February 23rd, 2012Top StoryHack Your Brain to Use Cravings To Your AdvantageBy Thorin Klosowski
In this post, we'll take a look at how you can rewire your brain and use those cravings to your advantage. We deal with cravings on a daily basis, but—whether you're craving something as simple as a bag of potato chips or as abstract as a shopping experience—the basic science behind your cravings is the same. Before we can look into how you can use that science to better yourself, we have to understand how cravings work on a physical and psychological level. To help, I talked with two experts in the field of desire and self control: Assistant Professor Wilhelm Hofmann from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and Dr. Kelly McGonigal, Stanford University psychologist and author of The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why it Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It. Let's start by taking a look at the science behind cravings. What Are Cravings and How to They Work?
Let's return to that bag of potato chips. We picture the reward of eating them, then feel a longing for them, then eventually, eat the whole bag. Cravings work in reverse order from acting them out. Even cravings we typically associate with a physical feeling, like cigarettes or drugs, are thought to originate in the brain before the body. Let's take a closer look at the role of physical and the psychological aspects in our cravings. Photo by Aviva West. Physical CravingsPhysical cravings aren't as abundant as we probably think. Essentially, we crave something the body has gotten used to, whether that means cigarettes, food, alcohol, or anything else. A study published in The Journal of Abnormal Psychology suggests that smoking, long assumed a physical addiction, is more related to a craving formed from the habit and originating in the brain. Physical addictions do exist, but unless it's related to drugs, most of us don't have a close relation to the feeling of a real physical addiction. As for the evolutionary reasoning? Dr. McGonigal suggests cravings were initially about survival, which meant just two things: surviving, (eating and drinking), and reproduction (survival of genes). The body and brain learned to crave what it needed to survive, but over time, those same survival traits leaked into the rest of our lives and we developed cravings to consume things we don't inherently need. Since most of us deal with psychological cravings daily, let's take a look at how they work, where they come from, and how your brain tricks you into needing things. Psychological Cravings
According to Dr. McGonigal, the brain can learn to attach the promise of reward to almost anything. If your brain believes that something is going to make you happy, your brain can initiate the craving response. One study from the University of Maryland connects compulsive technology usage to the same parts of your brain as cravings, another from the journal NeuroImage suggests drug cravings are no different from food, shopping, or other cravings. Mr. Hoffmann agrees, but points out the science is still a little fuzzy:
Knowing how cravings work isn't enough to really understand how it affects you personally. Let's see how you can experiment on yourself a little and dissect your own craving response. Test Your Own Cravings
Take a food you have a false promise of reward with (potato chips, a box of Girl Scout cookies, whatever). Eat as much as you can and notice how you go from being happy to feeling stuffed or sick afterwards. Pay attention to every emotion you go through. Notice how the taste of the food changes as you move through the bag. The goal is to show you that even after you eat an entire bag, you're not satisfied. But when you're stuffed and feeling gross, your brain is still telling you to crave the food you just ate. The goal of the exercise is to rewire your memory and tie the craving with the consequence, not the reward. So, we've got an idea of how cravings work in the brain and in our bodies. We've run through the exercise above and have a good idea of how they work specifically in our own bodies, but what can we do with this information? Let's take a look at the ways you can rewire your brain to not just overcome cravings, but also use them to your advantage. Photo by Kelly. Hack Your Brain to Use Cravings to Your AdvantageCravings are not a good thing. In fact, the triggering of the stress response means we usually feel uncomfortable when a craving comes on. Because of that, we don't want to overuse a lot of these methods, but you can create temporary triggers that can help you form better habits in the long run. First, let's take a look at how you can overcome those negative cravings. Overcome Your Negative Cravings
Overcoming your negative cravings is great, but how about manipulating those urges into achieving your positive goals? Let's look at some of the tricks you can play on your mind to do just that. Photo by Todd Baker. Use Triggers to Initiate Positive Cravings
Fixing your environment to use triggers to your advantage is just one option. You can also use your instinctive reward system to rewire the brain to want to chase a new craving. Photo by Bill S. Alter Your Reward SystemYour instinctive reward system is designed to make you pursue or chase a goal. If you're trying to start a new habit you want something less abstract than "being healthy" to chase after. Using those cravings to force yourself into accomplishing goals is a great way to provide the temporary reward system needed to establish a long running habit. We've all heard that dangling a carrot across large projects is a great way to reward yourself, but using whatever you crave, say, that bag of potato chips, as a reward for accomplishing a project can motivate you to finish a project quickly. It's a bit simplistic, but it works to help establish habits and get things done. The same can be said for more abstract motivations. For instance, let's say you want to put more money in your savings account, but you always waste a good portion of your check on lottery tickets. Use those lottery tickets as the reward. For example, every time you deposit $200 into your savings, you can spend $20 on lottery tickets. This captures the consumption you crave (the lottery tickets) and turns it into a useful reward (saving money). Listen for the Rewards in What You Really Want
The idea is that you might be able to gradually rewire your brain into craving activities, foods, or behaviors that are healthy. Think about the "runner's high" when you push yourself, or the burst of energy you have after a healthy meal. There's no guarantee, of course, but if mindfulness can work to help repress urges by identifying the negatives, the same is possible in reverse. You will still have the dopamine and stress responses, but at least the brain will push you toward a positive goal instead of a negative one. Photo by Daniel Huggard. Cravings are like an evolutionary loophole. Our brains are broken by cravings and they can have a negative effect on our health. By recognizing how they work inside our bodies, we can get a better idea of how to stave them off, and how to hack our mind to take better control of itself in the long run. Cravings will always be there, but if you can at least crave what you truly desire, and not what you immediately want, you'll be better for it. Have some tricks for dealing with your own cravings or creating your own reward system? Share them in the comments. Kelly McGonigal, PhD is a psychologist at Stanford University and the author of the book The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why it matters, and What You Can Do to Get more of it. Wilhelm Hofmann is an Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Both offered their expertise for this story, and we thank them  |
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