,” Ms. Ryan says in “This Year I Will... .” “It helps keep your brain healthy. It turns out that unless we continue to learn new things, which challenges our brains to create new pathways, they literally begin to atrophy, which may result in dementia, Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases. Continuously stretching ourselves will even help us lose weight, according to one study. Researchers who asked folks to do something different every day — listen to a new radio station, for instance — found that they lost and kept off weight. No one is sure why, but scientists speculate that getting out of routines makes us more aware in general.”

By JANET RAE-DUPREE

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NVDL: Embrace confusion. It's good for you. To the extent that you do, you begin to learn, you begin to adapt, you begin to change. To the extent you don't, you remain propelled on a path that ends in stagnation, entrophy and depression.