The Power of Habit

Prologue - In the prologue, the thing that caught my attention the most was the story of the woman. She had all of these bad habits along with her husband telling her he wanted a divorce. She reached a place where she wanted to better herself in which she did. She began taking time for herself in hopes of bettering herself.

·       Chapter 1 - At the very beginning of chapter 1, the author introduces E.P. who is suffering from an illness known as encephalitis. My first thought was that E.P. had either Alzheimer's or Dementia. His illness was very alarming because of the effects it can have on the brain, such as him not even remembering his own son.

·       Chapter 2 - Chapter 2 begins with the story of Hopkins and his friend that wants to him to advertise toothpaste. The thing that I found the most interesting was that around the time of World War I, brushing your teeth was not a part of people's daily routines. Today we do not think twice about brushing our teeth when we wake up in the morning and before we get in bed at night.

·       Chapter 3 - In Chapter 3, it uses football and the NFL as a demonstration of the Golden Rule of Habit Change. The chapter starts off telling the story of the Tampa Bay Bucs in 1996. They are having a terrible season and they have had terrible seasons for years. The coach at the time, Tony Dungy wanted to turn their fate around. He came up with a plan to use the same cue and provide the same reward and then change the routine.

·       Chapter 4 - The main idea in Chapter 4 is working your way up in your occupation. We see in this chapter that Duhigg uses the story of Alcoa and the employees have a craving for promotion in which we see Alcoa's institutional habit loop which includes cue, routine, and reward.

·       Chapter 5 - I really enjoyed that opening story about Travis and how his life turned around. Seeing how Starbucks impacted his life was very inspiring and motivational. I liked how the main focus was willpower because that is such an important skill to have in life.

·       Chapter 6 - My first thoughts when they talked about the Rhode Island Hospital was that I was somewhat shocked at how the nurses were being treated and in response, they came up with secret codes. The story about the old man who fell was very unsettling because the doctor refused to listen to the nurse's advice which could have ultimately been the cause of death of the old man.

·       Chapter 7 - This chapter talked about how target used data bases and statisticians to identify patterns within their customers. Once they identified these patterns based off the customers’ habits, they were able to send certain coupons and magazines to different people.

·       Chapter 8 - This chapter talks about how movements happen. It was discovered that a movement is created by three steps; 1: It starts because of social habits within friendships and having strong ties with acquaintances. 2: It grows because of the habits within the community and weak ties that present. 3: It endures because the leaders of the movement give new habits that create a feeling of identity and ownership. They used Rosa Parks as an example and how she used these steps during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When she was arrested, it triggered something within the community because of her strong and weak ties.

Chapter 9 - This chapter talks about the neurological aspects of habits and whether or not a person is responsible for them. The first example in this chapter is about a woman who became an obsessive gambler which ended up leaving her in debt. Every time she would try to stop gambling, if something went wrong in life and triggered the cue, she would quickly fall back into old habits. The gambling industry knows how to get into a gambler’s mind and mess with their habits in order to make them spend more money. The second example in this chapter is about a man who killed his wife during their sleep. The man suffered from sleep terror his whole life but had never harmed anyone. His charges ended up being let go as he was found not guilty because he could not control it. The book suggests that we know the habits in our lives and once we understand how to change them, we have the freedom to do that and it is our responsibility to.