Have you ever found yourself reaching for a snack while lounging in your favorite chair and watching TV, not out of hunger but simply due to routine? Our environments subtly and continuously shape our behaviors, often without our conscious awareness. While we might attribute our habits to personal choice and willpower, there’s an often overlooked but powerful influence in their formation: the environment. In this post, we’ll explore how environmental cues shape our habits and discuss strategies to harness this knowledge to foster healthier behaviors.
The Power of Environmental Cues
Our surroundings are filled with cues that can trigger both good and bad habits without our conscious awareness. The relationship between these cues and our behaviors is dynamic and significant. Recognizing and adjusting these cues can profoundly impact our daily lives.
Consider the common scenario of snacking while watching TV. This habit likely began innocently—perhaps you were slightly hungry or wanted to enjoy a treat after a demanding day. It felt satisfying and soothing. As this behavior repeated, it became automatic due to positive reinforcement, making the TV room and your evening routine cues for snacking, regardless of actual hunger.
As we become more aware of how the environment factors into our habits, we can make deliberate changes to our surroundings to support the behaviors we desire.
Mastering Your Habit Triggers
Triggers are diverse: they can be people, places, items, emotions, or even specific situations that initiate a behavior. They create feedback loops in our lives, providing immediate satisfaction or relief that reinforces the cued behavior. Recognizing these triggers is the first step in managing them.
Performing an Environmental Audit Take a moment to audit your environment. What items, people, or patterns routinely result in unhealthy choices? Some examples include:
- Unwinding on the couch while scrolling social media for too long ends in feeling unproductive and out of sorts.
- Lighting up a cigarette at the same traffic light during your commute
- Grabbing an unhealthy snack at 3pm every day
- Indulging in a few drinks after dinner every evening while lounging on the couch
- Stress eating upon walking in the back door to your home and seeing the fridge.
Strategies for Managing Environmental Triggers
Strategy 1: Avoid the Trigger
Some triggers can be completely avoided. For example, keep junk food out of your house and stock up on healthier alternatives. Change your routine by entering your home through a different door if it helps you avoid running to the fridge.
Strategy 2: Using Environmental Cues to Break or Make a Habit:
In his book Tiny Habits (2020), BJ Fogg emphasizes the importance of disrupting routines to break bad habits. One of my clients successfully stopped smoking by adopting these strategies, among a few others. He altered his commuting route and his regular breaks at work to avoid triggers. Similarly, you can stack new habits onto established ones if you are looking to start a new habit. If your goal is to exercise more, place your workout clothes in plain sight so as you wind down from work you can be reminded to change into them right away.
Strategy 3: Adapt to Triggers
Triggers that you can’t avoid, like stressful work environments or relationships, require adaptive strategies. Develop coping strategies for unavoidable triggers, such as practicing mindfulness, engaging in physical activity, or planning nutritious meals. These techniques help you manage stress and reduce the likelihood of falling into unwanted behaviors.
Mindfulness Strategies include:
- Meditation
- Breathwork
- Journaling
- Setting boundaries.
Strategy 4: Delay the behavior
Delay the immediate gratification of a bad habit by substituting it with a short, beneficial activity, like taking a walk or completing a small chore that you have been putting off doing. It should be no more than 30 minutes to an hour. Your brain will produce dopamine for completing that task which can satisfy the craving for immediate gratification. By delaying the impulse, you break the habitual cycle of that behavior, and you can then make a more conscious choice. You may decide to proceed but by that point it won’t feel as automatic as if you had immediately given in to the usual pattern.
Taking Action
Understanding and modifying the environmental cues in your life can lead to profound changes in your habits. I invite you to consider which triggers you could modify or how you could introduce a new habit by using an existing habitual pattern to cue it. Observe how these changes influence your behavior and share your experiences. Join our community on Facebook to support each other in these transformative efforts.
The information provided in this blog is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. While health coaching can support and enhance overall wellness, it is not a substitute for professional mental health care. If you are experiencing deep-seated psychological issues, or suspect you may have a mental health condition, I strongly encourage you to seek out a licensed mental health professional who can provide the appropriate support. This blog aims to empower you with knowledge and tools to improve your general well-being and help you make informed decisions about your health, but it is not designed to replace professional mental health services.
References:
Fogg, B.J. (2020). Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Gardner, B., Richards, R., Lally, P., Rebar, A., Thwaite, T., & Beeken, R. J. (2021). Breaking habits or breaking habitual behaviours? Old habits as a neglected factor in weight loss maintenance. Appetite, 162, Article 105183. Science Direct, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105183
Important Information: The information provided in this blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. While health coaching can support and enhance overall wellness, it is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health care. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or health objectives. This blog aims to empower you with knowledge and tools to improve your general well-being and help you make informed decisions about your health, but it is not designed to replace professional medical or mental health services.
About the Author
Heather Budd is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, trained by the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. She specializes in guiding individuals through lifestyle transformations to manage chronic illness and combat fatigue. With a diverse background in business, leadership and a profound personal health journey, Heather empowers clients to reclaim their health and extend their health span.