Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results

Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. It will multiply whatever you feed it. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.

We all deal with setbacks but in the long run, the quality of our lives often depends on the quality of our habits.

But with better habits, anything is possible.

We have the brains of our ancestors but temptations they never had to face.

The trend is for rewards to become more concentrated and stimuli to become more enticing. Junk food is a more concentrated form of calories than natural foods. Hard liquor is a more concentrated form of alcohol than beer. Video games are a more concentrated form of play than board games

These are the supernormal stimuli of our modern world. They exaggerate features that are naturally attractive to us, and our instincts go wild as a result, driving us into excessive shopping habits, social media habits, porn habits, eating habits, and many others.

Online porn splices together stimulating scenes at a rate that would be impossible to replicate in real life

As Stephan Guyenet, a neuroscientist who specializes in eating behavior and obesity, says, “ We’ve gotten too good at pushing our own buttons.”

Other processed foods enhance dynamic contrast , which refers to items with a combination of sensations, like crunchy and creamy. Imagine the gooeyness of melted cheese on top of a crispy pizza crust, or the crunch of an Oreo cookie combined with its smooth center. With natural, unprocessed foods, you tend to experience the same sensations over and over—how’s that seventeenth bite of kale taste? After a few minutes, your brain loses interest and you begin to feel full. But foods that are high in dynamic contrast keep the experience novel and interesting, encouraging you to eat more.

Scientists refer to these exaggerated cues as supernormal stimuli . A supernormal stimulus is a heightened version of reality—like a beak with three red dots or an egg the size of a volleyball—and it elicits a stronger response than usual.