In short
How habits work (cue–routine–reward), how to change them by keeping cues/rewards and altering the routine, how “keystone habits” trigger cascades of change, and what GLP-1 medications reveal about a “habit window” for rewiring cravings and behaviors.
Guest backgrounds
Charles Duhigg is the author of The Power of Habit and Super Communicators. He discusses habit science using brain structures like the basal ganglia and examples from his own life (e.g., going to bed earlier, running, and GLP-1 use).
Key claims
40–45% of daily actions are habits. Habits are encoded in brain systems beyond conscious memory (example: an amnesiac patient who still navigates routes and performs routines). Habit change follows the “golden rule”: keep the cue and reward, change the behavior. Willpower is limited; structured habit loops and identity shifts matter. GLP-1s can quiet “food noise,” opening a temporary habit window; without a system, cravings/weight can return.
Notable examples
Staying up late with his son (cue: other people/emotion; reward: love/pride/justice) vs earlier bedtime rituals; exercise as a keystone habit; running anxiety as identity change; fries “automatically” eaten before GLP-1 and avoided during the habit window.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnderstanding Habit Formation
1:03 to 2:26
Charles explains the significance of habits in daily life and their neurological basis.
“It's always such a treat to get a chance to spend some time with you.”
The Habit Loop Explained
2:26 to 4:28
An exploration of the cue-routine-reward loop that defines habit formation.
“So this is how our body has dealt with that, is it makes certain decisions into habits.”
Applying Habit Change to Personal Challenges
4:28 to 6:18
Dan discusses his struggle with going to bed earlier and examines cues and rewards.
“And that kind of makes sense when you think about it, because so many of the habits in our lives, they feel very outside of conscious thought, right?”
Identifying Cues and Rewards
6:18 to 9:20
The conversation continues on identifying triggers and rewards for staying up late.
“Okay, so walk me through how that would work.”
Shifting Habits for Healthier Outcomes
9:20 to 12:28
Charles suggests strategies for adjusting routines to achieve better sleep habits.
“I'm hearing you say that there's often two cues that are causing this stay up late habit.”
Creating New Rituals and Rewards
12:28 to 14:00
Discussion on developing new rewarding rituals to support healthier bedtime habits.
“Is there another reward that you could give yourself for getting in bed by 1030?”
Creating Rewarding Nighttime Rituals
14:00 to 16:05
Learn how small changes in bedtime routines can create rewarding habits.
“and get to have the nighttime ritual that I want.”
Habit Change Through Positive Reinforcement
18:40 to 21:10
Understand the role of rewards in habit formation and change.
“Number one, for the dog, the dog doesn't get to choose the cue or the reward.”
The Concept of Keystone Habits
21:10 to 25:16
Learn about keystone habits and how they trigger broader behavioral changes.
“It's like a muscle that gets tired throughout the day.”
Exploring Personal Anxieties and Growth
25:16 to 28:00
Discuss how confronting personal anxieties may lead to significant self-improvement.
“Yeah, the best way, as I mentioned, is look for the kind of change that seems irrationally anxiety-producing to you.”
Show all 26 chapters
The Power of Keystone Habits
28:00 to 30:10
Explore how keystone habits can change self-identity and reduce anxiety.
“of guy who like, he said he wanted to go on a month-long retreat and he never actually did it, but now he's doing it.”
Starting Small: The Journey to Habit Change
30:10 to 31:40
Learn the importance of starting small when developing new habits.
“Put on some running clothes and running shoes, step outside.”
The Impact of GLP-1s on Habit Formation
31:40 to 36:47
Understand how GLP-1 medications influence habit formation and behavior change.
“Is it true that GLP-1s are changing the way we think about how humans make or break habits?”
The Impact of GLP-1s on Habit Formation
37:33 to 38:15
Understand how GLP-1 medications influence habit formation and behavior change.
“Zazzle is a custom marketplace where you can take basically any product, a mug, a tote bag, a card, a phone case, and make it mean something.”
Examining the Science Behind GLP-1s
39:30 to 42:05
Delve into the established science of GLP-1s and their effects on behavior.
“Is what you're discussing established science?”
Empowerment through GLP-1
42:05 to 45:40
Learn about the transformative effects of GLP-1s on cravings and self-control.
“who asks me, like, if they're thinking about a GLP-1, like, just try it.”
The Changing Conversation Around GLP-1s
45:40 to 48:39
Explore the evolving perceptions and uses of GLP-1s in society.
“Like not to to have some sort of medical intervention, but to like have a less hostile relationship to to your body and by extension to food.”
Intuitive Eating vs. Structured Approaches
48:39 to 54:24
Discuss the differences between intuitive eating and structured habit changes.
“I'm not saying that it is the cure all for everything.”
Understanding Mental Health and GLP-1s
54:24 to 56:00
Investigate the relationship between GLP-1 use and mental health effects.
“You've mentioned SSRIs and depression a couple of times.”
Exploring GLP-1s and Mental Health
56:00 to 58:10
Learn about the effects of GLP-1 medications on cravings and mental health.
“But in part, I think, because my body sort of wants these strong flavors.”
Navigating the Cost of GLP-1s
58:10 to 1:00:00
Discuss the financial barriers to accessing GLP-1 medications and available resources.
“There's a lot of work going on around the White House.”
Communication Habits and Reflective Listening
1:00:00 to 1:02:30
Explore the connection between communication habits and effective listening.
“So, for instance, if you're someone who just complains to other people, like this is how you deal with anxiety, right?”
Changing Conversational Patterns
1:02:30 to 1:05:00
Learn how to identify and change negative communication habits through awareness.
“Because so much of conversation and so much of habit happens outside of deliberate thought, right?”
The Power of Meta Conversations
1:05:00 to 1:07:20
Discover how meta conversations can improve communication and relationships.
“And psychologists often refer to this as meta conversations.”
Understanding Greed Through a Buddhist Lens
1:10:04 to 1:11:53
Explore how greed affects human behavior from a Buddhist perspective.
“So the Buddha talked about these three poisons in the human mind, greed, hatred or delusion, which is just basically not seeing clearly the nature of reality.”
Books and Insights from Charles Duhigg
1:11:55 to 1:12:36
Charles Duhigg shares details about his books and newsletter.
“Before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the names of your various books and anything else you want us to know about?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:03Hello, everybody. Welcome to the 10 % Happier Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Harris. We talk a lot on this show about habit formation. Why? Because this process bedevils so many of us. We know we should do things like meditate or exercise or get more sleep. And yet, somehow, inexplicably, we don't do those things. And that is why habit formation is such a key topic and why we come back to it so often. Today, my guest literally wrote the book on habit formation. He wrote a massive bestseller called The Power of Habit. He also wrote a book, another bestseller called Super Communicators. And we're going to talk today about how to connect habit formation to your communication style.
0:49And perhaps most fascinatingly, we're going to talk about what GLP ones might be revealing about how and why we change our habits. So a lot here to discuss with my guest, Charles Duhigg. Charles, welcome back to the show.
1:05Charles Duhigg:Thanks for having me. It's always such a treat to get a chance to spend some time with you. All right. Before we get to all the stuff about GLP ones, which I am really curious about, let's just talk about the basics of habit formation and how to make good habits and break bad ones. Before we get super practical, which we will, just to put this in perspective, I saw a statistic while researching this, and you'll tell me if it's correct, that 40 % of daily human actions are habits rather than conscious decisions. Is that true? That's absolutely true. And it's actually even worse. It's 40 to 45%.
1:40Charles Duhigg:That's from research that a woman named Wendy Wood, who's now at USC, did. And you're exactly right. When you think about it, much of what you do as you go through your day is not these calm, deliberate decisions. It's that you're doing things kind of instinctually, kind of automatically. And in fact, if we didn't have the ability to do that, we would be in a terrible place. We would not have evolved to become humans. There's a part of our brain named the basal ganglia that exists in every single mammal. And this region of the brain basically exists just to make habits. Because without the ability to stop thinking about some behaviors, we simply don't have enough kind of neurological cognitive horsepower to make it through the world.
2:27Charles Duhigg:So this is how our body has dealt with that, is it makes certain decisions into habits. And then that gives us the free time to think about inventing fire or making music or inventing video game consoles. Right. So if we had to remember how to turn a doorknob 75 times a day, we'd be kind of fucked. Oh, absolutely. Or even worse, if you were walking down the path and you saw an apple and a rock and you had to decide which one of them to pick up and eat, right? There's real dangers to not being able to form habits. I think you talk about this in your book that there's an interesting distinction between the part of the brain that retains memory and the part of the brain where we retain habits.
3:10Charles Duhigg:Absolutely. Absolutely. So much of what we think of as actual thought occurs in the prefrontal cortex, right? That's where our language, our ability to sort of speak with other people comes from, our ability to form and remember those memories. But much of the brain exists in older structures that predate speech, that predate what we think of as conscious thought. And there's a story in the book, Power of Habit, about a patient who, because of a surgery he had undergone, had complete amnesia. He basically couldn't remember anything longer than about five or 10 seconds. And yet, when researchers watch him, what they would find is that if they told him, you You know, here's a toy.
3:55Charles Duhigg:I'm going to hide it. Do you remember where we hid it? He'll say, no, I have no idea what you're talking about. And yet he was able to find the bathroom on his own. He was able to make himself breakfast in the morning. If he went on a walk, as long as he took the same route, he could walk by himself and find his way back home. And they couldn't understand how this was possible. How can a guy who can't remember what happened literally just minutes ago, how can he remember how to find the path home? And from this came one of our big discoveries, which is that much of the neural encoding of habits lies in a distinct region of our brain beyond where we think of as storing memories or conscious or deliberate thought.
4:32Charles Duhigg:And that kind of makes sense when you think about it, because so many of the habits in our lives, they feel very outside of conscious thought, right? In fact, we know that during a habit, when you're in the grip of a habit, your brain actually kind of shuts down. It stops working quite as hard. And so one of the big lessons here is that if we can spend time understanding our own habits, and there's a really simple way of doing that, then we get power over this 40 to 45 % of our day that otherwise might be occurring outside of our consciousness. Well, let me explain what a habit is, right? And then we can sort of talk about it.
5:06Charles Duhigg:So a habit, every habit in your life, about half of what you do every day, has three components. There is a cue, which is like a trigger for an automatic behavior to start. And then there's the routine, which is the behavior itself. And then every habit in your life, whether you're aware of it or not, delivers a reward to you. So what's happened is that this cue routine reward, that's become known as the habit loop. And what we know is that when that cue emerges and we go into that automatic behavior and we start craving that reward, even if we're not aware that we're craving it. At that moment, much of the decision-making activity moves away from our prefrontal cortex, from our deliberate thought, into these automatic patterns, automaticity that we've developed.
5:53Charles Duhigg:And what we've learned is that if you can diagnose the cues and the routines, if instead of just focusing on the behavior itself, if you can figure out what cues and routines are driving the habits in your life, then you have the ability to sort of reprogram those behaviors. It empowers you to figure out why you're doing the things you're doing if you're not thinking hard about them and reshape them in a way where they can be healthier, better habits for you. Okay, so walk me through how that would work. Like, just say, I'm struggling to boot up an exercise habit. How could I apply what you just said to doing that?
6:29Charles Duhigg:What's a habit that you have tried to develop lately or you've tried to change that has not gone as successfully as you had hoped? Going to bed earlier. If I go to bed by 10 or 10.30, I sleep so much better than if I wait even till 11. Never mind going later than that. Okay. Okay. So now we know what the routine that we want is. Being in bed, eyes closed by 10.30. Okay. So let me ask you, let's talk about the cues first. When you find yourself staying up later than 1030, what's going on? Is it that you're like not looking at the clock and you don't notice that it's late? Is it that you're wrapped up in something?
7:11Charles Duhigg:What's going on when you don't, like last night, I don't know if you fell asleep by 1030 last night, but last night, what was going on that stopped you from falling asleep at 1030? This is top of mind because literally last night I stayed up later and I only stayed up till 11 and it screwed up my whole night. I know exactly what was going on. I did not lose track of time. I was keenly aware of the time, but I was watching a movie with my son, who's 11 and a half. And it was not a school night, and so he could stay up as late as he wanted. And I wanted to stay up with him. And I didn't want to put myself to bed at 10 or 10.30 because I was hanging out with my son.
7:49Charles Duhigg:And an opportunity to hang out with your son at an 11 and a half year old at night Like this kind of, it's like the most precious commodity out there. So here's what we know about habits. Almost all habits fall into one of five categories. It's usually a certain time of day, a particular place, a particular emotion, the presence of certain other people, or a preceding behavior that's become ritualized. And it can be more than one of those five. So last night, it sounds like what the cue was to stay up later than 1030 was that you wanted to hang out with your kid. So it'd be the presence of certain other people.
8:28Charles Duhigg:Now, how frequently is that what's keeping you up at night? How frequently is it that you're hanging out with other people versus something else? Hanging out with other people is the biggie. This may not be an original thought, but I think of it as kind of like a social tax And that I am often willing to pay because my social life, either within my family or within my broader group of friends, is so important to me. And just if we're staying on, you know, evidence-based assertions here, there's a ton of evidence that your social life, the quality of your social life and your relationships dictates the overall quality of your life.
9:02So I'm often willing to pay that tax, but it is usually as you're driving at the presence of other people. The one other thing is kind of, and this is, again, not my term, revenge, nighttime procrastination. I've worked my ass off all day. And you know what? I want to watch another episode of House of the Dragon.
9:24Charles Duhigg:I deserve this, right? So here's what I hear you saying. I'm hearing you say that there's often two cues that are causing this stay up late habit. The first is presence of certain other people, which, and by the way, you're a thousand percent right. Like, it's actually way better to have healthy relationships than to get on bed on time. And then also, I think it's a certain emotion that you're feeling a sense of like, you know what? I deserve this. I deserve to watch more trashy television about dragons because I worked hard today. Okay, so now we know what the cues are that we can work with. Now, here's my next question.
9:58Charles Duhigg:We need to talk about the rewards. Last night, when you stayed up late, what do you think the reward was that it was delivering to you? I'm fully obsessed with my son that I've delivered the reward of, I've got one kid. He was away for a few weeks recently, and that was very hard for me. And I want to squeeze every ounce of time I can with him. So it sounds to me like love, like being able to actually experience and participate in that love, which is a very positive thing, right? That feels really good. And now let me ask you, the last time you stayed up late watching House of the Dragon, what do you think the reward was there?
10:41Charles Duhigg:What were you feeling as you were watching that rather than going to bed? Revenge on the universe for making me work so hard. So again, it's kind of an emotional reward that you're talking about, right? And one thing that's interesting is every habit in our life, and there's hundreds, potentially thousands of habits that can happen every day. Each of them delivers a reward to us. So when you're in the habit of backing your car out of the driveway without having to pay close attention to it because you've done it a thousand times, without you realizing it, when you make it into the road safely without hitting the trash cans, there's a small spike of dopamine in your brain.
11:20Charles Duhigg:Now, it's such a small spike that you don't actually register it, but your brain registers it. And your brain says, oh, you know what? This activity back in the car out of the driveway, it gives me a good feeling. And so I'm going to make that activity easier and easier and easier. Now with you, when you're watching TV rather than going to bed, what you're doing is your brain is saying, oh, you know what? When I stay up late with my son, I just feel this wholesomeness of love. Or when I stay up late watching House of the Dragons, I feel probably proud of myself that I've had a hard enough day that I allowed to do that.
11:54Charles Duhigg:But be also a sense of justice returning to the universe. I had to work all day long and this is my reward. I deserve this. So now we know what the cue and the reward is that seems to be driving this behavior, seems to be driving this habit that already exists in your life of staying up too late. What we want to do is we want to change that habit to put you in bed a little bit earlier. And so the first thing we need to do is we need to talk about the cue. So if the cue is a certain emotion that you are feeling or the presence of certain other people, let me ask you this. is there a way to to get that same to trigger that cue a little bit earlier in the day because you're only trying to go to bed 30 minutes earlier right if you is there a way for you to deliberately start watching that movie with your son 30 or 45 minutes earlier or to put on that episode of house of the dragons 30 or 45 minutes earlier yes yes there is yeah because you control your life right you you like you have these tools and and let me ask you this so let's say we did that, let's say that last night the movie had stopped a little bit earlier and you'd gotten in bed by 1030, you still have that same reward of spending time with your son.
13:05Charles Duhigg:You still feel good. Is there another reward that you could give yourself for getting in bed by 1030? Like if you wanted to make a ritual around getting into bed where you give yourself a reward, what would that look like? Interesting. I mean, the thing that's coming to mind is there's the delayed reward of waking up the next day and seeing that my sleep score was 100 on my Apple watch. But that that's a little little too far off. Yeah. Right. So it's like this is probably why they put chocolate on the pillow in a hotel. I'm not going to eat chocolate right before bed because then I wouldn't sleep until Tuesday.
13:41But there's something I could do to make bedtime awesome.
13:46Charles Duhigg:Absolutely. And in fact, it's it would be really easy. Like, for instance, you could spray lavender on your pillow and say like this, this scent, like slaying down in this scent, this is a symbol to myself that I worked hard today, that I get revenge on the universe and get to have the nighttime ritual that I want. It could be something as simple as when you get into bed, just writing down on a note card what time it is. Because what you're doing is you're creating a ritualized behavior that becomes rewarding. When you get into bed and you write down, it's 1028. There's a part of your brain that says, oh man, Dan, good job.
14:22Charles Duhigg:Like four days in a row, it's been before 1030. Now you're suddenly giving yourself a reward. So what we've done is we've used the same old cue, right? We figured out how to deliver something similar to the old same reward. And what we've changed is just the routine, just the behavior in the middle. You're just getting into bed 30 minutes earlier. Now to do that, you're probably going to have to like Like set an alarm to remind yourself, oh, I can't wait until 9.15 to start House of the Dragons. I need to start it at 8.45 or at nine o 'clock, right? And you can even put that on your phone, a little something to remind you.
14:57Charles Duhigg:And then you need to build this reward to say like, I got to hang out with my son today and I'm in bed by 10.28. And this has just been a great day. When you do that, what you're doing is you're basically telling your brain, your basal ganglion to sort of reprogram this habit. And within psychology, this is known as the golden rule of habit change. What it says is, if you want to build habits or if you want to change habits in your life, you shouldn't think about trying to extinguish the old behavior, right? If you smoked and you have a smoking habit, even if you gave the cigarettes up 10 years ago, when you see some cigarettes, you might still have that craving, right?
15:36Charles Duhigg:The neurological circuitry associated with every habit stays in our brain. So instead of thinking about breaking a bad habit, instead of thinking about extinguishing a bad habit, the way to think of it is to think about changing a habit by keeping the old cues, finding something that delivers something similar to that old reward, and just changing the behavior in the middle. And that's what's known as the golden rule of habit change, that keep the cue, keep the reward, change the behavior. With summer winding down and all of us returning to our routines and some of us returning to school or returning our children to school, this feels like an appropriate moment to hit reset.
16:15And I don't mean like a full, comprehensive, panoramic reset of everything in your life, just like small, marginal changes you can make in your life that can make a big difference. And so that's what we're focusing on right now over on my app, 10 % with Dan Harris. This September, we'll be joined by Diana Winston, who's the director of UCLA's Mindfulness Center and the author of a book called The Little Book of Being. The LA Times has called her one of the best known mindfulness teachers in the country. Once you hear her, you will understand why. And you can practice live with Diana right inside the 10 % with Dan Harris app starting on September 8th.
16:50And then later in September, we'll be dropping a brand new meditation challenge from Diana, all in the theme of resetting. More on that in just a couple of weeks. For now, though, if you could use just a little bit of a reset and you want to hang out and meditate with me and Diana and many other folks, You can sign up for my app at danharris.com. We will be right back. I'm holding in my hand, and if you're listening instead of watching, you can't see this, but just trust me, I'm holding in my hand a really cool gadget that just came in the mail. This is called the Fitnexa Somnipods 3. Essentially, they are earbuds that you can wear to sleep.
17:28And unlike other earbuds that are a little clunky if you're lying on your side, these are designed for side sleepers like me. and I have fit them into my ear and they slide in quite nicely and are comfortable when you slide onto your side, which is a requirement for me if I'm going to be wearing anything in my ears at night. Fitnexa actually provides a couple of cool benefits. First, these earbuds block noise that can be distracting when you're trying to fall asleep. That's a huge problem for many of us, especially if you sleep next to somebody who snores, as is the plight of my wife. Also though, You can use these earbuds to pipe into your noggin soothing sleep sounds, calming audio, or other nighttime content through the Fitnexa app, which I have downloaded and is very clean and smooth and easy to use.
18:18They've got guided meditations and nature sounds and all the stuff that many of you like to use when you're trying to fall asleep. You can learn more about the Fitnexa Somnipods 3 at fitnexa.com and use the code HAPPIER10 for$10 off your order.
18:39you know what i'm thinking of as i'm listening to you is that this is what you're describing and the way in which you're describing it it seems like an elevated version of the way we would train a dog jump through that hoop and i'm going to give you a treat that that seems like what we're doing to our own brains in order to get us to stop doing stupid shit it's not that
18:58Charles Duhigg:different it's not that different right pavlov pavlov was onto something with his dogs the difference, though, is that, well, two things. Number one, for the dog, the dog doesn't get to choose the cue or the reward. It just happens almost outside of their consciousness, right? They don't know that the bell ringing is artificially connected to them getting food. They think the bell and the food are somehow cause and effect if they can think that deeply. But the other thing is that you have the ability to actually make rewards more salient simply by deciding that you want them to be more rewarding.
19:31Charles Duhigg:So when you get into bed and you write down on a note card, you know, I got into bed at 1028, feeling great because I just hung out with my son. There is no reason why that should make you feel good, right? Like your son's not there right now, writing something down on a note card. But the act of you deciding when I'm going to write down what time it is I'm getting into bed and one accomplishment that I got done today, the act of you deciding that that is rewarding actually makes it rewarding. So we as humans have the ability to decide what rewards we want to encourage and discourage. And when we do, what happens is that we get our hands on the gears of habit formation.
20:12Charles Duhigg:We sort of pop open the hood of our head and can fiddle with the parts. And we get to decide, this is rewarding to me. And what our brain does is it actually makes it more and more rewarding. There's no question what you're describing is way more sophisticated than Pavlov or my neighbor's dog. Or if I try to train a cat, we've got three of them. They're impossible to train, but that's a whole different subject. But my point is, I think that many of us assume that if we're going to change a habit, either create a new one or break an old one, a bad one, it's going to be through iron force of will.
20:51And it's going to involve a lot of muscling through. true and what I hear you describing is kind of just like giving the brain treats over and over again positive reinforcement as a way to get to the to the goal absolutely absolutely and that's
21:10Charles Duhigg:not to say that willpower doesn't have a role in this right there's some habits that are that are harder than others and that we we have to sit down and we have to kind of say like okay I'm going to use my willpower muscle a little bit to get this started but we make it much much easier on ourselves when we pay attention to these cues and the rewards when we give ourselves rewards for the behaviors that we want to encourage. Because you're exactly right. Willpower is a limited resource. It's like a muscle that gets tired throughout the day. And so if you're relying on willpower to put you to bed rather than watch House of Dragons, you're kind of screwed by the end of the day because you've been using willpower all day long to get work done.
21:44Charles Duhigg:And so a much better way of changing your own behavior, and we know this from study after study, is rather than relying on willpower, rely on creating a new habit in your life, a new habit loop that makes that behavior easier. This can cascade. You, in your book, talk about the concept of a keystone habit. Can you say more about that? Absolutely. So a keystone habit, what we've discovered is that there are some habits that when they start to change, they set off a chain reaction and they make other patterns more malleable. A great example of this is, for instance, exercise, right? On the days that you exercise, it's easier to eat healthily.
22:25Charles Duhigg:You walk into the cafeteria, instead of getting a hamburger, you get a salad. And we all kind of accept that that's true. We expect that, even though it doesn't make that much sense. Why would sore legs make it easier for me to eat healthily at lunch? There's these two researchers in Australia who also found that on the days that people exercise, they tend to use their credit cards less. They procrastinate less at work. If they have chores at home, like doing the dishes, they'll on average start those chores about 15 minutes earlier in the day. Now, there is no one on this planet who thinks like, I'm going for a run this morning.
22:58Charles Duhigg:I'm going to keep my Amex in my pocket today. And yet what we know is that for some people, when they start an exercise habit, it makes other patterns like eating patterns or spending patterns or how you use your time patterns more malleable. It makes them easier to change. And that's because for many people, exercise is a keystone habit. It sets off this chain reaction that makes other patterns more malleable. And now what's interesting about this is that exercise is not a keystone habit for everyone. And the reason why it is for some people is because it influences our identity. So if someone was a high school athlete, they're accustomed to thinking themselves as an athlete.
23:40Charles Duhigg:And then let's say they take a couple of years off because they have kids or life happens. And then they start exercising again. It is unlikely that that will be a keystone habit in their life. It's still a very healthy habit, but it probably won't set off a cascade of other changes. And the reason why is because they already think of themselves as an athlete. They're not changing their self-identity. But take someone like me who did not play any sports in high school, who basically was super physically unhealthy until my late 20s, early 30s, and then I started running. When I started running, I had all these like totally irrational anxieties.
Read the full transcript
24:16Charles Duhigg:Like I don't know what clothes to wear. I don't know what route to take. I'm going to look really dumb. Like I've seen myself run. I look really goofy. All of those are indications that for me, exercise in particular, running is a keystone habit. And what I found is that when I started running, there was some part of my brain, again, not the prefrontal cortex, kind of the deep interior structures that looks at my behavior and says, you know what? Charlie doesn't think he's a runner, but this morning he went for a two-mile run. And the thing about a guy who goes for a two-mile run is that guy doesn't eat an unhealthy hamburger at lunch.
24:50Charles Duhigg:That guy eats a salad. So the reason why Keystone Habits are so powerful is because it starts changing our self image, in particular that part of our self image that isn't based on our stated preferences, but rather on our revealed preferences, on how we act rather than what we say. And when that happens, that's what makes these other patterns and these other habits more malleable. How do we figure out what the keystone habits might be for ourselves? Yeah, the best way, as I mentioned, is look for the kind of change that seems irrationally anxiety-producing to you. Like, let me ask you. So there's all kinds of healthy habits that I'm sure you wish you had in your life.
25:31Charles Duhigg:Are there any of them that when you think about them, you're like, oh God, like I just, I don't even, I don't even want to think about it. Like that doesn't seem fun at all. Or like, that just sort of like, you know, it makes me a little antsy. Yes. Going on increasingly long meditation retreats. I have friends who will do a month or two months and yeah, that makes me really anxious when I think about it. And, and yet you love meditation, right? Like you've been, you've been meditating for years and years and years. It's funny to describe loving meditation because I have a deep believer in the power of meditation and deeply committed to it.
26:10But it's not, you know, as somebody who has meditated, like you sit down and you're with your mind. Some days you can get really concentrated and feel really good. And other days it's like you're reliving your deepest trauma. So it's it's hard to describe it as like it's not as much fun as watching dragons on television. It's just not in the same league. And so it's not like just doing more of it is necessarily going to be great. The idea of doing it for a month and being away from my family, even if even if I wasn't so prone to homesickness and even if I wasn't so attached to my wife and son and cats, just the idea of living at a retreat center for a month and basically in a monastic lifestyle is really scary to me.
26:58Charles Duhigg:So here's what's interesting about what you just said. You said that it's scary. And the truth is that if I asked you, do you want to go hit ourselves in the shin with a hammer for the next 30 minutes, you would say no. It wouldn't necessarily be scary to you. It would just seem non-essential, right? Like a dumb thing to do. So instead of feeling like a month-long meditation retreat is just something you can say no to, it feels a little anxiety-producing to you. And what that suggests to me is that there's something about how you see yourself right now that you worry about what that month-long retreat might reveal about that part of yourself.
27:38Charles Duhigg:And in doing so, that doesn't mean that you have to do a month-long retreat. There's lots of good reasons not to do a month-long retreat. But my guess is that if you did do a month-long retreat, it would subtly change how you see yourself. Again, not even that part of our brain that's conscious thought, not the stated preferences of who we think we are, but rather than the revealed preferences. There's part of your brain that says, you know, I always thought that Dan was the kind of guy who like, he said he wanted to go on a month-long retreat and he never actually did it, but now he's doing it.
28:08Charles Duhigg:And the kind of guy who goes on a month-long retreat, that's the kind of guy who actually like has no problem increasing his meditation each day by 15 minutes or has no problem doing X or Y or Z. If I follow that chain that you're proposing, I think where it goes is he's the guy who isn't a workaholic because he can take a month off. And that can't be anxiety producing, right? Like if you're not a workaholic, what are you? There's probably a lot of your success that's rooted in being a workaholic. And yet at the same time, if you prove to yourself, you know what? Again, that interior part of your brain is saying, you know what?
28:46Charles Duhigg:Dan's the kind of guy who he can be a workaholic. He can work hard when he wants to, and then he can turn it off and he can go relax. Well, that's someone who also doesn't... There's all kinds of anxieties that that person doesn't have to feel, right? There's all kinds of mental habits that I can change. I don't need to feel anxious when I think about my calendar for tomorrow because because I've proven to myself I can turn this on or off. I don't need to feel antsy when I go on a vacation or shy away from taking on commitments because I have learned, I've proved to myself that I can turn it on or off.
29:18Charles Duhigg:That's the power of Keystone Habits, is that it gives us this insight into the capacities that we have that we didn't think we had. We might have BS'd ourself into thinking we have them, but we haven't really proved it to ourself. And when that pattern changes, it makes all kinds of other patterns more malleable and more open for for change. I want to just go one more beat on this because I picked something really daunting and that a lot of people probably cannot see themselves in. But to be clear, a keystone habit, while I think definitionally should cause a little bit of anxiety, does not have to involve putting your life on hold for a month.
29:59It's in your case, it was just going running for two miles.
30:01Charles Duhigg:I mean, it wasn't even running for two miles. It was like running for two blocks, right? Like it was like when I started my running habit, I like started the smallest with the smallest step possible, which was like literally I would tell myself like all you need to do tomorrow is put on your running shoes and step outside, right? Put on some running clothes and running shoes, step outside. And for like two days, that's all I did. I literally would walk outside and I'd be like, okay, I accomplished this. And then on day three, I was kind of like, if I already have my running shoes on, why don't I just go for a run?
30:30Charles Duhigg:Right? But all I have to do is two blocks. You're right. It can be very, very small steps, and it should be very small steps. Like if somebody doesn't meditate, they shouldn't think about doing a month-long meditation retreat as their first instance. If you're someone who has never done a long retreat before, maybe a month is too long. Maybe you should start with a week or start with four days. But the point being that these behaviors don't have to be big because in our head, they are bigger than they ought to be. right the idea of me going at putting on running shoes getting out the door when I first started running all I could think about was like I'm just gonna look so dumb I don't even know what to do like I don't even know what route to take and then of course you find that like actually it's not as hard and scary as you think it is and suddenly there's part of your brain that starts thinking of yourself as a runner or as a person who can meditate or as a person who can turn on or off They're workaholic instincts.
31:27Charles Duhigg:And it's that change in self-identity that becomes the keystone habit that really unlocks things. It doesn't matter how big the behavior is. It's about how you see yourself. Okay, so let's talk about GLP-1s. Yeah. Is it true that GLP-1s are changing the way we think about how humans make or break habits? Yeah, very much so. So The Power of Habit came out about 13 years ago. And for a number of years after that, when I was talking to people, they would say, well, like, what's new? Like, what have we learned that's new and surprising to you? And I'd often say, not really a lot, right? Because like, we had figured out basically through neural imaging at about the time I wrote the book, we'd figured out how habits work within our brains.
32:13Charles Duhigg:We've figured out this Q routine reward and the neurological structure associated with it. But then there weren't many discoveries. And then something happened that kind of awakened me to these new possibilities, which is that about two and a half years ago or two years ago now, I started taking a GLP-1. I started using one. And I noticed this like kind of interesting thing that happened in my life, which is there was this food noise. If I sat down in a restaurant, there was a bucket of fries there. I could not prevent myself from eventually just grabbing one of the fries and eating it. I wouldn't even decide to do it.
32:43Charles Duhigg:It's just, it would almost be like an automatic behavior, like a habit that like without thinking about it, I would just suddenly find the fry in my mouth and be like, Like, oh, I guess I'm eating some fries right now. The same way that people who are habitual nail biters often say they didn't realize that they were biting their nails until they felt their finger in their mouth. And then I started taking a GLP-1 and suddenly this food noise inside my head, the thing that kind of nudged me to go pick up that French fry, it went away. It got quiet. And I hadn't even realized that that food noise was there until it went away.
33:16Charles Duhigg:And at that moment, I was like, oh, this is super interesting. I can sit down at a table and there's a basket of fries right there. And I just decide not to eat the fries and I don't eat the fries. There's nothing that gets me to reach over and grab one without thinking about it. And so I started looking at what was going on. This is a change in habits. And about the same time, we're seeing research saying people on GLP-1s were drinking less, which I found to be true in my life. People with addictions on GLP-1s found that their addictions were easier to overcome, that people would gamble less when they were on a GLP-1.
33:49Charles Duhigg:And I said to myself, look, it feels to me like this is something in habit formation. It feels like my habits are changing. And so I went looking for companies and researchers that were working on this, and I found this company Noom, which is an online app. Some of your listeners might be familiar with it. For years, it's existed as kind of a food tracking thing, and now it's really focused on a companion to GLP-1 use. And Noom was doing all of this research on what do we know happens to people's habits when they are on a GLP-1. And what they found was this, when people start on a GLP-1, there seems to be this habit window that opens, that suddenly all the cues in your life, the food noise in my head, which was the cue for eating the French fry, that tends to get quieted.
34:36Charles Duhigg:And as a result, my behaviors can change. But what they found is for many people who are taking a GLP-1, if they stop taking the GLP-1, the food noise comes right back. They start eating the French fries. They regain all the weight that they lost or whatever changes they were trying to make. But if during that habit window, if you can have a structured system to build different, better habits, right? If I can build a system that helps me understand the cue and the reward that's driving me towards that French fry, and I can build a new habit that I'm going to reach for a carrot instead of a French fry, then even when they discontinue the medication, that habit tends to persist and they'll keep the weight off.
35:17Charles Duhigg:In fact, they'll keep twice as much weight off than people who don't have a habit change system in place. And I thought that was really interesting. And so I wanted to understand more. And so that's when I got interested. That's when I got involved with Noom. I'm an advisor to them now. That's when I started looking at the research. And one of the things that we're discovering is that we can create opportunities for ourselves to change our habits that are very valuable, but it's a habit window. It's a window that opens and closes. And what you have to do in that window is not just say like, oh, I don't need to eat anymore, but rather to say, oh, I'm getting a breather here.
35:53Charles Duhigg:I get to build a new habit. And that way, when the window closes, when I stop using the medication or it becomes less effective, the habit will still be there. And that's the healthier behavior that I'll stick with. Skin care products often over-promise and under-deliver when, in fact, they should be clean and simple. I have had really good results, however, with a company called Osea. I like to do a little moisturizing before bed. This is something I was, to be a little cute, sleeping on for a long time. But as I've reached the age of 55, I've realized I need to start taking care of my skin a little bit better.
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39:30Let me ask a skeptical question. Two parts. Is what you're discussing established science? A and B is the way you look at it skewed at all by the fact that you have a financial relationship with Noom?
39:45Charles Duhigg:Is it established science? Absolutely. So the thing is that we don't understand why it's happening, right? So a GLP-1 is a glucagen-like peptide. And for a long time, people thought that glucagen was this thing that regulated hunger. It also was involved in insulin production. But we didn't think that glucagen was like, I mean, we thought it was important, but we didn't think it was that big a deal. And then when people started taking GLP-1s, the researchers noticed this behavior, that there was a shift in how people behaved. And they came to this realization that actually glucagen is much more complicated than we expect, which probably means other things in our body are much more complicated than we expect them to be.
40:23Charles Duhigg:And so the results I'm talking about are completely backed by the science. Understanding exactly why it happens is still something that people are trying to figure out. To your second question, is working with Noom, does it shift how I see this? I think the answer is no. So I've been working with them for, I don't know, six months now. I kind of came to them. And the reason I came to them is because I really wanted to understand what was going on. I started taking a GLP-1 two years ago. And honestly, I have been an evangelist for GLP-1s since then. It has been life-changing for me. I've lost 45 pounds on a GLP-1.
41:00Charles Duhigg:And I say this as someone who my entire life struggled with my weight. And I'm a successful person, right? I was a reporter at the New York Times. I'm a reporter at the New Yorker. I have a Pulitzer Prize. And I couldn't figure out if I'm so smart, like, why is it so hard for me to eat less? Why is it so hard for me to get up in the morning and go for a jog? And so when I started taking the GLP-1 and it suddenly felt like this thing that had been such a struggle for me for so long that it suddenly became easier and that I could actually see like, oh, here's how I reprogram these habits. That's the thing that has biased me is my personal experience.
41:38Charles Duhigg:working with Noom is just because Noom has done this research that I think is interesting and it helps validate what we're learning about GLP-1's use. It also helps destigmatize talking about GLP-1's because I think a lot of people still shy away from talking about them because for some reason we think weight loss should be like a moral victory as opposed to a physical one. If anything has biased how I feel about this research, it's my own personal experience. And I will tell anyone who asks me, like, if they're thinking about a GLP-1, like, just try it. And if you have the same experience I had, which is that this part of your life that seemed like it was completely outside of your control, at least some of the time, is suddenly inside your control.
42:19Charles Duhigg:That is so empowering. Like, it just feels so good. What about people whose doctors are not saying to them, you need to lose weight? Like, I have many psychological and physiological problems. I don't think my doctor believes I need to lose weight. I actually have a lot of friends who are, I guess, I don't know if this is the right term in this context, microdosing a GLP-1 and they evangelize for its many, many benefits. And I just, I don't know what to think about that. No one should have to take any medication that they don't want to take, right? Like there's, there's no reason if you're not sick, you don't have to take anything if you don't want to take it.
42:56Charles Duhigg:But I will say, you know, new, a lot of nooms business because they actually prescribe GLP-1s and a lot of those prescriptions are these microdoses. And what we are seeing is that there's a certain class of person who it seems like they don't struggle with their weight. They don't have problems ignoring the food that's on the table. But there are other things that they do struggle with and that in some cases the GLP-1 actually helps, particularly the microdose. Some people who are drinking too much. I mean, I used to have two or three cocktails a week, and I'd look forward to having a glass of wine with dinner.
43:29Charles Duhigg:I just have no desire to drink alcohol anymore. It's kind of like it's a race from my brain. And if I was someone who had struggled with drinking, which I haven't been historically, but if that was something that was an issue for me, I think that a microdose of GLP-1 would be at least worth trying to see if it curbs that craving. The nice thing about GLP-1s too, that it's worth mentioning is it's a peptide. So a peptide is a chain of amino acids. And basically, you inject that chain into your body. Once that chain kind of disintegrates, it's gone forever. So it's not like antidepressants, like an SSRI, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, where you're actually changing some of the physiology within your brain by taking the drug even once you discontinue the drug.
44:18Charles Duhigg:Peptides and GLP-1s, basically you take it, it lasts like a week at most, 10 days. And then after that, it's gone. There's no behavior or there's no impact to it after you've stopped using it. So it's something that people can experiment with. That being said, I don't want to encourage anyone to use a GLP-1 that doesn't think that this is the right choice for them. It's not like this is something you have to do, But it is a tool that's available to people who find themselves dealing with cravings, whether they be food or otherwise, that are just kind of burdensome. It is a tool to give you a breather to open up that habit window so you can build some new, healthier habits around those substances and then discontinue the GLP-1 if you want to.
45:00I was talking to my wife as a physician, generally very, very skeptical. And we were talking the other day about this sense that we have that the conversation around GLP-1s is really changing. As you know, I had Johan Hari on the show a couple years ago when he wrote this whole big book about GLP-1s And he was super conflicted about, you know, he's on one, but should I be on one? There are all these side effects that he was worried about, which I also want to talk to you about And then there are a lot of people who I think justifiably worry that really the move for changing your relationship to your body and food is to end the war with yourself, right?
45:44Like not to to have some sort of medical intervention, but to like have a less hostile relationship to to your body and by extension to food. Anyway, so there's there was a lot of controversy about it, and I think there still is controversy. But I'm just getting a sense just osmotically, animalistically, that it seems like there's less hostility and wariness about these this class of medications. and now we're seeing people who would not two or three years ago have been considered candidates for these drugs, taking them in small doses for use cases that are orthogonal to weight loss.
46:30Charles Duhigg:I think when GLP-1s first came out, we were kind of in phase one of GLP-1 use, which was all about appetite suppression. We were basically using it for diabetics and for people whose appetites were too large. We're now in phase two. And phase two is much more understanding that there's something happening here that makes habits more malleable, that opens up that habit window, and that you can take advantage of that if you have a structured system to identify and change your habits. And that structured system is really, really important because it's something that's hard to do without a system in place, whether it's designed by you or it comes from a company like Noom.
47:05Charles Duhigg:But to the second thing you mentioned, this kind of like, you should just be in love with your body. And every time I sat down and there was French fries on the table, I was at war with my body. The war with my body wasn't just accepting myself. The war was that I didn't want to eat French fries. I knew that French fries were unhealthy for me. And as soon as I was distracted, my hand would go over and pick up a French fry and put it in my mouth. This is what I mean. I do think that there is this instinct to see things around weight loss as moralistic, right? That either we should like embrace who we are, or we should have the willpower not to eat so much.
47:43Charles Duhigg:And at least for people like me, I'll just talk from my own experience. Like that is not saying like you should be okay with your body when you're 40 pounds overweight. It wasn't life threatening immediately, but like I snored at night. I like to surf and it was really hard for me to pop up on my surfboard. Running was just like kind of a pain. Like you're carrying around 40 to 45 pounds of extra weight when you're running. My life is so much better now, not just because I've lost the weight, but because of the consequences of losing the weight. Like I am much more at peace with my body now than I was before.
48:17Charles Duhigg:And I don't think if somebody had cancer or depression, we would certainly not say to them, it is a moral failing to use chemotherapy or to take an antidepressant. We would say, look, your body is off kilter a little bit or something's happening. And this is a tool that helps you, helps you live the life that you want. And that's what I think GLP ones are. I'm not saying that it is the cure all for everything. And I'm not saying that everyone should be on a, on a GLP one, but I am saying it's a tool that is available and it's at least been effective for me and many other people. And we shouldn't stigmatize wanting to use that tool or say like, you're not body positive because you don't like yourself when you're 45 pounds overweight.
48:59Charles Duhigg:ways. Just to stay with that for a second, and I'm nonpartisan here, but I'll just for the sake of argument do my best to embody the other side. Are you familiar with the whole idea of intuitive eating? A little bit, a little bit, but feel free to educate me what you mean by it. And I apologize to my friend Evelyn Triboli, who's one of the progenitors of intuitive eating. I will do my best to describe it, but I'll probably screw it up. Basically, the idea is you should eat whatever you want, whenever you want, with a background of gentle nutrition. That's the term she used. Understanding, we all know the basics of nutrition, but if you give yourself permission to eat the French fries, to eat the Oreos, whatever, whatever you want, over time, once the permission structure is there.
49:56And I've actually seen this a little bit in my life when I've been kind of on my intuitive eating game. That's how the war ends. That's actually one of the two mechanisms by which the war ends. One is you stop telling yourself French fries are sinful. And then what happens is it doesn't become that big of a deal. You're not the food noise goes down because you have given yourself permission. And then eventually you start to see like, I don't feel good when I eat a bunch of French fries. So I don't want to eat those French fries right now. I want to eat maybe two or three, but I understand that if I eat a balanced diet, I will feel better.
50:34So that's one part of it. The other part of it is you stop being suckered by the incredibly toxic cultural messages that are being sent around how a body should look. I mean, if you look over history, there are periods of time where voluptuous bodies, bodies Rubenesque bodies were celebrated. And now we're in the sort of more in the waifu zone. Yeah. And then the third piece of it, actually, that I should add in is that diet culture, that's the terminology folks use in this world, is driving a wedge between us and our bodies, where we've lost touch with our satiety cues because we're following somebody else's eating rules.
51:19And if you combine, wrap all of this up into a package, you can change your relationship to your body. It's not toxic positivity. It's actually just like being in touch with yourself and your physiological cues. And that I think the intuitive eating folks would argue is a better strategy than GLP-1. What are they getting wrong?
51:44Charles Duhigg:I don't think they're necessarily getting anything wrong. I think for people who intuitive eating works for them, that they have this feedback loop in their head that they say, actually, I don't like the French fries because it makes me feel gross. They don't need anything else besides intuitive eating. One of my sons is this way. His entire life, he has never... You put some ice cream in front of him and he'll eat three bites and then say, oh, that's good. I'm done. But I have 45 years of trying to do intuitive eating and I never learned the lesson, right? And we would never, and I think that's probably just because my body is different from my son's body because we, and again, glucagen, we know that glucagen and insulin is different from person to person.
52:23Charles Duhigg:We would never just say to someone who has a history of alcoholism in their family, we would never say, oh, just do intuitive drinking, right? Like, don't worry about what you're drinking. Just like, understand, just do it intuitively. Your body will learn. Yeah, what they've learned is that they really like drinking and they drink too much. They become dependent on it. And so I'm not saying that intuitive eating is wrong at all. And I'm not saying that anyone who is listening or is in this world who doesn't struggle with food should necessarily think about a GW1. But I do think that there are a lot of people like me.
52:57Charles Duhigg:Like literally, I remember in my 20s, I remember my birthday was coming up and someone asked me what I wanted for my birthday. Again, I'm in my 20s, right? And I'm a successful reporter at that point. And like the thing I didn't say, but I thought to myself was like, if I could have anything for my birthday, it would be to be 20 pounds lighter. Not because I think it would make me look better, but just because I think I would feel healthier. And I knew that losing 20 pounds would just be this constant uphill battle. intuitive eating does not get me to where I want to be. And I think there's probably other people like me when it comes to like intuitive reading or intuitive drinking, it works perfectly for me.
53:40Charles Duhigg:Like I don't need a structure around my reading. I actually don't need a structure on my drinking. I've never had a problem with that. And so I'm not saying that someone like me shouldn't use this intuitive sense, but I think part of knowing ourselves and genuinely loving ourselves and being aware of our own body is knowing where our intuition oftentimes fails to be enough. And we do this in life all the time, right? When somebody cuts me off on the freeway, my intuition is to give them the finger. And I turn to my wife and she says, it's not that big a deal. We know when our intuition doesn't work so well for us.
54:13Charles Duhigg:And we know when it does work well. And for some people, I think intuitive eating is not the answer. And in those cases, something like a GLP-1 or just a structured habit change program might help. You've mentioned SSRIs and depression a couple of times. I am not currently on an SSRI, although I have been for big chunks of my life. I'm on another drug that is a different type of antidepressant. It's trazodone, it's called. Anyway, I'm only saying that because for people like me who have had a lifelong struggle with depression, also anxiety, isn't there some risk to a GLP-1 that you know there can be a kind of flattening of your affect i'll tell you what the research says and and it's worth noting that ssris um they operate in a very different way than a peptide um which is not to say ssris are bad like i've taken an ssri before and i thought it was it was fantastic um but it it can have it can have the long-term effects even after you discontinue the drug.
55:14Charles Duhigg:A peptide tends to, because it's just a chain of amino acids, it tends to kind of just break down over time in a way that it's easier to expel. But that being said, as far as I'm aware and looking at the research, there's no evidence that that's true. What people do report on a GLP-1, and I can kind of attest to this myself, is that there's sometimes an anhedonic effect around food and cravings. So I will say that I used to love food. I used to love eating. I used to really look forward to that feeling of fullness and satiation that I would get after eating a big bowl of pasta. That's definitely diminished for me.
55:52Charles Duhigg:I enjoy food a little bit less now. And I will actually say, I actually eat way more sweets now, in part because I can. I'm just consuming less, so it has less impact on me. But in part, I think, because my body sort of wants these strong flavors. But there does not appear to be any research that I'm familiar with that says that GLP-1 creates an anhedonic effect around things like depression, right? And that kind of makes sense when you think about it, because what the SSRI does, antrazodone does, for instance, is it influences the amount of serotonin within our brain. There's another type of antidepressant that plays with the dopamine levels in our brain.
56:36Charles Duhigg:The GLP-1s don't really seem to affect serotonin or dopamine. What they seem to affect is this craving that, and again, we don't really understand completely what's happening. From the research I've seen, the long-term consequences of GLP-1 use, and they've been in use for 15 years now, they don't seem correlated with impacting mental health, although they do seem correlated with impacting pleasure in certain behaviors like food consumption or gambling or drinking. I'm aware that there are people listening to this thinking, you know, I'd be interested in trying it, but it's really expensive and I can't afford it.
57:18Charles Duhigg:Yeah, no, that's totally fair. So one of the things that we know is that about 80 % of people who started on a GLP-1, they discontinue it within about two years. And for some people, it's just because they feel like they've changed and they don't need it anymore. For some people, it's the expense. And that is a legitimate thing. And hopefully the cost of the drugs will come down. This is the other reason I decided to work with Noom is because this micro dosing does create a more affordable path towards getting GLP-1s. But I would say anyone who's listening who's struggling with the financial element of it, there are lots and lots of resources out there to help bring down the cost of GLP-1s.
57:58Charles Duhigg:I get my GLP-1 from a compounder. I don't get it from one of the big companies. And it's less expensive because I get it from a compounder. And it's a compounder that I know and that I've researched and that I trust. But I would say yes, that the cost is a real issue. There's a lot of work going on around the White House. This White House isn't so great on this stuff, but the people who are normally around public health, there's been a lot of work about trying to make these more affordable because it can have such a large impact on particularly at-risk populations who are dealing with diseases related to obesity.
58:36Charles Duhigg:So hopefully that's going to change, but that's a super legitimate issue to raise and hopefully it'll get better.
58:44The first time you were on the show, we talked about your book, bestseller called Super Communicators. I'll call back to the beginning of this conversation when you were asking me all these questions about habits, my desire to change my bedtime routine and go to bed earlier. You were doing a great job of what is called reflective listening. You were repeating back what I was saying. And that is one of the hallmarks of Supercommunicator. But I'm interested how we could apply what you've been teaching us around habits to our communication skills, because many of us want to get better at talking in a way that other people are more likely to listen and listening in a way that other people are more likely to talk.
59:28Charles Duhigg:Well, first, let me say thank you for complimenting my listening. I will say my wife sometimes disagrees with you. Like it's very frequent. They were having a conversation. She's like, you know, there's this book you might want to read about communication because you don't seem to be doing it very well. So it is very gratifying that you feel like I'm doing it. Yeah. So one of the things that's, I think, really interesting when it comes to communication and habit formation, much of what we do, much of how we communicate and why we communicate is built around habits. And one of the things that we can do is we can pay attention to what rewards certain communicative habits are delivering to us and what rewards we want to be more rewarding.
1:00:09Charles Duhigg:So, for instance, if you're someone who just complains to other people, like this is how you deal with anxiety, right? Is you like sort of voice your complaints and you're not actually even looking for the person's advice or you're not looking for them to empathize. You're just using them as a sounding board, which usually feels somewhat unrewarding to them. then the reward there is that you are using communication as an emotional management device for yourself. And it might be burdensome on the other person, but you can probably achieve that same reward instead of by verbalizing what you're anxious about, writing down what you're anxious about, right?
1:00:44Charles Duhigg:If we identify the habits that are pushing us into some communication behaviors that we don't like, and we begin asking ourselves, what's the cue and what's the reward? It helps us change those communication habits. One of my favorite examples of this is this thing called kitchen sinking, which as marriage therapists have found, this is the single worst behavior in a marriage. This predicts divorce more than anything else is that when we fight about one thing, it becomes a fight about everything. Right? So like we start by talking about like, where are we going to go for Thanksgiving? And within five minutes, it's like, well, your mother hates me and I don't earn, you don't earn enough money for us to take like a, right?
1:01:19Charles Duhigg:So a fight about one thing becomes a fight about everything. It's really, really toxic. And that's a habit, a conversational habit that people can fall into. And so if you take a step back and you say like, look, okay, when we start talking about Thanksgiving, the cue is I feel this emotion, right? I feel this anxiety. And so instead of starting to lash out at you and blame you for the thing, what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, okay, look, I'm feeling this anxiety. That's a cue for me to lash out at you. What I'm going to do instead is I'm just going to let you know, I'm feeling anxious about this.
1:01:49Charles Duhigg:And the best way for us to avoid that anxiety is like, let's just talk about Thanksgiving. Let's not talk about moms. Let's not talk about money. Let's put all that off to the side and just talk about Thanksgiving. That's going to help me bring down my anxiety. And afterwards, when we have the conversation, giving myself a reward and saying, look, I just want to thank you. We decided we were going for Thanksgiving. We weren't shouting at each other. I think we should feel really good about that. Even though this is a small thing, thank you for helping me have a good conversation. And I want to compliment you on what a good job you did and compliment myself.
1:02:24Charles Duhigg:When we start becoming aware of our conversational habits is when we get power over changing them. Because so much of conversation and so much of habit happens outside of deliberate thought, right? Like the best conversations you've ever had, if I looked at a transcript of them, they would look like a total mess, right? People are interrupting each other, ideas are coming up, and then they're getting discarded without really getting resolved. Good conversations are messy. And the more that we just have a chance to step back and say, like, why did I say that thing that I said? What was the cue there?
1:02:58Charles Duhigg:Like, what reward was it giving me? The more it means that the next time we go into conversation, we're in better control of where that conversation is going. Just to go with the example you listed before, if I can develop the habit of noticing anxiety arising in difficult conversations. And instead of the old, that's the cue is the anxiety. Instead of the old routine of discharging that energy by getting into a fight, if I can make a new behavior, which is, no, I'm just going to report on my emotional state and request that we put sort of guardrails on the conversation, then I get a reward of an actually a successful conversation.
1:03:49And I can triple down on the reward by congratulating myself and my conversation partner.
1:03:54Charles Duhigg:That was very good reflective listening. You're a pro at this too. You're exactly right. And in fact, what I would say is that's not the only reward. When you, in a conversation, when you feel that anxiety and you lash out, the reward is a sense of relief, right? Momentary relief. It's not going to be relief for long because they're going to get upset. But if I can tell you like, no, it's not my fault. It's your fault. I'm feeling this burst of relief. And once I'm aware of this cue and this reward that anxiety and relief, now I can say like, okay, instead of lashing out at you when I feel that anxiety, I'm just going to say, I'm feeling a little bit anxious right now.
1:04:26Charles Duhigg:And so I might not be able to say what I'm thinking, but I want to ask you to just be with me for a second and be forgiving and be understanding. I'm feeling that same sense of relief, right? What I'm doing now is I know why I'm lashing out at you is because it gives me a reward. There's other paths to that same reward that are healthier. And then you're right. And in addition, I'm reinforcing it because now we've had a good conversation because now we've complimented each other because now I'm happier. The more we're aware of just what's happening inside of our own heads, the better off we are.
1:05:01Charles Duhigg:And psychologists often refer to this as meta conversations. So with my wife, for instance, when I come home and I start complaining about my day, she will often say to me, do you want me to help you solve this problem? Or do you need me just to listen and hear what happened? And usually I'm like, no, no, no, I just want you to listen, right? I want you to hear what a jerk Jim was to me. This meta conversation, this habit we've fallen into of asking the other person what they need, that gives us all the same rewards that we had previously, but in a better package. that's kind of the power of understanding habit formation is it allows you you still want those rewards those cues still exist in your life it just gives you the chance the opportunity to figure out what the behavior is that connects that cue and reward rather than just having it kind of happen to you without your without your permission yeah i've seen in my own life you know i'm uh as you know because we've talked about it right here on the show i'm a big believer in um you know, the art and science of conversation and communication skills.
1:05:58And well, first of all, there's the reward of kind of self mastery of learning something and executing on it. But much more on a much deeper level, there's just seeing the immediate and long term benefits in your relationships is a really powerful reward and much more powerful than the as you called it before, the temporary pleasure of releasing your anger or anxiety.
1:06:29Charles Duhigg:A hundred percent. And I know that you espouse this as much as the research says that like so much of our happiness and our health and our longevity and our success, so much of it is bound up in our relationships with other people. And most of the ways that we make those relationships become true is through conversation, right? We can hang out next to each other. We can watch TV with each other. But it's like a dialogue like this that really brings us joy. And so understanding how to have those dialogues better, understanding how to build habits that makes those dialogues easier, like a habit of asking real questions, right?
1:07:06Charles Duhigg:Or a habit of reflective listening to make the other person know that you want to hear what they're saying. Those habits, like they will just yield rewards for the rest of your life. I mean, they're what makes life worth living. Well, this has been a great conversation and I really appreciate your time. All right, we're going to try something new. This show has been around for more than 10 years and we rarely change it. But we're attempting to institute a final segment that the working title for it is What's Good. So this is just an opportunity to hear from the guests. Like, what is one thing in your life that's good right now?
1:07:43Like, it could be a TV show. It could be you just got a new dog. It could be some little practice you were weaving into your life. You do yours. I'll do mine. And we'll see if it works.
1:07:56Charles Duhigg:So, OK, so here's what's good in my life right now. I have basically decided that I will allow myself to read whatever trashy things I want to read. So much of my reading, I want to read the Pulitzer Prize winners and the X and Y and Z. But before I go to sleep, I'm allowed to read anything I want guilt-free. And I've been reading this series of books that I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with called Dungeon Crawler Carl. It is a ridiculous... Yeah, it's Dungeon Crawler Carl. It's actually one of the most popular, like bestselling books out there right now. It's like a weird sci-fi fantasy thing.
1:08:33Charles Duhigg:And I absolutely love it. Like, it's just, it makes going to sleep. Like, I look forward to getting into bed. That's how I get into bed by 1030 is I like tell myself you can read 10 pages of Dungeon Crawler Carl. So that's what's been good in my life. But what's good in yours? Dungeon Crawler Carl. That is a mouthful. And I feel culturally illiterate for not having heard of it. But OK, duly noted. Probably misspeaks well of you, to be honest. Well, I watched a docuseries recently. It's hard to call it something good because it's on a very dark subject. It's the it's on Paramount Plus and it's like the I think it's called The Real Wolf of Wall Street.
1:09:15I love the movie The Wolf of Wall Street in part as a former drug abuser. It's fun to watch a bunch of people take fistfuls of quaaludes. But it's it's a great Martin Scorsese movie about the founder of a Wall Street of a stock brokerage that were peddling shitty stocks to people. And they were all losing money. Anyway, there's a three part docuseries that explains the the real story behind the movie because it was based on a real guy named Jordan Belfort who did not cooperate in this docuseries. And what I liked about it, as horrible as the story was, because this guy cost so much damage and cost people so much money, what I liked about it, aside from just the vicarious thrills of the debauchery of this guy's life, was it, from a Buddhist standpoint, this was taking the human capacity for greed to the ultimate level.
1:10:17So the Buddha talked about these three poisons in the human mind, greed, hatred or delusion, which is just basically not seeing clearly the nature of reality. Greed is a very easy thing to understand And when somebody is unrestrained in their greed This guy was making hundreds of millions of dollars At other people's expense And brutalizing his wife and family And his friends Many of whom he ratted on And mistreating women at like an epic scale Well, when you watch what happens when the mind is unrestrained in this way, it is very interesting. It is a teaching in and of itself. Okay, I said a lot there.
1:11:05Does any of that make sense?
1:11:06Charles Duhigg:No, I love that. And I also loved that movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. And I'm going to go watch that documentary tonight. That sounds fascinating. And I particularly love the Buddhist element. Is that in the documentary, The Buddhist Element? Or is that something that you're kind of bringing to it and you're viewing of it? fully me bringing to it i don't think uh the makers of uh true crime docs uh have that as a background uh heuristic it's like we all struggle we all struggle with like again to get back to instincts like i have an instinctual trigger to be greedy right or to be to engage in hate or to demonize the other person and i think anything that that helps me recognize that that is a path that there are alternatives to is something that's just so, I just find it to be really meaningful.
1:11:55Charles Duhigg:So thank you. I'm going to go watch that tonight. Before I let you go, can you just remind everybody of the names of your various books and anything else you want us to know about? Yeah, absolutely. So I wrote The Power of Habit and Super Communicators. I have a newsletter called The Science of Better that if anyone is interested in, every other week, it sort of sends out science-based insights on certain aspects of life. And then if anyone's interested in Noom, you can just find it at noom.com. Where do we sign up for your newsletter? Oh, if you just go to my website, charlesduhigg.com, you'll find it there.
1:12:33Charles Duhigg:It's on Substack so people can find it by just searching for The Science of Better. Well, such a pleasure. Really appreciate your time. Absolutely. It's always such a treat to get a chance to spend some time with you. Thank you for having me. I want to thank everybody who worked so hard to make this show. 10 % Happier is produced by Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasili. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. DJ Kashmir is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.
1:13:06Also, one quick ask before I let you go. Head on over, please, to danharris.com to sign up for my weekly newsletter. Every Monday, I drop a little bit of goodness into your inbox. Mondays, especially Monday mornings, can be super stressful. So that is when I drop in one useful nugget that you can operationalize in your life immediately, either from ancient wisdom like Buddhism or from modern science. It's short, it's easy to read, it's worth it, it's free. Sign up at danharris.com.
1:13:42Thank you.
From the publisher
There's a three-part framework for analyzing, breaking, or building any habit. There's also a simple way to identify which ones might be "keystone habits" for you. And the surprising discovery of the GLP1 "habit window" suggests that some people may be benefiting more from the drugs than others.
Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and the author of The Power of Habit, which spent over three years on bestseller lists and has been translated into 40 languages; Supercommunicators, also a bestseller published in 2024; and Smarter Faster Better, a third bestseller. Mr. Duhigg writes for The New Yorker magazine and is a graduate of Yale University and the Harvard Business School. He previously wrote for The New York Times, and is a frequent contributor to CNBC, This American Life, NPR, and Frontline. He was also, for one terrifying day in 1999, a bike messenger in San Francisco.
In this episode we talk about:
- The cue-routine-reward framework that underlies every habit, good or bad
- The "golden rule" of habit change
- What "keystone habits" are and how to identify them in your own life
- Charles's 45-pound weight loss on a GLP-1 and what it revealed about "food noise"
- The GLP-1 "habit window," and why some people may benefit from GLP-1's more than others
- Kitchen-sinking: the habit where a fight about one thing becomes a fight about everything
- Meta-conversations: asking your partner what they actually need before you respond
Related Episodes:
- The Science of Effective Communication | Charles Duhigg
- Weighing The Extraordinary Benefits And Disturbing Risks Of The New Weight Loss Drugs | Johann Hari
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