How to Break Up with Your Bad Habits

Breaking bad habits often feels like a test of willpower. We tell ourselves we’ll stop scrolling, eat better, or exercise more — and then fall right back into the same routines. So why is lasting change so hard? As part of our spring cleaning series, we’re revisiting a powerful episode from The Happiness Lab archives that reveals a surprising truth about behavior change: it’s not about willpower at all. Dr. Laurie Santos sits down with psychologist Wendy Wood https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ljLqYGEAAAAJ&hl=en to explore what the science of habits really says about why we get stuck — and how we can finally change. Along the way, we hear the remarkable story of American soldiers in Vietnam who abruptly overcame heroin addiction after returning home, offering a powerful clue about how habits really work. If you’re looking to break a bad habit or build a better one, this episode shows how small changes to your environment can make lasting change feel almost automatic. Experts Mentioned: Wendy Wood https://dornsife.usc.edu/wendy-wood/, Provost Professor of Psychology and Business, University of Southern California. Dr. Richard Ratner https://faculty.smhs.gwu.edu/richard-albert-ratner, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, George Washington School of Medicine and Health Sciences Resources Mentioned: Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick https://books.apple.com/us/book/good-habits-bad-habits/id1455846455, by Wendy Wood (2019) “How Do People Adhere to Goals When Willpower Is Low? The Profits (and Pitfalls) of Strong Habits https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-18890-001,” by David T. Neal, Wendy Wood, and Aimee Drolet (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013) “The Pull of the Past: When Do Habits Persist Despite Conflict with Motives? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0146167211419863,” by David T. Neal, Wendy Wood, Mengju Wu, and David Kurlander (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2011) “Ironic Processes of Mental Control https://dtg.sites.fas.harvard.edu/DANWEGNER/pub/Wegner%20Ironic%20Processes%201994.pdf,” by Daniel M. Wegner (Psychological Review, 1994) “How Permanent Was Vietnam Drug Addiction? https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdf/10.2105/AJPH.64.12_Suppl.38,” by Lee N. Robins, Darlene H. Davis, and David N. Nurco (American Journal of Public Health, 1974) CBS News Lottery Draft 1969 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p5X1FjyD_g (Archival Footage) "G. I. Heroin Addiction Epidemic in Vietnam" https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/05/16/issue.html (The New York Times, 1971) G. I. Junkie https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5860066/ (Documentary, 1971) Related Episodes: "A New Hope https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-new-hope/id1474245040?i=1000461663335" "You Can Change https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/you-can-change/id1474245040?i=1000449594792" "Happiness Lessons of the Ancients: Sikhism and Daily Habits https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/happiness-lessons-of-the-ancients-sikhism-and-daily-habits/id1474245040?i=1000605762631" See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Laurie Santos?

  Pushkin.

• 0:14Laurie Santos?

  Hey, Happiness Lab listeners. Welcome back to our special series on Spring Cleaning Your Happiness. In honor of this season of new beginnings, we are clearing out all our outdated behaviors and mindsets so that we can refresh our emotional junk drawers, so to speak. We'll also be doing our own Happiness Lab closet refresh as we head back into the episode archives to find throwback insights from past episodes that you might have missed. And in today's episode from the archives, we're diving into a very tough spring cleanup job. We'll be exploring how to freshen up our habits. Now, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that there's at least one routine that you do on autopilot all the time, even though it makes you feel kinda crappy. Wouldn't you like to break free?

• 0:56Laurie Santos?

  To toss out that bad habit like an old pair of jeans and replace it with a routine that fits your current goals a bit better? "That sounds awesome in theory," you're probably thinking, "but is it really possible to break a well-learned bad habit?" Turns out, yes, totally possible. But the process is way easier if you have a more nuanced understanding of the way our brains structure habits and how they really work. And that is what you're going to learn in our episode today. You're gonna meet a scientist who sleeps in her running gear and a Vietnam war doc who turned to heroin addicts to debunk some important misconceptions about habit change. By the end of the show, you'll have gained some practical tips for dropping your own not-so-great routines and for building healthier ones. Sound good?

• 1:41Laurie Santos?

  We'll get ready to clear out all your bad habits with this week's Spring Cleaning Happiness Lab Throwback, coming up right after this quick break.

• 1:54Laurie Santos?

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, hosted by the amazing Katie Milkman, behavioral scientist and author of the bestselling book, How to Change. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. You can hear true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, historians, athletes, and more about why we do the things we do and how to make better choices to help avoid costly mistakes. Listen to Choiceology at schwab.com/podcast or wherever you listen to your shows.

• 2:31Speaker 01

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• 2:59Laurie Santos?

  In 2026, MassMutual is celebrating 175 years of helping people protect their financial futures. And now they're building on that legacy to encourage even more longevity. That's why the Living Well Rider is now available with eligible MassMutual whole life policies. The Rider offers access to proactive wellness benefits, all at no additional cost to policy owners. Learn more at massmutual.com/wellness. That's massmutual.com/wellness.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  For starters, it was the last thing I particularly wanted to do.

• 3:42Laurie Santos?

  Like many young Americans back in 1970, Richard Ratner wasn't all that excited about going to war.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  I had just been married, and when I found out that I was going to Vietnam, we tried to figure out any way to get out of it, you know, which involved, oh, I don't know, talking to the military and seeing whether his assignment could be changed. None of it worked. They were well-prepared for people who didn't want to go.

• 4:08Laurie Santos?

  The Army didn't want to hear Richard's excuses. As a newly qualified doctor, he had just the skills that the military desperately needed.

• 4:17Laurie Santos?

  Richard was one of many American men who were plucked from their civilian lives and forced into the armed services.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  September 14, 001.

• 4:29Laurie Santos?

  There was even a televised lottery draw, where young men were selected for military service and a stint in Vietnam, based on their birthdate.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  April 24 is 002.

• 4:39Laurie Santos?

  Richard was lucky enough to delay his service until after his medical training. But arriving in Saigon as a 20-something new doctor was still a shock to the system.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  We are in buses where they have this steel mesh covering the windows. And I'm absolutely sure that any minute, someone is going to toss a bomb at us.

• 4:58Laurie Santos?

  But Richard wasn't a trained surgeon, heading to Vietnam to take care of bullet wounds. He was a psychiatrist. But he still wouldn't be treating depression or even PTSD. Richard was about to use his training to wage a war against bad habits, the kind of behaviors we really want to change, but somehow can't. Richard would soon learn that our habits don't always work the way we think. His findings not only shocked scientists, but also changed the way that researchers think about the science of behavior change, even decades later. And his story provides some important hints for how we can win our own personal battles with the bad habits that hurt our happiness.

• 5:39Laurie Santos?

  Our minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But what if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us, leading us away from what will really make us happy? The good news is that understanding the science of the mind can point us all back in the right direction. You're listening to the Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  You've got to have those shoes shined. You've got to show up at formation. You know, you have to have your bed made.

• 6:08Laurie Santos?

  Richard's soldiers were trapped in Vietnam, far away from home. Some were facing life-or-death situations on the battlefield. But according to Richard, the biggest enemy many soldiers faced was back in the barracks. It was boredom. Away from combat, soldiers spent their days doing repetitive tasks that they didn't enjoy: shining boots, dealing with annoying superior officers, and generally just not having anything fun to do. And that's why many of them wound up turning to a particularly bad habit, one that the Army really didn't approve of.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  People would just kind of get high. And, you know, not necessarily that different from if you come home from a hard day at the steel mill and, you know, go into the bar and have a few drinks. It's not totally unlike that.

• 6:54Laurie Santos?

  Yeah, but, you know, what was available wasn't a few drinks, at least for the soldiers who weren't 21. What was available was like incredibly hardcore heroin.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Exactly. The first phase was where soldiers were smoking marijuana. If you're smoking weed, it's not going to take too long for it to waft down to where the first sergeant's hooch was, and he'd come up looking for you.

• 7:19Laurie Santos?

  Conveniently enough, soldiers had access to a less smelly drug option. With the Golden Triangle, a massive area of poppy production just across the border, suppliers were ready and willing to sell an alternative drug to US troops: heroin.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  They could do it under the nose of their commanding officers, and it was a great deal more potent.

• 7:40Laurie Santos?

  As one GI addict told The New York Times, "The scag was everywhere." Estimates vary, but it's generally thought that around 20% of low-ranking soldiers used heroin. The Times called the addiction rates "an epidemic." With hundreds of thousands of American troops stationed all over Vietnam, the government was worried that GIs would return to their families as desperate junkies.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  This notion that we had a whole army full of drug-crazed people who were going to be unleashed on these communities truly had people frightened.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  The Army announced that anybody who was dependent on heroin could report to the Amnesty Center. They would not be arrested or charged with criminal activities. They could come, they could detox, and then go home, you know, no harm, no foul.

• 8:33Laurie Santos?

  The American public demanded action. And so, without a better plan, the Army opted to force the GIs to go cold turkey.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  When they came into the detox center, we did not taper them off on heroin. I really had no idea. And I was sort of frantically trying to get information on how does one properly detox somebody?

• 8:53Laurie Santos?

  But what Richard had even less of an idea about was how he was going to help soldiers stay clean once they got home. I mean, heroin isn't just any old bad habit. It's an incredibly addictive substance. By making his soldiers go cold turkey, Richard could help his men get through the withdrawal phase, that first step to breaking the physical part of their addiction. But the bigger challenge was helping them avoid the behavioral parts of their addiction. That habit of turning to heroin in order to feel better whenever they were feeling depressed, or bored, or stressed. The almost automatic urge to reduce their craving with a quick hit. Simply hoping that these men would have the willpower to avoid heroin wasn't going to be enough.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Here we have these guys who are 18, 19. And when a little too much pressure is put on them, they pop.

• 9:44Laurie Santos?

  At the time, Richard was worried that there was no way to avert this wave of addiction. Sure, the men could detox at his center. But no one seemed to know what to do to help them and overcome their awful habit so that they could become healthier and happier.

• 9:59Laurie Santos?

  Now, I'm guessing most people listening to this podcast won't ever face a behavioral challenge as hard as kicking heroin. But like those soldiers, all of us have bad habits that detract from our health and happiness. You don't need to be an opioid drug user to understand that it can be difficult to change our not-so-good ways. And the science suggests that the everyday habits that plague us can sometimes be just as hard to overcome as the addictive kind. The problem is that the path to happiness requires changing a lot of these habitual bad behaviors. We need to stop griping. We need to put down our phones. And we need to stop craving material possessions. But how do we do that? If you're like me, it probably feels like changing these repeated behaviors is really, really challenging.

• 10:44Laurie Santos?

  But what our lying minds don't realize is that we have a powerful mental tool that really could help us achieve lasting behavioral change with ease. If only we understood how that tool worked.

• 10:57Laurie Santos?

  I wanted to learn more about why our intuitions about behavior change were so bad, and I knew just the person to ask.

• 11:04Speaker 04

  My name is Wendy Wood. I am professor of psychology and business here at the University of Southern California.

• 11:12Laurie Santos?

  Wendy is the author of a new book, Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  Most of us are very good at understanding what we need to do better, to be healthier, to be more financially stable, to have happier families. Most of us know what those things are.

• 11:34Laurie Santos?

  The problem, according to Wendy, is that most of us mistakenly think that changing our behavior requires willpower and hard work.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  I think that we admire willpower, and we view it as a very positive attribute. The way that the Puritans thought they would go to heaven is through self-denial and showing that they were strong enough to resist temptations.

• 11:59Laurie Santos?

  But there's a problem with this willpower is next to godliness notion, and that is that willpower doesn't really work.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  When you exert willpower and control your behavior, what you're doing is you are thinking about the thing that you don't want to do. And in doing so, you give it energy to keep reemerging. So there's a sort of a self-defeating aspect to willpower that gets in our way.

• 12:31Laurie Santos?

  So if willpower doesn't work, what can we actually do to successfully tame our bad habits? The answer is that we need to be working smarter, not harder.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  When you observe people, when they are being effective at controlling their behavior and doing the right thing, say, eating healthfully or saving money for the future, what they're doing is they're not exerting willpower. What people do is they set up the situations around them to make it easy to repeat the desired behavior.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  And they repeat it over and over so that it becomes automatic. We don't realize how much of that we really could harness if we just knew how it worked.

• 13:21Laurie Santos?

  When we get back from the break, we'll do just that. We'll take a deep dive into how habits work and how you can harness them to behave in ways that promote your health and your happiness. The Happiness Lab, we'll be right back.

• 13:40Laurie Santos?

  You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again? The sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what Quince does so well. I recently pulled my fall clothes out of storage, and I was so excited to see my black Mongolian cashmere full zip hoodie that I got from Quince. It's soft and warm and perfect for cozy nights. I love it so much that I now have a gray one in my quince.com cart right now. And when I buy that new gray hoodie, I know I'll feel good about my choice because everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe,

• 14:23Laurie Santos?

  from warm, reasonably sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. I just moved into my new sabbatical house, and I've been trying to make it feel more me. The living room is already furnished with a boho vibe, but it lacked the perfect rug to bring the room together. That's why I turned to Wayfair. I bought Wayfair's washable, distressed, vintage floral oriental rug in blue.

• 15:09Laurie Santos?

  That rug is so soft and cozy, and I was able to find it in a vintage-looking blue color that perfectly matched the rest of the items in the space. And with Wayfair, you can get rooms that look great at Every price point. I'm only staying in my sabbatical place for a short time, so I didn't want to spend a lot on a new rug. But with Wayfair, you can shop thousands of products across every style and budget, whether you're simply replacing an appliance or transforming your home from top to bottom for the holiday season. And now that the weather's getting colder, I gotta say that I'm especially loving the coziness of my new rug. Find pieces made for real life and get even more value with Wayfair Rewards. Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com to shop all things home.

• 15:53Laurie Santos?

  That's W A Y F A I R dot com.

• 15:56Speaker 05

  Wayfair, every style, every home.

• 15:59Laurie Santos?

  A business gift is never just a gift. It's a thank you, a milestone, a moment of appreciation. It's a message about how much someone matters and what your brand stands for. At 4imprint, you'll find thousands of customizable options like premium apparel, branded drinkware, tech totes, and more, each chosen not just for function, but for meaning. You can tailor every detail, your logo, your message, your presentation, so your gift feels personal and on-brand. And with expert support, dependable service, and thousands without a setup fee, creating something thoughtful doesn't mean making it complicated. Every order is backed by 4imprint's 360-degree guarantee, so you can be 4imprint certain

• 16:44Laurie Santos?

  it'll arrive exactly as expected, on time, and with the care your brand deserves. Because when the moment matters, the right gift speaks volumes and the right partner makes it easy. Explore gifting with purpose and certainty at 4imprint.com. 4imprint, for certain. Flu season is here, and with everything we have going on, it's easy to put getting a flu shot on the back burner. But taking a few minutes now can help protect you and your family. That's why I'm headed to CVS Pharmacy to get my flu shot. And honestly, I was really impressed by how easy it was to schedule. With CVS, you can schedule appointments for up to four family members at once, so you can take care of everyone in one go. Just visit CVS.com/.

• 17:29Laurie Santos?

  Or use the CVS Health app to find an appointment that works for you. So make protecting yourself this flu season one less thing to worry about. Did you know that flu shots are free with most insurance plans? Visit your local CVS pharmacy for your flu shot and get a $5 off $20 coupon with any vaccine. Schedule today at CVS.com/flu. Flu shots are no cost with most insurance. Eligibility varies by patient and insurance plan. Coupon offer not available in select states and is subject to availability. Restrictions apply. Visit CVS.com/flu for details.

• 18:10Speaker 04

  I get up in the morning. I walk into my kitchen and making coffee is the first thing that comes to mind.

• 18:17Laurie Santos?

  Psychologist and behavior change expert Wendy Wood knows that engaging in routine is the secret to changing our bad behaviors.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  I don't ask myself how to do it. I don't need to do that. I've done it so often in the past. I don't ask myself whether I want coffee. Am I really tired this morning? Do I need coffee? I don't ask those questions. I just do it. And then in the end, I get the reward of repeating what I've done in the past, which is that great cup of coffee. And that's how people who are really successful at meeting their goals, that's how they do it.

• 18:53Laurie Santos?

  Wendy's morning coffee making illustrates a willpower-free strategy that all of us can use to change our behavior for the better. It's called habit formation.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  Habits are just the behaviors we repeat until they become sort of mental shortcuts. They're shortcuts about what you can do that's likely to get you the same reward as you got in the past.

• 19:20Laurie Santos?

  Habits can form for any repeated behavior that gets us a reward, whether that reward is ultimately good for us, like a nice cup of coffee in the morning, or bad for us, like a shot of heroin. But Wendy's work has shown that good habits and bad habits work exactly the same way. They have a very particular structure, one that involves three critical parts. The first critical part of habit formation is the reward.

• 19:45Speaker 04

  Rewards here are just behaviors that meet your goals, behaviors that make you feel good, behaviors that achieve some outcome that you're looking for.

• 19:58Laurie Santos?

  For morning Wendy, that reward was having the positive taste of a nice cup of coffee. But habit formation can involve lots of other kinds of rewards, too. The endorphins that kick in after a good exercise session, the reduced boredom we feel after we do a quick social media check, or the satisfaction you get learning something new from your favorite podcast. Anything that feels nice or meets a goal can serve as a reward that leads to a new habit. But habits not only require a reward at the end, they also have a second critical component: the routine. A routine is the specific sequence of actions that gets us to a reward. For Wendy's caffeine habit, that might be each step she takes to make her morning coffee.

• 20:41Laurie Santos?

  If you're a yoga lover like me, your routine might involve grabbing your mat and driving to your favorite studio. The science shows that having a specific routine is critical to habit formation, in part because our minds care about them a lot. In fact, when your brain experiences something wonderful, it drops everything to remember the exact sequence of whatever you just did to get that reward. And when it lays down a new memory of that sequence, it definitely doesn't want to screw anything up. And so it doesn't just remember what you did as a bunch of individual action steps. Instead, it stores your whole sequence of behaviors as a single solitary routine, what researchers call chunking. It even uses a totally different neural system to do so.

• 21:26Speaker 04

  When you're repeating a task that you have practiced many times in the past, you are relying on something called the sensory motor system, which involves the putamen, which is part of the basal ganglia. And when you start a new task, in contrast, you're using much more of the frontal lobes, because those are the active thinking parts of your brain. And these two things are definitely connected, but they also function somewhat independently.

• 21:59Laurie Santos?

  And that's why habits are such fantastic mental shortcuts. Because we don't need our conscious thinking frontal lobes to remember each individual action whenever we want a reward. The unconscious bits of our brain can just hit go, and our minds get the entire perfectly stored routine for free.

• 22:16Speaker 04

  Driving is the prototypic habit, right? It's something we have to think about when we first learn to do it. But then, over time, that thought becomes less and less necessary. And we start just responding automatically based on what we did in the past. And that achieves the goal of getting us somewhere we want to go. And it does so efficiently and quickly, most of the time, unless you live in LA. And then there's nothing efficient about driving.

• 22:51Laurie Santos?

  I want to focus in on this lack of awareness for a second, because it's really weird when you think about it. I mean, our driving routine involves tracking lots of complicated stuff, from where your right foot is, to how fast your car is going, to whether there are pedestrians about to cross the street, to where other cars are moving, to when a traffic light might change, to when you need to click your turn signal, and to whether you have your radio set to your favorite podcast. It's amazing that we can juggle all that information at all, let alone that we can do so easily and unconsciously. But that is the amazing psychological power of habits. Once we form a new habit, we get to engage in all kinds of complicated behaviors without a moment's thought. And that's why habits are so much more effective than willpower

• 23:35Laurie Santos?

  for changing our behaviors. Once we make the things we want to do habitual, they don't require any more work. The problem, though, is that not all of our unconscious habitual behaviors are good for us.

• 23:47Speaker 04

  So, sitting on the couch when you get home at night and eating potato chips, that's just as much of a habit as going home and then just heading out to the gym. One looks habitual and structured to us, and the other might look sort of a bit lazier, but they're both habits in the same way.

• 24:10Laurie Santos?

  Sadly, those lazier, not-so-good-for-us routines are just as automatic as our positive habits, which means that our bad habits, the ones that inhibit our happiness, are really, really hard to shed. We might want to shut those habits off, but we can't because our minds are on autopilot. But Wendy's work shows that we do have some control over when our habit routines get turned on, whether our minds unconsciously decide to execute that "sit on the couch and munch" behavior, or the "throw on our gym clothes" one. The answer comes from the third critical part of our habit loops: the context. The context is any part of our situation or environment that cues our behavior. For Wendy's coffee

• 24:52Laurie Santos?

  habit, the context was a location: being in her kitchen. And a time of day: it was morning. And a preceding event: she had just woken up. For Richard's heroin addicts, the context might be their barracks, or the sight of other GIs using drugs, or just being in Vietnam.

• 25:09Speaker 04

  In our research, we found that context can be pretty much everything around you that's not you. It can be the people that you're with. There are certain people who trigger certain behaviors that we've done with them in the past. You may have friends that you typically go and have a drink with, and if you see them again, that's what tends to come to mind. The moods we're in can also be triggers. So I think that one of the most common triggers for checking your cellphone is being bored. Even if you're in a meeting and it's quite rude,

• 25:53Speaker 04

  you may find yourself checking your phone. You don't want to be rude, but the idea of your phone just comes to mind when you're bored.

• 26:00Laurie Santos?

  When our brains notice a context that's associated with a habit, one that goes with a particular routine and a certain kind of reward, we get an incredibly strong urge to execute the habitual behavior, even if it's a behavior that's no longer useful or relevant. In fact, Wendy's work has shown that cues can elicit habitual behavior, even when the rewards from those behaviors aren't even there anymore. She tested this out in a clever study involving movie trailer screenings. One group of subjects watched the movie trailers on a computer in Wendy's lab, just like a typical study. But a second group of subjects got to watch the trailers inside a movie theater. Wendy was interested in whether the movie theater cues

• 26:43Laurie Santos?

  spurred on a habitual movie-going behavior: popcorn eating. But she also wanted to know whether her subjects would engage in that habitual behavior, even when it was no longer rewarded. To do that, she varied the deliciousness of the popcorn she offered.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  Some people got popcorn that was stale, and it was really stale. So it had been sitting in our lab for a week in a plastic bag. It was pretty gross. Others got popcorn that was fresh, that had just been pumped.

• 27:14Laurie Santos?

  Very few people who watched the film in the lab ate the gross popcorn. They didn't have any cues that pushed them to engage in an otherwise yucky behavior. But what happened to the subjects who experienced all the normal cues of being inside a cinema? Well, it depended on how they normally acted when watching movies.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  People who had habits to eat popcorn in the movie cinema ate just about the same amount of stale popcorn as fresh.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  They could tell us when we asked them that they hated the stale popcorn. They ate it anyway. People who didn't have habits deep popcorn in the movie cinema, they did just what you'd expect. What rationally, we think we would all do, which is eat the fresh popcorn. But if they got a bag of stale, just leave it.

• 28:03Laurie Santos?

  When our brains see a cue that's been associated with a habitual behavior, we can't help but execute that behavior, even when the behavior is no longer rewarding. But despite the power of these cues, Wendy has found that we don't often realize how much context affects our behavior. And that means we often forget that we can't count on our habitual routines once the cues go away. And Wendy has seen the negative effects of removing our habitual cues firsthand.

• 28:32Speaker 04

  I bought a new car a few years ago that has all kinds of wonderful safety sensors. So it beeps when I get close to an obstacle. And I hated that at first. It really irritated me because I wasn't used to it. But I started responding to those signals automatically. Over time, you just stop noticing them. When the car beeps, you just automatically respond to it. And I didn't realize how automatic that had become, how much of my driving habit that had become, until I rented a car and it didn't have that warning sensor system. And the first thing I did is I backed into a brick wall.

• 29:14Laurie Santos?

  The Happiness Lab will be right back.

• 29:20Laurie Santos?

  You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again? The sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe. And that's exactly what Quince does so well. I recently pulled my fall clothes out of storage and I was so excited to see my black Mongolian cashmere full zip hoodie that I got from Quince. It's soft and warm and perfect for cozy nights. I love it so much that I now have a gray one in my quince.com cart right now. And when I buy that new gray I know I'll feel good about my choice because everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe.

• 30:03Laurie Santos?

  From warm, reasonably sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the Happiness Lab. It's the best way to support the show. A business gift is never just a gift. It's a thank you, a milestone, a moment of appreciation. It's a message about how much someone matters and what your brand stands for.

• 30:43Laurie Santos?

  At 4imprint, you'll find thousands of customizable options like premium apparel, branded drinkware, tech totes and more, each chosen not just for function but for meaning. You can tailor every detail, your logo, your message, your presentation, so your gift feels personal and on brand. And with expert support, dependable service and thousands without a setup fee, creating something thoughtful doesn't mean making it complicated. Every order is backed by 4imprint's 360-degree guarantee, so you can be 4imprint certain it'll arrive exactly as expected, on time and with the care your brand deserves. Because when the moment matters, the right gift speaks volumes and the right partner

• 31:28Laurie Santos?

  makes it easy. Explore gifting with purpose and certainty at 4imprint.com. 4imprint, for certain. Flu season is here and with everything we have going on, it's easy to put getting a flu shot on the back burner, but taking a few minutes now can help protect you and your family. That's why I'm headed to CVS Pharmacy to get my flu shot. And honestly, I was really impressed by how easy it was to schedule. With CVS, you can schedule appointments for up to four family members at once, so you can take care of everyone in one go. Just visit CVS.com/flu. Or use the CVS Health app to find an appointment that works for you. So make protecting yourself this flu season one less thing to worry about.

• 32:11Laurie Santos?

  Did you know that flu shots are free with most insurance plans? Visit your local CVS pharmacy for your flu shot and get a $5 off $20 coupon with any vaccine. Schedule today at CVS.com/flu. Flu shots are no cost with most insurance. Eligibility varies by patient and insurance plan. Coupon offer not available in select states and is subject to availability. Restrictions apply. Visit CVS.com/flu for details. Okay, quick pop quiz. Ready? What's your daily routine for fueling your gut? If your brain immediately went, "Ah, that's fair." We spend a lot of time thinking about what fuels our body. But when it comes to gut health, things can start to feel surprisingly complicated.

• 32:56Laurie Santos?

  The good news, it doesn't have to be. That's why Kashi Gut Health Granola is such an easy win. It's a straightforward, delicious way to help fuel your gut. Made with prebiotics, fiber, and gut-activated cultures. Plus, it tastes good. Wait, let me rephrase that. Kashi Gut Health Granola is delicious. Their blueberry almond granola, for example, starts with whole grain oats and combines them with, well, blueberries and almonds. It's right there in the name. But it's so good. And Kashi Gut Health Granola makes a great breakfast. It's also the kind of afternoon snack that's just so satisfying. I mean, it's straightforward. It fuels your gut and it tastes great. Gut fuel is in the bag. Say hi to new Kashi Gut Health Granola.

• 33:45Speaker 06

  I am a Vietnam veteran, a ex-marine medic, and an ex-morphine addict.

• 33:54Laurie Santos?

  Back in 1971, a documentary called GI Junkie followed a group of returning soldiers going through rehab.

• 34:01Speaker 06

  I don't need no pills and a warrant. Wear a needle in my arm. I mean, like, I'm there. I know what I want. I'm gonna go get it.

• 34:09Laurie Santos?

  The film argued that nearly 40,000 hardened GI junkies were about to return to American soil and would soon become a major problem. But in reality, no such army of drug addicts actually existed. The kind of surprising key is that I think, you know, once these soldiers got on the plane and got back home, you know, they were good. Their cravings didn't kick in. They weren't trying to find the stuff once they got back.

• 34:30Speaker 02

  Exactly. That's exactly right. And no one, I don't think anyone could have predicted that.

• 34:36Laurie Santos?

  Psychiatrist Richard Ratner had been sent to Vietnam to defuse what one newspaper called a "time bomb." And that's what made Richard's soldiers' outcomes all the more surprising. A team of researchers followed addicted Vietnam vets after they came home. The scientists interviewed the men about their recent opioid habits and even conducted drug tests using urine samples. And what they found pretty much stunned everyone, including Richard. Only a very tiny percentage of soldiers continued their drug use after they got home. More than 90% of soldiers stayed clean. Compared to the typical heroin user, Vietnam vets seemed to have little trouble kicking the habit. The study was so shocking that at first, researchers didn't even believe it.

• 35:20Laurie Santos?

  But slowly, behavioral scientists like Richard were able to figure out the soldier's secret. They were able to use their contextual cues to break their bad habit.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Probably the majority of users would basically kind of detox on their own. They would self detox. While they used this crutch to help them get through military life over there, they understood that the home environment is very different from this environment.

• 35:49Laurie Santos?

  Richard realized that a few hours on an airline and a change back into civvy clothes was enough to break his soldier's habit routine. They weren't bored or stressed anymore, and they weren't hanging out with their drug-taking buddies. They also didn't have easy access to cheap heroin. Nearly every single one of their habit cues was different.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Most of these guys, they got home and they kind of reintegrated into their... Previous lives.

• 36:13Laurie Santos?

  Richard's veteran success in kicking heroin has now become a classic example in the science of behavior change. Because of a simple context switch can be powerful enough to help someone overcome heroin addiction, imagine how powerful it can be for changing simpler behaviors, like the ones many of us want to change.

• 36:32Speaker 04

  We did some research where we beeped people once an hour to figure out what they were thinking, feeling, doing. And what we found is that about 43% of the time, people are doing what they did yesterday and the day before in the same context, and they're doing it without thinking much about it.

• 36:56Laurie Santos?

  The idea that nearly half of our waking day is on autopilot, that we're constantly governed by cues and context, is pretty shocking. But if that's true, then it gives us a powerful opportunity to change some of our daily behaviors. If we can use our conscious minds to exert some control over the context we find ourselves in, then we can shift our bad behaviors to the ones we want to adopt.

• 37:18Speaker 04

  Our environments can do the same thing for us in pushing us to help us meet our goals and making it hard for us to stray from the good behaviors that we're trying to practice.

• 37:34Laurie Santos?

  This is something you can do right now, whether in your home or at your workplace. Think of it as Feng Shui for habits, but with an actual scientific basis. Make small changes in your environment that provide the cues you need to promote good behaviors. Wendy's research has shown that simple changes like these work time and again.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  In one study, people had a bowl of apple slices and a bowl of hot buttered popcorn. When the apple slices were right in front of them and the popcorn was arm's reach, people ate a third less calories than when the popcorn was right in front of them and the apple slices were a reach. I mean, we're talking a minimal distance that makes little sense to our conscious thinking cells, but to our habits and our automatic reacting cells, that's a big difference. We don't realize how much of a difference proximity makes to our behavior.

• 38:38Laurie Santos?

  But context doesn't just affect what we reach for when we're hungry. There are lots of simple ways we can use the cues around us to disrupt the autopilot behaviors we don't want to engage in.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  There are forces in our environments that make some actions more difficult and other actions easier. And those resisting forces can be termed friction. It just becomes too difficult.

• 39:02Laurie Santos?

  The same sort of friction helped Vietnam vets avoid drug use when they returned home. Many had never taken heroin before going to war, so they'd actually have to find a dealer. And the heroin available in the States was of far lower quality, which meant that soldiers would have to inject it rather than snort or smoke it. The price was also far, far higher. And the GIs' mood had shifted completely. Those feelings of boredom that drove them to use opioids, those were replaced by the excitement of being home and just the pace of normal life. Each and every one of the cues that prompted that heroin routine was gone. And this is super important because these contextual changes were more powerful than any of the detox ideas the Army came up with. The new cues meant that soldiers

• 39:47Laurie Santos?

  just didn't think about the reward of a quick heroin hit because their entire habit chains were disrupted. But frictions can also be introduced to tackle the problems associated with legal drugs.

• 39:59Speaker 04

  In the middle of the last century, we all learned that smoking was bad for us. About half of America smoked at that point. But smoking still didn't go down. Smoking rates continued reasonably high until the US decided to put friction on smoking by taxing cigarettes, so you can't afford them as easily, banning smoking in public places, and by making it difficult to purchase cigarettes so that you actually have to ask somebody. And all of those things combined put enough friction on smoking so that the smoking rates in the US are now down to a level of only 15% of us smoke.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  And that's because of friction.

• 40:46Laurie Santos?

  Even if you don't smoke or use illegal drugs, there's a lesson here for you. Think about the things you want to change in your life, the bad habits you want to stop, or the good habits you want to adopt. We can use the conscious part of our brain to increase friction to inhibit our bad habits and break down the barriers that prevent us from doing the good ones. Are there social media apps that drive you nuts, but you can't help checking whenever you pick up your phone? Well, delete them. Do you want to call your mom more often? Well, then choose a photo of her as your screensaver. Don't want to buy certain items in the store? Plan your shopping trip to avoid the candy aisle. Or maybe you want to try some of the new habits that we've talked about in this season, like experiencing more gratitude.

• 41:30Laurie Santos?

  Then download a gratitude app and stick it front and center on your phone. Or maybe you want to make better use of your time? Then put that time windfall list somewhere you can see it easily. In all of these examples, you can hack the cues around you to help promote the kinds of behaviors that you want in your life. Wendy had to go through this exact same conscious process when her daily fitness habit took a nosedive, thanks to motherhood. Rather than powering through or giving up, she analyzed where her growing family was adding a bit of friction to her workout plans.

• 42:02Speaker 04

  Every time I decided, "Two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock, maybe six o'clock tonight, I'll exercise," something always comes up when you have little children. So I decided I would have to start exercising early in the morning, although it was a really dreadful thing to start doing. Once you get used to it, it actually is very efficient.

• 42:23Laurie Santos?

  So at 6:00 a.m., Wendy would be ready to exercise. But what exercise? Wendy realized it had to be something with as few frictions as possible.

• 42:32Speaker 04

  I didn't have much time to drive to a gym or do any fancy workout thing. I couldn't go to a class. I just didn't have that level of control over my time. So it had to be something that was very efficient and easy for me to do. And putting your running shoes on and going out the door is probably the most frictionless kind of exercise that you could imagine. I actually used to sleep in my running clothes. I hate to admit this, but that was another thing that reduced the friction.

• 43:06Laurie Santos?

  Talking with Wendy has really inspired me to think about how I can use my conscious brain to hack the autopilot of all my bad habits. I'm already planning strategies I can use to increase or reduce friction, so I'll be able to reach my own well-being goals, literally without thinking.

• 43:23Laurie Santos?

  I hope you've gotten some insight into how you can hack your own habits. And I hope you'll be willing to form a new happier habit and set up all your context cues to remind you to come back for the next episode of The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 43:46Laurie Santos?

  The Happiness Lab is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. You know what they say, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." So go with Amica and get coverage from a mutual insurer that's built for their customers, one that looks after what's important to you together. Auto, home, life, and more. Amica helps you protect what matters most. Visit amica.com and get a quote today. A business gift should do more than check a box. It should reflect your brand and show someone they're appreciated, recognized, and truly seen. That's why teams trust 4imprint. With thousands of high-quality customizable products like premium apparel, drinkware,

• 44:28Laurie Santos?

  tech, and more, it's easy to create a gift that feels meaningful and on-brand. And with 4imprint's expert support and their 360-degree guarantee, you can be 4imprint certain your order will arrive exactly as intended. Explore gifting with confidence at 4imprint.com. 4imprint, for certain.

• 44:49Speaker 07

  A BetterHelp ad. BetterHelp is one of the world's leading online therapy services. Now, insurance options may be available nationwide with average copays of just $23 per session for eligible members. But cost isn't the only thing that can hold people back from therapy. Many of us weren't taught how to manage stress or overwhelm. We learned to push through it, distract ourselves, or tell ourselves we'd deal with it later. And sometimes, you don't realize how much stress has been building until everything starts to feel like a lot. Therapy can help you understand what's behind that stress and give you tools to manage it before it takes over. Not by making stress disappear completely, but by helping you recognize patterns, work through what's weighing on you, and find ways to handle it differently.

• 45:33Speaker 07

  BetterHelp works with more than 125 health plans, making it easy to get started with low-cost sessions and average copay of just $23 for eligible members. Don't have eligible insurance? Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com. Cost and coverage may vary. Discount cannot be combined with insurance.

• 45:50Laurie Santos?

  Life is full of transitions. A new job, a new routine, a new season you didn't quite plan for. So when things shift, it's worth asking. Does your car still fit your life? The right choice won't change everything, but it can make daily moments smoother and a lot less stressful. Cars.com makes it simple. With over 2 million new and used cars, you can use powerful filters to narrow your search by price, mileage, features, whatever matters most to you. And their deal badges highlight when a car is a great price, so you can shop with confidence. Whatever is next, find the right fit at cars.com. Where to next? This is an iHeart Podcast.

• 46:35Laurie Santos?

  Guaranteed human.