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Gap Fill: A Simple Way To Break A Bad Habit

The document summarizes Judson Brewer's talk about why it is difficult to pay attention and how this relates to an evolutionarily conserved reward-based learning process. It notes that even when trying to focus on something like a talk, the mind often wanders, and this is because we are fighting a reward-based learning process that is conserved across species. This process involves seeing something that could provide calories or survival benefits, engaging in the behavior of obtaining and consuming it, and feeling rewarded by the experience, which reinforces learning the behavior.

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52 views2 pages

Gap Fill: A Simple Way To Break A Bad Habit

The document summarizes Judson Brewer's talk about why it is difficult to pay attention and how this relates to an evolutionarily conserved reward-based learning process. It notes that even when trying to focus on something like a talk, the mind often wanders, and this is because we are fighting a reward-based learning process that is conserved across species. This process involves seeing something that could provide calories or survival benefits, engaging in the behavior of obtaining and consuming it, and feeling rewarded by the experience, which reinforces learning the behavior.

Uploaded by

Trần Hải
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© © All Rights Reserved
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GAP FILL

Judson Brewer--TEDMED 2015

A simple way to break a bad habit

When I was first learning to meditate, the instruction was to simply pay

attention to my breath, and when my mind wandered, to   it back.


Sounded simple enough. Yet I'd sit on these silent retreats, sweating through T-shirts

in the middle of winter. I'd take   every chance I got because it was really hard
work. Actually, it was exhausting. The instruction was simple enough but I was

missing   really important.

So why is it so hard to pay attention? Well, studies show that even when were really

trying to pay   to something ---- like maybe this talk ---- at some point, about

half of us will drift off into a daydream, or have   urge to check our Twitter feed.

So what's going on here? It turns out that were fighting one of the most evolutionarily-

conserved   processes currently known in science, one that's conserved back to


the most basic nervous systems known to man.

This reward-based learning process   called positive and negative reinforcement,


and basically goes like this. We see some food that looks good, our brain says,
"Calories! .... Survival!"   eat the food, we taste it ---- it tastes good. And

especially with sugar, our bodies send a signal to our brain that   , "Remember
what youre eating and where you found it." We lay down this context-dependent

memory and learn to repeat the process next time.   food, eat food, feel good,
repeat. Trigger, behavior, reward.

SCORE:

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