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Basil Ganglia and Habit Formation

 Habit is the compromise between being completely controlled by our instinct and being completely free to make intentional decisions about whatever we want to do. It is the trade-off we have made between instinct and reason in order to maintain speed and efficiency. 

Though we have become more and more adept at making complex decisions, it would be too slow and inefficient to have to make decisions about every single thing we ever did on a day-to-day basis. 

To improve speed and efficiency for example, our brains developed the ability to do our most repetitive routines without making any decisions at all. We could do them by habit.

Habit formation works by passing control over the most routine behaviors to the more primitive basal ganglia. 

As we do a routine over and over again our brain can determine what prompts the routine to begin ("the cue") and what prompts it to end ("the reward") and creates a "chunk" of automatic behavior. 

Brushing your teeth is a "chunk." You get the cue (time for bed) and without wrestling with any complex decisions simply go through the motions of putting the toothpaste on the brush, brushing your teeth, and rinsing the brush. 

"Chunking" allows complex activities to be controlled by the super-efficient "lizard brain" of the basil ganglia. 

Learn more at the Ransford Global College online

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