Since I was like 16 all the self-help books seemed kind of cringe to me. This is because to my eyes they don’t teach you much if you have common sense. But this book has gotten me into thinking otherwise.

This book is about habits (obviously) their role in our lives, companies, and society.

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I consider “The Power of Habits” by Charles Duhigg to be a very interesting read. It is great combination of medical research and interesting examples, and it has a hopeful message that any of us can change our lives for better by just creating the correct habits.

This is my first book review, but I think the way I’m going to approach it is by creating two or sometimes three sections of bullet of points, encapsulating these three ideas: what I learned with this book, some of the most interesting fun facts, and optionally, plans for me using this knowledge. I think the last one is more useful with self-help books.

What I Learned

  • The basal ganglia basically stores our habits, this is because the brain constantly looks for striving less. By creating habits the brain reduces its activity, allowing it to “rest” while the habits take over.
  • The cerebral loop of a habit is the following: signal, routine, and prize.
  • Once a habit is established, over time, neurologically it will receive the prize even before doing the routine because of the anticipation. But if the reward doesn’t come it will cause neurological anxiety.
  • Craving the reward of the routine is part of creating the habit, because it self-drives us to repeat itself, this even overcome temptations.
  • You can’t get rid of a bad habit but you can change it, by using the same signal and reward, but modify the routine.
  • It’s way easier to create new habits in a community because all members start to have faith in it.
  • The most important habits are the ones that when you start to change, will replace and modify other patterns, these habits are known as small triumphs.
  • If our environment changes, it will flourish new habits, and with the right environment any hard decision will become easy.
  • Willpower is not a virtue, it is half habit, half muscle, it needs to be trained, having a plan when it fails will lead to a greater success rate.
  • Our brain is wired in a way that we prefer things that we already know, so completely new stuff causes neurological stress.
  • There also are social habits that cause strong and weak bonds, they cause friendships and social pressure, and when these two work together can change our social structure.
  • In order to change a habit you need to recognize it and take control over it.

Fun (Kinda Unrelated) Facts

  • A company named Pepsodent basically invented a new habit out of thin air so people brush their teeth with a product they sell.
  • The product Febreze actually was created to remove unwanted smells, but it was transformed to a house perfume since everybody gets accustomed to smelly stuff.
  • Football coach Tony Dungy coached the Buccaneers and Colts teams by only focusing on their role not the whole game.
  • Alcoholics Anonymous is an organization that creates a community and inserts God into their life so they can change in a group.
  • Newly acquired Alcoa’s CEO Paul O’Neil focused on the safety inside its factories and doubled the stock price of the company.
  • Starbucks taught their employees to regulate their emotions and self-discipline so service was better disregarding the clients' attitude.
  • The Rhode Island Hospital created habits on the fly to please doctors and these led to a lot of missed surgeries on several patients.
  • The rail hub King’s Cross once had an explosion, this was lately attended because of the miscommunication the departments have between them.