Thread by @aproko_doctor

1. You're reading and you reach a difficult part

2. You feel frustrated or stuck and want to feel better

3. You pick your phone and check twitter

4. You feel better

The problem is: anytime you feel frustrated you reach for social media, you've created a habit cycle that's bad

The difficult part is the cue. It's what triggers your brain to start a behavior.

This leads to the next step which is a "craving" a motivation sort. In this case, you just want to feel better

This leads to the behaviour performed that gives you the reward.

Here's the thing, many people focus on the reward and the behavior without understanding the first 2 parts, what leads to it.

At a point in my life, whenever I was stressed, I would reach for a bottle of cola, the reward I was looking for was feeling better.

This led to me gaining a massive amount of weight because, I was always reaching for the bottle.

Then I understood this and understood what the cue was: stress, and changed the behaviour and still arrived at the reward.

Removed the bottle of coke and replaced with a nap

It didn't give me the sugar high that a bottle of coke would have given me, but it helped me become healthier, my blood pressure reduced.

I started exercising whenever I felt stressed, a few pushups here and there.

Junk food makes you happy, that's because of the sugar high

That is why many people reach for it, that is why some people smoke also, they used these behaviors as responses to certain stimuli

You need to change those behaviors, that is how you change bad habits, you gain long term rewards.

Will continue this tomorrow, got to rest now