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It might be a New Year, but the resolutions are the same – and our brain hampers our efforts to stick to them by expecting a reward for the bad habit.

It might be New Year, but our brains hamper our efforts to stick to our resolutions

Scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) have been studying how bad behaviour is hard-wired into our brains because dopamine – a pleasure-sensing chemical – conditions our brain to look out for a reward when we have that piece of chocolate or a crafty cigarette.

“Why are bad habits stronger?” said Dr Nora Volkow, director of NIDA. “You’re fighting against the power of an immediate reward. We all as creatures are hard-wired that way, to give greater value to an immediate reward as opposed to something that’s delayed.”

The striatum – a dopamine-rich part of the brain – memorises rituals and routines linked to getting a particular reward, reinforcing the connection each time. Eventually, the environmental cues trigger the striatum to make some behaviour almost automatic. Knowing this may help us replace the bad with good – repeat the new behaviour over and over again at the same time of the day to prompt the striatum to recognise the habit says Volkow.

Combined with our in-built expectation of reward is our tendency to overestimate our ability to resist temptation. “People have this self-control hubris, this belief that they can handle more than they can,” said experimental psychologist Loran Nordgren, an assistant professor at Northwestern University.

Nordgren showed heavy smokers a film that romanticises the habit and measured if they could watch it without smoking. Those who predicted they could resist a lot of temptation tended to hold an unlit cigarette, but were more likely to light up than those that put the cigarettes in another room.

“What you want to be thinking is ‘What in my environment is triggering this behaviour,’” said Nordgren. “You have to guard yourself against it.”