Overcoming Limbic Friction: The Secret Method to Form and Maintain A New Habit

Forming A New Habit

Have you ever wondered why forming a new habit is so hard?

When I signed up for my first half-marathon, I remember feeling doubtful of my ability to finish the race. Given my endurance and physical fitness level, I couldn’t fathom the idea of completing a 21-kilometer run, especially since I could barely run for 10 kilometers. It was beyond what I could imagine.

Before signing up for the race, I occasionally ran only one time a week without forcing myself to push harder over time. I was aiming to get 5 km a day. I was in a comfortable state. No one pushed me around. No one whom I looked to as a source of fuel for inspiration. I didn’t know how to train effectively. And I didn’t have the self-motivation to push myself beyond my limits.

Until I signed up for a race.

After signing up, one of my friends introduced me to a running club. I had a trial run there and felt the energy emitted from the club and the training session. I surrounded myself with people who shared the same passion for running, had completed several marathons over the years, and ran long distances weekly with an average of 40–60 km mileage. This is why I decided to join the club.

I put myself in a new environment with new people and a new training program every week. Over the course of two months:

• I could ramp up my weekly training session from 1x to 3x.
• Improved mileage from 5 km to 40 km.
• Improved average pace from 8'00/km to 5'50/km.

I am not telling you that I never had bad days where my feet were cramped, hard to get out of bed early in the morning, tired, lazy, anxious, didn’t feel worthy, didn’t make any progress, felt insufficient, and discouraged. In fact, comparing myself with my friends, who were running faster and longer than me, made things worse. I felt weak and inferior to them.

Those feelings were all over my head every single day. But I kept on pushing for the goal because I had a big promise to myself. Now, the habit sticks to me. I keep pushing myself for some runs at least 3x times a week.

Fast forward to today, I was contemplating with myself how I could do that. How could I make a new habit and stick with it?

Four reasons had taught me how to form a habit and stick to it:

1. I signed up for a race. Race represents a big goal I need to achieve. Otherwise, it will be wasted. Race creates pressure — a pressure to keep moving forward as if death is approaching from behind. A huge force within me was driving me to conquer the race. I didn’t think I would write this post without a big goal.
2. I put myself in a new environment where running feels like fun rather than an obligation. I run to meet and train with new friends and hang out together. I control the environment, which puts me in a position where running is more accessible.
3. Team pressure. Most of my running team has been a runner at heart. They typically run for over 50 km of mileage, creating a beam of pressure for me to keep up with their performance. I felt insufficient and inferior, which pushed me to train for more.
4. I love the feeling after running. The hardest part about running has always been the process of running. The “Zero to 1”. Once you run, it gets easier over time, especially when dopamine rises. Everything feels so light, as if wings lift you.

The Importance of Limbic Friction

All those four reasons created an energy within me to overcome any mental hurdles I was facing: anxiety, low mood, laziness, discouragement, sluggishness, unworthiness, etc.

The energy gave me the power to form and stick to a habit for a long time. I couldn’t have achieved all that without the energy that played a massive role in my personal growth.

There’s a science for the energy in a single term called Limbic Friction.

Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and tenured professor at Stanford School of Medicine, first coined Limbic Friction. In his words:

Adjusting habits requires overcoming “Limbic Friction” (energy to overcome anxiety, procrastination, and fatigue). You’ll want to leverage the natural rhythms of your brain and body to make it more likely that you will engage or maintain habits.

With that said, understanding limbic friction is crucial for habit formation because it helps us gauge how easily or challenging it will be to form a certain habit. It’s also a useful metric to assess whether you’re likely to be able to break a habit you no longer want. Overcoming limbic friction can also put you in an advantageous position in a productive flow (writing, working on a project, designing, etc).

One way to find your limbic friction is by identifying the sources. Whether you are too tired or too anxious, you must understand where you are coming from and adjust accordingly based on your feelings. It requires your sense of deep awareness to get to the truth of the sort of emotion that you are experiencing.

How to Overcome Limbic Friction

Overcoming limbic friction means overcoming the resistance or a wall within that separates us from the state/behavior/habit/task we are trying to achieve. There are steps that we can take to overcome it:

1. Engage in a short activity

According to James Clear, The Author of Atomic Habits:

The most difficult part of a new habit is starting the behavior. It takes a lot of motivation to head to the gym after an exhausting day at work, but once you begin the workout, it doesn’t take much willpower to finish it.

Create a short activity related to the habit you’re avoiding:

• Want to run for 5 km? Put your shoes together, and go for a 5-minute run.
• Want to read more books? Start by reading five pages every day.
• Want to start writing? Write smaller tweets every day.
• Want to meditate? Meditate for 5 minutes in the morning.

These examples can help you escape the state of procrastination and get into the flow state immediately.

2. Do something worse

I know this sounds counterintuitive, but consider doing something worse than the habit or task you’re avoiding but still safe to do:

A cold shower and ice bath can be beneficial to handle the situation. Cold shower is the best motivation hack I’ve had in my arsenal. It gives me a sting of a jolt to get my mind and body electrified to move.

You can also go for a run or do 50 pushups to get that energy in or anything that feels harder than the task you are avoiding.

The idea is that doing something worse than what you are avoiding gives you more energy to do what you are supposed to be doing and gives you the momentum to tackle more challenging things along the way.

3. Leverage morning hours

The first 0 to 8 hours after waking up is when your mind is most alert and focused. It aligns with our natural body clock or circadian rhythm. During this time, it’s best to engage in more emotionally stimulating activities. This can help you overcome any resistance you face more easily.

If you feel more tired for a run in the afternoon, you need to do it in the morning. Same for the gym.

Leveraging morning hours has been beneficial for me to keep the habit going, especially for writing and meditating. I find myself more tired over time in the afternoon. It feels more challenging to do hard tasks around those hours. So, putting my demanding tasks and habits in the morning to have easier things that do not require a huge mental effort or limbic friction to get done later in the day.

4. Project your future rewards

Visualize how you would feel once you have accomplished a task or established a habit. You will likely be happy and satisfied. Bring that sense of future rewards to your present moment. It will help you motivate yourself to overcome any resistance you may face.

For instance, whenever I feel unmotivated or tend to procrastinate, I remind myself of the happiness I’ll feel after going for a run. It helps me focus on my goals and gives me the boost I need to take action.

It is crucial to understand that these strategies focus on utilizing our neural system to facilitate our progress instead of hindering it by overcoming the internal obstacles that prevent us from achieving our goals, whether physical or mental resistance.

These strategies serve as a valuable tool to help us combat resistance whenever we feel demotivated, unproductive, or anxious. So, let’s remember to use this tool to our advantage and overcome any obstacles that come our way