Your habits aren’t built by discipline — they’re built by dopamine. 🧠

In this episode, Emily breaks down how your brain wired behaviors through religion and reward — and why your old dopamine hits still drive your bad habits. You’ll learn how to retrain your brain is the same chemistry that created the loop in the first place. Then, Emily drops the step-by-step on how to unlearn toxic patterns, reward the right ones, and rebuild habits that actually stick.

SOURCES:

• Lerner T. et al., Northwestern Medicine (2022): Dopamine circuits and habit formation.

• Johns Hopkins University News Center (2018): “Why we keep doing things we know are bad for us” — red and green object reward study.

• Schultz W., Neuron (2016): Reward prediction error and anticipation.

• Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2019): Reward impact on habit formation.

• Lally P. et al., European Journal of Social Psychology (2010): 66-day habit average.

• Wood W., USC Behavioral Science Lab (2020): Habit substitution efficacy.

• Journal of Behavioral Decision Making (2021): Friction and automatic behavior change.