Breaking the Habit Loop: The Power of Mindfulness
3 min. read
“Between Stimulus and Response there is Space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lays our Growth and Our Freedom.” - Viktor Frankl
Habits shape our daily lives, often without us even realizing it. They start subtly, but our brains are always watching: Is this something we do often? If the answer is yes, the brain will work on optimizing it—making the behavior easier, more automatic. This is the habit loop in action: a cue triggers a routine, leading to a reward.
Some habits serve us well. Others—like mindless scrolling, stress eating, or overanalyzing—quietly take hold, consuming time and energy without us even noticing. The real challenge? We don’t realize how quickly the habits form until they’ve already shaped us or started to disrupt our lives. Over time, they become part of our identity, influencing how we think, feel, and behave.
This is why awareness is essential. Frankl’s quote highlights the power of the space between stimulus and response—the moment where we can pause, reflect, and choose. This is where mindfulness comes in. By paying attention to our habits, we regain control over them. Instead of operating on autopilot, we become intentional about the behaviors we reinforce.
Our brains function in two modes:
🧠 System 1—automatic, fast, unconscious (where habits live)
🧠 System 2—deliberate, effortful, conscious, goal directed (where reason resides and change happens)
Most habits reside in System 1, running on autopilot. That’s why we reach for a snack when bored, check our phones when anxious, or overthink a simple text message without realizing it. So, how do we break free from unhelpful habits? We become Mindful.
Mindfulness—simply put—is the act of paying nonjudgmental attention to the present moment (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Instead of reacting impulsively, we observe. Instead of getting lost in thoughts, we return to the present.
The Science of Habit Change: Adjusting Reward Value
While exploring the connection between mindfulness and habits in my academic research, I came across a fascinating mathematical concept: the reward value of an action. In 1972, Rescorla and Wagner introduced a reinforcement learning formula that remains widely used today. This formula helps explain how our brains adjust behavior based on past rewards, shedding light on why certain habits persist—and how we can change them.
Vt+1 = Vt + αδt
The perceived value of an action (Vt+1) is based on its past reward (Vt) and an error term (αδ t). This error term helps us adjust our expectations:
Positive Prediction Error: If an action is more rewarding than expected, we repeat the behavior
Negative Prediction Error: If an action is less rewarding, we abandon it.
Mindfulness allows us to interrupt this cycle by reassessing the “reward” of a habit. Often, we assume a behavior helps us when in reality, it only offers short-term relief with long-term consequences.
Dr. Judson Brewer explored this relationship in depth after realizing that forceful attempts to break habits often failed. Many of his patients, for example, had tried to quit smoking multiple times without success. Then, he came across a Buddhist teaching that suggested if we fully explore gratification to its end it may lead to disenchantment with behaviors that no longer serve us (Brewer, 2024). In fact, in his experiment, he asked his patients to smoke and report the sensations they noticed. He asked the smokers to become mindful and many realizes that smoking tasted awful.
Let’s switch to another example. There have been a significant amount of research conducted that focused on anxious thinking (or automatic negative thinking). This is one of the most prevalent conditions in our society. We often think of anxiety as something we simply have to manage, but what if it’s actually a habit? Anxious thinking—like other habits—operates in a loop: cue, routine, reward. For example, uncertainty (cue) triggers worry (routine), which provides a false sense of control (reward). Over time, this pattern becomes automatic.
As I was preparing for my presentation, I came across two fascinating studies from 2020 and 2021 that completely reshaped how I think about anxiety. Instead of just something to manage, anxiety can actually be a habit—one that mindfulness can help break. Roy at al. 2020, 20201 explored the impact of app-based mindfulness training, focusing on mapping anxiety habit loops, recognizing the effects of worry, and replacing it with curiosity as a more rewarding alternative. The results were eye-opening. After 1 month anxious physicians saw a 57% reduction in anxiety symptoms with daily use, while those with Generalized Anxiety Disorder experienced an even more dramatic 67% decrease—compared to just 14% with standard clinical care after 2 months. Awareness is a critical ingredient for behavior change.
Next time you catch yourself in an unwanted habit, pause and ask:
What am I really seeking here?
Is this truly rewarding, or just a short-term fix?
What would happen if I simply observed instead of reacted?
Use curiosity as your tool—it’s your superpower!
Lasting change doesn’t come from force; it comes from awareness. And mindfulness is the key that brings that awareness to life.
