How To Prime Your Brain to do What You Want

Episode Transcript:

Amber Sobrio-Ritter:

Hello, this is the Divergent Fitness Podcast, the podcast that uses science to make you stronger, not smaller. I'm Amber Sobrio-Ritter. I'm a behavior analyst, trauma-informed weight inclusive personal trainer in the Bay Area and mom of three among many other things.

And I'm excited to share a little bit about behavior analysis. I studied this. This is a master's degree in psychology, and you have to be board certified to be a behavior analyst.

And it's really getting a good understanding of behavior and viewing it scientifically in a way that allows you to make modifications to the different sort of contingencies that are acting upon that behavior, causing that behavior to happen more or less often than what you want.

And today we are going to talk about setting events. So setting events, otherwise known as establishing operations, this is something that happens that primes you to potentially engage or not engage in a behavior.

So having a really long, hard stressful day at work, that might be a setting event that makes it less likely for you to go to the gym in the evening. Being super hungry is a setting event for eating a large meal, or making you hungry enough that large meal is really, really desirable in that moment.

And I really like to focus on setting events as one of the ways I support my clients because this allows you to identify, just really honestly and without attachment, the parts of your day that are more likely or less likely to make it so that you engage in a behavior.

Our behavior happens in a series of steps, and I don't subscribe to any kind of moral judgments around this kind of behavior. I really focus more on why is the behavior occurring? What's making it really challenging for that person to modify that behavior?

And then we modify those elements, we modify the things that are happening around the behavior instead of really focusing on the behavior specifically. So the reason that this is important to you as somebody who wants to change your behavior is that having an understanding of setting events makes it so that you're not fighting the inertia of your life and your day in order to engage in that behavior.

Andrew Huberman, neuroscientist at Stanford, kind of identifies this as limbic friction. So it's how hard your brain has to work to engage in a behavior. How challenging am I making this for myself? If I want to engage in a behavior, can you white knuckle it? Can you just say, I am doing this no matter how hard it is? Yeah, of course.

And we've all done that at times, but that's not sustainable. It has to be pretty easy in order for us to be able to do it consistently for long periods of time. So what I want to do is figure out how can we kind of hack the system so that it's easy for you, so that you're not relying on this insane willpower in order to be able to engage in this behavior consistently.

So there are two types of setting events. There are ones that are going to motivate you to engage in a behavior, and there are ones that are going to be more inhibitory towards that behavior. They're kind of going to abolish your desire to engage in that behavior. So I'm going to use two different behaviors to explain this.

Let's say a behavior that you want to increase and one that you want to decrease so that you can kind of understand how you can hack setting events to make that more likely to happen. So let's take for an example, a behavior that you want to increase.

Let's say you want to increase exercise behavior and some self-care behavior, and you're finding it really challenging. What you're doing is you're sort of asking yourself, what's necessary to engage in that behavior? Time and probably energy.

Potentially there are other more logistical things like having a gym membership, having access to the things that you need in order to be able to engage in that behavior. So we're going to look at time and energy as the biggest factors.

It's not really people's lack of logistic things that keep them from being able to engage in that behavior. Everyone knows how to buy a set of weights. Everyone knows how to get a gym membership. That's not the issue.

It's really going to come down to probably time and energy, which is really going to be one of those things that affects all of the behavior, why we're not engaging in that behavior, why we're over engaging in a different behavior is going to come down to probably time and energy.

So we're looking at time and energy and we're saying, what parts of the day are time and energy sparse? Where am I most busy and most stressed? And when I think about the expectations that we have on ourselves as adults, potentially as parents, is that the busiest time of the day, if you're being really honest with yourself, is probably the morning or the evening.

When you wake up, you're rushing through a morning routine to get everybody to school, if you have children. If you don't, you're rushing through your own morning routine to try and get yourself to wherever you need to be. You're tired, you just woke up. So time and energy are potentially a little more sparse.

And then you think about the evenings when you've had a full day of work, you're stressed, you're exhausted, you need to get home, you need to start dinner. Maybe if you have kids, you need to get homework going. This is another busy time of the day. You may have had this experience where you do this to yourself. I know I do this to myself.

Those busiest times of the day, I'm thinking I'm going to somehow evoke this superhuman willpower in order to be able to do this thing that's really, really hard to do, and I'm going to evoke that superhuman willpower forever. I'm just always going to be strong enough to do this.

This is always going to feel like a fit for me. And what happens is that typically you will get really excited about something, feel really motivated about some kind of fitness goal, and you can do that for a time. You can kind of push down those other desires, those other challenges, those other needs in order to temporarily focus on this one.

But over time you're recognizing, oh, this other part of my life that I really value is suffering. Or oh man, I'm feeling really stressed. In some ways this is contributing an additional layer of stress for me because I have to be rushing and working so hard to make this happen.

And so you're not able to sustain that over time and that's where it falls apart. So my job is to figure out, what are the setting events that are going to help myself and my clients be able to engage in that behavior? What's going to make it most likely? The other thing is that you have to be really honest with yourself about who you are.

Truly go inside of yourself, take a breath, close your eyes and say, all right, how do I usually feel at 5:00 AM? Do I feel peppy? Do I feel good? Do I feel ready to start the day? Do I feel grounded and balanced? Or do I feel exhausted and tired and grumpy and all of these other things?

Based on how you're feeling early, early morning workouts may or may not be a fit for you. I'll have people who are, myself included, at 5:00 AM not the kind of person that is going to really enjoy evoking some big amount of energy. First thing in the morning, I'm not looking to expend some energy immediately. I like to ease into the day a little bit.

And so you're being really honest with yourself. Like, no, I really like to start my day by easing into it, but where am I going to figure out how to fit this movement? Because this is really important to me. Let me look at my evenings. How are my evenings looking?

And it might be the same thing, based on how your evenings look. You might go inside yourself and say, okay, I do not feel great in the evenings. I'm so busy, I've got to do this list of tasks. Maybe not a good time.

But there's some give there, because the evening could be between 6:00 and 9:00, so it's like maybe I don't do it first thing, but maybe later on in the evening or maybe earlier in the evening, but then I still have time for other things.

So you're kind of, again, looking at that saying, is this right for me? Is this time the right time to increase my workout behavior, my exercise, self-care behavior? And if not, is there a portion of time within that time? Not just like, oh, nights don't work for me?

We can be more nuanced than that because if let's say you're carving out 20 to 30 minutes, the night has some more space in it. If energy is the issue, maybe we're looking at the morning or the midday or the early afternoon. Like really being flexible about how you do this.

It's the lack of flexibility that makes it so hard to sustain fitness behavior because if it has to be done at this time of night and it has to be done in this duration, I have to do the full workout, this rigidity keeps us from doing anything. So then you're just stuck doing nothing because the plan that you have devised isn't working, but there's no backup.

And what I've been trained to do is to have a plan B, C D E, F, all the way down until there's a bare minimum plan where you're like, I got nothing left. Everything went wrong today. I have no time or energy. How can I still care for myself?

How can I still find some way to go inside of myself and care for all the parts that continue to exist in the world and help me do all of the things that I need to do? How can I still care for them in even the tiniest way? And in that way, myself and my clients don't have to feel like, oh my gosh, I'm failing. I'm not motivated enough. I'm lazy.

And it's more like, cool, today it was plan F and tomorrow would be plan A, and that's just how it works. I'm just going to flow along that spectrum of options that are available to me that I've been gentle and gracious enough with myself to offer to myself. Now, for example, let's take a behavior that you want to decrease.

And so you're thinking, okay, how can I decrease this behavior? Personally, I think I prefer to focus on how can we increase a behavior versus decrease a behavior. Because as you sort of increase a more potentially healthful behavior, this one is probably going to go down its own. There's going to be this sort of inverse effect between the two.

So when I'm thinking about decreasing a behavior, let's say decreasing a behavior of overeating, I'm looking at what are the setting events that are contributing to that? Okay, so let's say the setting events that prime me for overeating are going to be stress and a lack of options, or potentially restriction.

I would say I see those three things as being really big reasons. So you're looking at stress. Okay, now you're identifying when is the time of the day that I am most stressed? I am likely to be at a 10. During those times of day you're creating strategies around, okay, I have these sort of really convenient snacky food that are not in line with the choices I want to make.

I kind of have those somewhere that they're not, visually, I can't see them, they're not within my visual field, so I'm going to potentially forget about them a little bit, make it a little bit harder for me to gain access to them and I'm going to have other things out and ready and available.

The thing that's good for me is going to be the easy button. So instead of focusing on, oh, just decrease your consumption of really processed high caloric snacky foods, it's like increase your consumption of this other kind of food that is more in line with whatever your health goals are at the time.

And as this one happens, this one just naturally goes down. Think about yourself. If someone says, "Don't do that, you're not allowed to have it." There's this knee jerk reaction to be like, "Don't tell me what to do. I'm going to have it if I want to have it."

And so it's interesting because the thing that you are rebelling against is yourself. It's yourself that said, don't have that. And then another part of the self is like, don't have what to do. And then there's this sort of ongoing fight.

And so instead it's like, hey, how about you can have that if you want it, but let's make this thing really, really, really easy. Let's make this thing as easy to access as this other thing. So if you have Oreos in a dish and you have some chopped strawberries, you're not telling yourself you can't have the Oreos, but you're making the strawberries as available and as convenient and as accessible.

And so in that moment, you're not making the choice based on convenience. You're not making the choice based on setting events. You're setting event of being tired, stressed, I'm hungry. So instead of focusing on decreasing that behavior, you're just saying to yourself, Hey, when I'm tired, stressed, and hungry, I need things to be easy.

And that's okay. That's fair. There's no judgment around that. There's no shame. I need things to be easy. So then you choose to make those behaviors that you want to engage in easier so that now it's a fair a fight. It's a fair competition.

If I have Oreos that are quickly accessible right here, nothing against Oreos, by the way, just using this as an example, these are super accessible. I'm super hungry and I'm stressed, and food provides me with comfort too, and they're in competition with the produce that I maybe don't even have in the house.

So I'd have to drive to the store to buy some produce to make that decision over the Oreos or potentially some snack that needs preparation. Let's say I love apples, but I only like to eat them sliced, or I have oranges, but I have to peel it.

There's all these different sort of barriers that make this thing just a tiny bit harder than this thing, and I know it seems like, and you should be able to say, okay, it's going to take me 30 seconds to chop the apple. Just chop the apple. It's just not the way human behavior works.

Something if it adds a delay, if it adds some limbic friction of five seconds, it could be enough to keep you from engaging in that behavior that you want to engage in. Let me give you an example. I have a water bottle that requires me to take off the lid. When I use that water bottle, I never drink water.

How long does it take? This seems in my mind, the judgemental part of me sees this as kind of ridiculous. Like really, it takes you five seconds to open the water and you're not going to do it. So there's this feeling of like, are you kidding, Amber? You can do that.

And yet there's the reality of the fact that I don't do it. And so instead of fighting with that reality and judging that reality like, what is wrong with you? You're so lazy. So this, you're so that. It's just like, I just don't drink water when there's a cap on it.

And so then I get water bottles that are just a straw where you literally pick it up and it's straight into your mouth, that's really quick. I want something, I have it immediately. And the brain likes that. And it's that few extra seconds that I save that means my water consumption increases by three times. It's incredible.

So these kinds of things, not judging them, not fighting with them, just acknowledging them and saying, all right, this is the way it is, this is how we change human behavior. So you're recognizing the evening you need things to be easy, make them easy for yourself. Be so kind.

Don't think to yourself, I'm going to be this different person tonight than I was last night because I'm going to actually make that right choice. You're not a different person. You're the same person, and that's okay.

It might feel weird to just be like, no, I don't want to be that person last night. I want to be this different person tonight. I want to keep pushing myself. The problem is, it's too much. You need to notice where you are right now and just go right here.

Instead, here's where you are right now, you're trying to go here. It's so unkind. It's like, why can't I be this person? I don't know, because it's really hard. Behavior change is really hard. How about you're this person and let's just start there and then you can kind of build it in over time.

That is the way to sustain more healthful and self-care behavior is just to make it so easy. To make it as easy as the thing that you are not wanting to engage in. To make it as easy as binging Netflix, which again, nothing wrong with that. There's a time and a place for Oreos and Netflix binging.

And yet my job is not to teach people how to do that more often because that's easy. My job is to take the hard thing and make it feel easy. So that's kind of an example of how I would take a behavior that I want to increase and a behavior that I want to decrease into consideration, how I would change them, how I would begin to look at them with my clients.

One thing that I do want to add is in addition, when it comes to a behavior that you want to decrease, I sort of flipped it, and we focused on a behavior to increase instead. Make more healthy snacks or more nutrient dense snacks, make them easy to access. So this one naturally increases, but how can you even still give yourself a slightly higher possibility of being successful?

Is not only do you make that thing that you want to engage in easy, you make that other thing just a little harder. So I just say, all right, all the more helpful nutrient dense snacks are easy to access in the front of the fridge, in the front of the cabinets, and the Oreos who happen to be my scapegoat for the day is going to be on the top third shelf.

In order to access it, I need a step letter. And you're not taking them out of your house. You're not getting weird about it. You're not being restrictive and bingy and whatever. You're just saying, sure babe, if you want it, you can have it, but let's make sure that you actually want it.

Because how often do you just come in, you're primed, you're setting vent for whatever is just ready in your body. You are primed like a washed cloth soaked in gasoline to be lit up by whatever is going to soothe what's happening in here. What's what's going to make this feel better, I am primed to access that thing.

And so what you're doing is you are buying yourself a little bit of time because the second this system that's a little bit dysregulated comes into contact with something that's going to make it feel better, there's not going to be time to think. It's like, bam. Like you walked into the kitchen before, see something on the counter and you're eating it before you even asked yourself, do I want to eat this?

There was no time. And it's in that space, it's in that little bit of time where we make changes in our lives, where we make decisions that then lead us towards this trajectory that we want to be on. And so as you come in, you've got the strawberries in your mouth without thinking, okay, cool, I'm providing myself with some comfort, but not in a way that's going to hurt me potentially later.

And do I want to Oreo? I remember I have Oreos in the cupboard. As you're reaching for the step stool, as you're stepping up on it, as you're having time, a few seconds, you're like, do I want this? Actually, I have this other thing that's available.

So now there's a little bit of space between primed me to engage in whatever behavior and access to that thing. There's a little space there, and it's within that space that I make my mindful decision. Mindfully eat all the Oreos you want, just do it mindfully. Just make sure that that's what you want.

And if you want it, then have it. So there's a quick tutorial on setting events. We can, and we'll dive deeper into this. Actually, on the next podcast episode, I'm going to be focusing on how trauma is a setting event for engaging in certain behaviors or not engaging in other behaviors.

I did a trauma-informed certification in November, and it was really transformative and important to acknowledge how trauma is another sort of physiological experience, and you carry it with you all of the time, and so naturally it's going to affect your behavior.

So I'm going to talk a little bit about trauma as a setting event and continue to dive into more examples. So stay tuned. Thank you for joining today. It's awesome to be able to disseminate behavior analysis in a new way.

The modification of human behavior does not only apply to specific populations, it applies to everyone who is engaging in behavior, which is all of us. So have a wonderful week and I'll see you next time. Bye.