Unstoppable Brain: My Summary & Takeaways

In this blog, I share my summary and takeaways from the book Unstoppable Brain by Dr. Kyra Bobinet.

I had two people recommend that I read this book in the space of a week, so I figured I should probably check in out.  Having now read it, there are two things that I love about it.  One is that it explores one very specific part of the brain that I have never heard of before -- the habenula --and the other is that it builds upon another book that figures prominently in my thinking -- Carole Dweck's Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. 

First, I'll give a quick summary of the book's contents and then, I'll go through my 10 takeaways that I found either surprising or enlightening.

Dr. Kyra Bobinet is a medical doctor with a masters in public health.  In her book, Unstoppable Brain, she argues that SMART goals and performance-based approaches to behavior change might work well in the short term, but when you are looking for long-term change, those types of goals cause problems.  She claims that, when inevitably, you fail to meet those inflexible goals or fall off the wagon, it can lead to feelings of failure and shame. Feelings of failure activate a part of your brain called the habenula. The habenula does 2 things -- it scans for possibilities of failure (in other words, it is a failure detector) and when it finds them, it shuts down motivation.  So, in other words, when you think you have failed at something or think you might fail at something, the habenula kills your motivation to keep doing it. We will go into this in the takeaways, but she covers the various types of failure thinking and shares the best way to neutralize that style of thinking so that we can all be more motivated to change in healthy ways.

So, let's get into the takeaways:

1. Performance Mindset - what are these goals that lead us directly to failure thinking?  They are performance-based goals.  In other words, they tend to be achievement based - 10 sit ups a day or losing 25 pounds or getting a book published.  We have all been trained to create these goals -- remember SMART goals?  Those are a form of achievement goals.  Setting these contribute to a performance mindset, which are okay for a sprint, but not great if we are running a marathon.  Anytime we do something that is not sustainable for the long term (a cleanse diet, 30 day challenge, hiring a trainer), it's performative with usually temporary results. Performance based goals trigger feelings of self protection rather than true learning.

2. Habenula > Dopamine - we've all heard about how dopamine is the motivation neurotransmitter, but we hear less about the role that the habenula plays in motivation.  If dopamine is the accelerator, the Habenula is the brake.  And according to the author, the habenula is way more powerful than dopamine.  You just need a tiny tap on the brakes to bring the entire behavior change project to a halt.  Apparently all animals have a habenula -- including fish. This area of the brain scans for potential or perceived failure and helps us survive.  After all, animals don't live long if they kept doing dangerous or stupid things, so it makes sense that the habenula is powerful, but it can get in the way of healthy behavior change as well.

3. Habenula Metaphor Sandwich - I like visual metaphors and I particularly liked this one.  The bottom layer of bread is the attempted behavior change -- say running 2 miles every day, the meat is the habenula that detects you have failed to do this for the past 2 days, the spicy condiments is the kill switch that the habenula applies, and the top piece of bread is the even worse behavior that you use to cover up feelings of inadequacy and failure like the donuts that you just binge ate.  Apparently this is how feelings of failure result in not only not achieving our goals, but also triggering all kinds of addictive behaviors.

4. Oxytocin - I know of oxytocin as the cuddle hormone.  It's a neurotransmitter that we release when we snuggle with our loved ones, but I had no idea that it plays such a pervasive role in healthy habits.  In fact, it's daughter molecule GLP-1 is the hormone that drugs like Ozembic and Wegovy mimic to promote weight gain.  There is also some exciting stuff happening around these drugs regarding addiction and dementia, so watch this space!

5. Types of Failure Thinking - so, apparently, human beings have come up with all kinds of ways to label our efforts or ourselves a failure.  Here are some of the ways the author mentions:

   • All or nothing thinking (now that I've slipped up, I might as well quit altogether),

   • Shoulding (I should be better, it shouldn't be this hard, I should be making more progress, etc.),

   • Comparison thinking (I'm not good enough, my efforts are not as good as. . . ),

   • I used to be . . . (skinnier, better at this, the life of the party),

   • Doom and gloom thinking (it's never going to work, nothing ever works for me, I've tried everything,

   • Imposters syndrome (it's just a matter of time before everyone finds out that I'm not good enough, a failure, inadequate, etc.).  Each of these types of failure thinking serves to shut you down to trying again, trying something new, or persevering.

6. Behavior change - changing behavior takes an extraordinary amount of energy.  And the author says there are really only 2 ways that we can sustain change - through changing our habits or through a significant emotional event (SEE) -- either positive or negative.  A positive SEE would be an experience involving awe and a negative one might be a traumatic event.  In addition, our brain only wants to invest energy in the change process if we are doing one of three things: saving time or energy, saving face or our reputation, and saving our life or survival.

7. A Year to Make a Habit - you know that idea we've all had that it takes 21 days to build a habit?  Throw that out the window.  Apparently it takes a year or more of daily or multiple times a week repetition to build a habit. She says you can't build a new habit directly on top of an old one and replace it.  Instead, you are building a new road and sometimes, particularly when you are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT), you will find yourself on the old road.  The key is to remember how to quickly get back on the new one that you are building.

8. Iterative Thinking - don't set SMART goals or performance metrics, instead, think of everything as an experiment with the goal of "let's see if this works."  So, with flexible, iterative thinking, it's not about reaching the goal or not, which promotes black and white failure thinking, but instead wondering "Does this work?  Nope. Time to try something else!" Research shows that this is the way to successfully keep weight off and build better habits.  It is also the only tried and true way to sidestep the habenula's motivation kill switch.

9. ITERATES Tips - the author give a handy acronym to kick start ideas for how to experiment with iterative learning.  I love acronyms and this is a handy tool to start brainstorming on what things to shift and try out to determine what works well for you it includes things like playing with timing, the environment, finding inspiration, adding things, taking things away, changing expectations, and doing things with a group or friend, and making substitutions.  Each of these tips helps you create different experiments to figure out what works best for you in this moment. And finally,

10. Communal Iteration - we all know what it feels like to work hard at political, environmental, or societal change and then have an election, ruling, or outcome not go our way.  It can be tempting to get into a failure mindset and want to give up.  The author promotes using flexible, iterative thinking with these larger goals as well to continue to act courageously.  Without that we are in danger of shutting down in depression, anger, denial, or anxiousness. Iterative thinking and experimenting are the only ways to push forward and continue to move the needle on big changes that are important to us.

    
    

And that's it!  I am blessed to be from a family where iterative thinking and growth mindset is the norm, but for many people, performance-based thinking impacts the way think about themselves and limits how much they can change.  If this summary appealed to you, I would definitely recommend reading the book.  And let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for reading.