Why Your Habits Don’t Stick – Neuroscience & The Subconscious Mind
- Feb 21, 2024
- 3 min read
Written by: Rocio Araujo, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
The year is in full swing, and with that, many of you probably have begun to lose track of the habits that you initially set for yourself at the start of the year. Feelings of incompleteness or sadness may arise if you realize that you haven’t stuck with what you promised yourself.
You may have started to feel unworthy, guilty, and in order to compensate, have started overdoing, stressing, and jamming as much as you can all of a sudden to compensate.
Do you relate?
If you do…you may be asking yourself, so how can I finally stick to my habits?
First, let’s uncover why your habits didn’t stick… Here is where the subconscious mind comes in. Your subconscious brain governs 95% of your emotions, actions and beliefs. The subconscious is your “unconscious” mind, or that which you are not aware of, but that is currently running your life. When you haven’t done the work to heal it, it continues to run your life and keeps you in the same cycles and patterns, essentially leaving you living in survival mode. It’s so hidden that you may not even be realizing it.
From ages 0-14, you absorb all the information that is currently stored in your subconscious mind. If at some point of your early life, you were made to feel that you were not good enough, or worthy enough, you will most likely find yourself procrastinating and sabotaging yourself.
All your brain wants to do is to translate your subconscious beliefs into your present day reality. If you have a belief that you are not “good enough,” your brain will purposefully sabotage you and keep you in procrastination loops in order to keep you safe. It’s what it knows.
So…what do I need to do to break this loop?
This is where somatic work and neuroplasticity come into play. Somatic work involves allowing your body to feel what it couldn’t feel in the past in order to fully process those emotions and release them. Breathwork, cathartic releases, punching, kicking and crying are all forms of somatic release. This starts teaching your body from the bottom up that it is safe in the present moment, regulating your nervous system.
The next step comes in the form of neuroscience. New findings in neuroscience, specifically through the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, have found that your brain has the capacity to completely transform itself and create new neural pathways. Everything is malleable, so it’s necessary to start enforcing new neural pathways in your brain to create new beliefs that it will then transfer into your reality.
The best way to do so is through hypnotherapy or hypnotic guided self-meditations. This will allow you to directly enter your subconscious mind and from that state, start rewiring and forming new beliefs, by closing out old ones and implementing new ones.
I really recommend subconscious healing sessions or hypnotherapy to kick start your journey through your subconscious mind. Working with someone who is guiding you through this is fundamental, as many feelings and emotions can come up.
Here are some ways you can increase your brain’s neuroplasticity and reinforce new neural pathways yourself:
Nourish Your Brain: Eat high quality foods and healthy fats including walnuts, avocado, blueberries.
Get High Quality Sleep: Aim to rest and get 7-9 hours of sleep daily. Your brain needs time to rest and recover.
Work with Affirmations & Daily Mantras: Choose 1-5 that work for you and write them down daily. Have them written down around your house. Repeat them while you shower. Your subconscious brain is ALWAYS listening.
Visualization & Meditation: Feel what it feels like to be in the energy of this person who sticks through to their habits. Spend time daily doing so.
To summarize, you are not alone if you haven’t found a way to stick to your habits! The good news? This is completely reversible. It all starts with you.
Rocio Araujo, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Rocio Araujo, is a certified holistic health coach, expert subconscious healer and breathwork facilitator. She specializes in helping chronic people pleasers and hyper-independent woman remove their tough exterior & tap into the power of who they truly are, behind all their masks. Her work revolves around awakening & diving to the root causes of her clients’ blockages, integrating the conscious and subconscious mind for long-lasting results. She is currently based in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, but works with clients world-wide, offering her services in both Spanish & English.
