It’s 6:30 p.m. on a weeknight, and I’ve just gotten home from work. I’m hungry. It’s dark, cold, and rainy – a typical winter evening in Seattle. I walk into the welcoming warmth of my house. I want the comforting and soothing distraction of eating dinner, but I also have adult responsibilities: dog walking, household chores, and a couple of bills to pay.
I have a decision to make. I can eat dinner now, of course, and I fantasize for a moment that eating will magically transform my evening chores into something easy and fun. But experience has taught me otherwise. I know that the pleasure of eating will be diminished by the knowledge that when I am done, I must rally myself out into the chilly wetness with a dog that is oblivious to my fervent desire to climb into bed. And then there are those other chores that will either be ignored or performed grumpily and hastily.
We don’t think of delayed gratification as an essential prong of a neurologically hard-wired habit loop. We just remember the childhood “should’s” that shadow our adult activities: no dessert until you eat dinner, no television until your homework is done, for example. These parental dictates follow us through young adulthood, and with maturity and trial and error, we learn that enjoyable activities are enhanced when unfettered by nagging obligations.
Habit formation is the process of training our brains to anticipate a reward after a chosen behavior occurs. It’s the neurological equivalent of realizing that a hot shower feels better after a workout than after watching the morning news while consuming pastries. When starting an exercise habit, the reward comes after the workout but with time, the craving for the reward begins when the trigger event occurs, which can be a timer, an Outlook reminder, or seeing your gym bag by the front door.
You can help form an exercise habit, or any positive habit for that matter, by consciously rewarding yourself after exercise. Common rewards include a favorite coffee drink, social media time, audio books and podcasts, peppy music, or a tasty treat.
As for me, I’ve learned the delayed gratification lesson through years of repetition. So tonight, I’ll take a page from my exercise habit playbook and do my chores before easing into comfy clothes and slippers. I’ll relish the sweet sensation of eating dinner - without reproachful glances from a dog who wants her nighttime walk.
So, while I delay my reward, I immediately train my brain to hustle through the hard stuff in anticipation of unconstrained leisure time. Give me a happy, sleepy dog and the TV remote control, please!