In this episode, Catherine Gray discusses her new book about “little addictions” and the big impact of transforming your habits for a healthier life. She explores how everyday compulsions like excessive screen time, snacking, or people pleasing are driven by ancient brain wiring and dopamine. Catherine shares practical strategies for managing these habits, emphasizing environmental changes, self-compassion, and shifting reward systems. The conversation highlights the importance of awareness, reframing language, and building mental strength, offering listeners actionable tools to regain control over their “tiny but mighty” compulsions and make more intentional choices.
Exciting News!!! Coming in March, 2026, my new book, How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life is now available for pre-orders!
Key Takeaways:
- Exploration of “little addictions” and their impact on daily life.
- Discussion on the neuroscience of addiction, particularly the role of dopamine.
- Examination of the difference between “little addictions” and clinical addictions.
- Strategies for managing compulsive behaviors and creating healthier habits.
- The importance of environmental factors in shaping behavior and habits.
- Insights on the internal conflict between the impulsive limbic system and the self-regulating prefrontal cortex.
- The concept of “dopamine shifting” to redirect reward systems toward healthier activities.
- Personal anecdotes illustrating the challenges and successes in overcoming compulsions.
- The significance of language in framing choices around habits and self-control.
- Practical tools and apps to help manage technology and behavioral addictions.
Catherine Gray is the author of six books, including The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober. Little
Addictions is her seventh. She’s sold well over half a million books in English-speaking
territories alone, and her books have been translated into fourteen languages. With a background in journalism, she has written for The Guardian, Grazia, Stylist, The Telegraph and many more. In 2018, Catherine founded charitable campaign Sober Spring, a three-month sabbatical from alcohol, with Alcohol Change UK, for whom she is an ambassador. She’s been sober since 2013.
Connect with Catherine Gray Website | Instagram | X
If you enjoyed this conversation with Catherine Gray, check out these other episodes:
Understanding Identity and How Our Past Shapes Who We Become with Catherine Gray
Rethinking Addiction and Identity with Catherine Gray
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Episode Transcript:
Catherine Gray 00:00:00 Our brains really haven’t evolved that much since hunter gatherer times. And so what’s happening is a lot of these things that we find so impossible to put down are pressing on ancient urges.
Chris Forbes 00:00:21 Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
Eric Zimmer 00:01:06 Our guest today is one of my favorite guests of all time. She is one of two people to have appeared on the show now five times.
Eric Zimmer 00:01:15 Her name is Katherine Gray. She’s an English writer. She approached me years ago because she loved the podcast and talked about it in her first book, The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober. And we’d become friends in the years since, and her new book is really, really timely. It is called Little Addictions Freedom from our tiny but mighty compulsions. And she really makes the point that we all have these little addiction. You know, maybe we wouldn’t call them addiction, but we know the feeling of, you know, we keep clicking next episode or we keep checking email again, or we scroll a little bit longer or one more snack and we talk about how the part of the brain that wants what it wants now needs to be balanced with the part of our brain that can zoom out and choose the long term picture. And then we talk about some tools that make that actually more likely to happen. So if you’ve ever thought, why am I doing this again, this episode is going to be great for you.
Eric Zimmer 00:02:15 I’m Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi Catherine, welcome to the show again.
Catherine Gray 00:02:21 Thank you. I’m very grateful to be back for, I think, the fifth time.
Eric Zimmer 00:02:27 You and one other person are in the top spot for visits.
Catherine Gray 00:02:32 I love that. Well, as you know, this is my favorite podcast, so I am delighted to be here again.
Eric Zimmer 00:02:38 Well, I’m so happy to have you on. We’ve talked many times before and you and I got a chance to meet each other in Cornwall this summer. Ginny and I were planning a trip over there and you said, I’m going to Cornwall for a vacation. And I said, all right, we’ll go there too.
Catherine Gray 00:02:56 It was joyous to meet finally after many years. I think it’s been nine years of talking. Yeah, I.
Eric Zimmer 00:03:05 Think.
Catherine Gray 00:03:05 So. We finally get to meet in real life. and we had such a beautiful afternoon, didn’t we? Eating chips and watching the sunset.
Eric Zimmer 00:03:13 We did. It was very, very lovely.
Eric Zimmer 00:03:15 And I appreciated the Cornwall in reference or invitation because Cornwall was amazing.
Catherine Gray 00:03:22 Yeah, it’s stunning there.
Eric Zimmer 00:03:23 Yeah. So let’s talk about your latest book. Your latest book is called Little Addictions Freedom from our tiny but mighty Compulsions. What led you to doing a book like this, given some of your past work on not drinking and giving up drinking? What brought you to the point where this was what you were really interested in?
Catherine Gray 00:03:45 Well, I don’t know whether you will relate, but even though I’ve cracked my big addictions, clinical addictions, I would say, of alcohol. And then there was cigarettes and then there was love. So I did a year of dating. Even though I’ve cracked those open, I still keep finding it’s almost like a giant Russian stacking doll. I just keep finding more dolls. So the ever descending in size, these addictions. But they’re still there and they’re ignorable. And so now I think I’m dealing with, you know, the tiniest of dolls, but they still sort of take me over.
Catherine Gray 00:04:28 And if I use them too much, it really affects my mental health. And I find that also they tend to live in clusters. So if I have a day where I use lots of my little addictions in a way that isn’t in my best interests, they all come together all at once. And so I will, you know, start the day to too tired because last night I clicked. Next episode instead of going to bed. And then I’ll have more caffeine than I should and more sugar than I should. And I’ll reach for nicotine and I’ll spend too much time on social media. And then by the end of the day, my mental health is a four. You know, when I want it to be more like an eight. So that’s what I’m grappling with right now. Nobody’s worried about me now. I don’t have any big clinical addictions, but I know, I know that I could be doing better when it comes to regulating my use of these things, but I had no idea how to moderate because I don’t want to quit any of these things apart from nicotine.
Catherine Gray 00:05:37 But that’s a that’s a side story. But yeah, I want to use them in a balanced way. So I went out into the world and asked two dozen experts, how do I do this? You know, how do I down regulate my use of this thing to the actual amount I intend to use, you know, rather than finding that my actual usage outstrips that consistently. So that was the mission behind this book.
Eric Zimmer 00:06:01 And so words are important. You’re a writer and obviously you care a lot about words. Using the word addiction for these smaller things is a feeling. I have mixed feelings about. What led you to what to use that word.
Catherine Gray 00:06:17 I mean, I get it, and I, I can understand why people who’ve really grappled with a clinical addiction would have mixed feelings about that. And one of the things that I’ve done in the book to sort of proof against that is there’s a big table at the start where I consulted a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist about what is the difference between a little addiction, what I’m calling, and a big addiction so that nobody is going into this book with a big addiction, thinking I’m going to moderate down my big addiction to alcohol using this book.
Catherine Gray 00:06:50 You know, it’s made really clear right from the get go. Little addiction is just a colloquial term that I have made up, you know. and if you do have anything larger than a little compulsion, then abstinence is probably the best option. And here are the resources you should go to. So, I mean, if if a little addiction doesn’t do it for you, you can think of it as like tiny habits or but they’re just destructive habits, you know, they’re not they’re not healthy ones, but I, I understand your consternation. You know, it is a big word to be using. But for me also, I think it’s important that we see addiction as a spectrum, because that’s how I do see it. And I think if you find that tipping point where your actual use of a thing is starting to tip beyond what you want it to be, that is when an addiction is, it’s just the seed, you know, it’s the it’s an addiction in its infancy. and I think it’s really important that we’re all aware of that liminal space where, you know, we’re starting to to make decisions that aren’t in our best interests.
Catherine Gray 00:08:02 So for that reason, I think it’s defensible. Just.
Eric Zimmer 00:08:07 Yeah, one of the things that I see happen a lot and I kind of in general wrestle with is this idea of we we tend to over pathologies, normal human behavior sometimes these days. Right. Everything gets a diagnosis which it can be very helpful. And again I think the key here is what words work and help. Because on the other hand arguing on the other side on your side. Addiction to me is all about loss of control. That’s what it is. It’s not about consequences. It’s it’s about am I in charge of whether I do this thing or not? Yeah. Do I feel like I’m calling the shots on this? Yeah. And so in that way. Right. Many of these little things, you know, we aren’t calling the shots on. And I like that what your book does a nice job of is I think it threads the needle. Well between you got to treat this like it’s some really big deal. And look, here’s some simple things you can do that’s going to make it a little bit easier to do this, because I think we all want to cope.
Eric Zimmer 00:09:11 We all have coping mechanisms of different sorts and some are healthier than others. And I don’t think that’s going to go away or a bad thing. But the book really gives us tools for thinking about it and taking the actions we want to to change it. It’s interesting. And then I’m going to stop a monologue because this is your interview. But I interviewed I, I interviewed a guy from the UK named Pete Etchells. Are you familiar with Pete?
Catherine Gray 00:09:36 No.
Eric Zimmer 00:09:37 He wrote a book about screen time, and he was he was sort of pushing back on the Jonathan Haidt and that group who were like, screens have ruined an entire generation of children and saying like, the science isn’t all the way in on that. And he said something, though that I thought was interesting. He said, the way we talk about our, our phones is we talk about them as if they are super addictive. And he said, that’s what our experience is. But to what degree is that experience colored by the fact that we think that they’re addictive or bad, which I just thought was an interesting counterpoint.
Catherine Gray 00:10:14 Yeah, that is really interesting. And there’s a study that echoes that, actually, which I’m sure he’s probably sighted, where if people think of their social media use as an addiction, they are more likely to use it in an addictive way. which I don’t want to go too far down that path because it might ruin my breakfast. But I do think I do think there’s there is a nuance, though, that is this. Most people out there are grappling with some sort of thing, whether it’s porn or coffee or gaming or a gambling app on the phone or buying turtlenecks, you know that they do a little too much of. And I think that everyone I know has some sort of little addiction, and they’re not always fully aware of it. And I think it’s so important to realize that it is. And my psychiatrist called it an essentially human impulse to overuse things. She was like, yes, biscuits on the table over there. And I know I intend to have three or whatever, and I will return to them again and again throughout the day.
Catherine Gray 00:11:27 And so all of us do this to some degree with something. So it’s recognizing that it is a universal human experience and not a sign of weakness or failing. Yeah. So that’s that’s how I approached it anyway.
Eric Zimmer 00:11:43 And I think what you just said gets to the heart of of that thing for me, which is it is a universal human experience. And we want to be very conscious about what we choose to do with our time and our attention and our bodies. Right. I think that’s a that’s an important thing. One of the things you say early in the book that I like, you say we’ve lost control ever so slightly. Thing uses person rather than person using thing.
Catherine Gray 00:12:11 Yeah. And I mean this is, this is what I found once I started digging into my little addictions. You know, I know what is best for me. I know that I’m 12 years in recovery and I have all these tools. And yet I consistently find that my screen time tips over the amount I want it to be, you know, two hours is the golden amount for me.
Catherine Gray 00:12:35 And I consistently go over that. not anymore, thanks to the things I’ve learned. But it’s, you know, TV. I know that an hour is just right. That’s the sweet spot. But then I find myself clicking next episode. You know, it’s just knowing how to keep ourselves in check and put our long term self in the driving seat rather than succumbing to what our short term self wants. So that’s what I was really interested in pinning to the page with this book. Like how do we do that? What are the tactics? What is proven? What do the studies say? Once I started unfolding it, I just couldn’t believe how much I found that we can actually use. So it’s it really has changed my life and, you know, transformed my mental health. Just writing and researching this book. And there’s only one that I’m still, you know, nicotine. Turns out it’s not a little addiction for me. It’s more like medium or large. you know, while I was writing the book, it really digged its claws in, and I started finding that I felt like I needed it to focus and to drive and all sorts of things.
Catherine Gray 00:13:45 So for me, you know, obviously abstinence is going to be my option. So I’m on the runway to quitting that. and I think it’s important that all of us have that accountability of knowing, okay, is how big is this thing for me? What do I where do I need to go with it? Do I need to stop looking at porn altogether and do I need to, you know, put myself on GameStop, which is this thing in the UK which blocks you from most gambling sites? What do I need to do? And it’s just having that personal accountability and action in it.
Eric Zimmer 00:14:18 I will tell you a little addiction story of my own. Even saying this out loud makes me feel ridiculous, but solitaire can become a problem for me.
Catherine Gray 00:14:30 You’ve mentioned that a few times.
Speaker 4 00:14:31 Yeah, so I know, I know, I know, yeah, yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:14:34 I mean it’s never like a huge deal, but like, if I’m not conscious of it, I’m not taking steps to do it.
Eric Zimmer 00:14:40 I could lose 45 minutes to an hour a day doing it, which, the reason that I have a real problem with it is not that 45 minutes to an hour of enjoying myself a day is wrong. That’s not it at all. I actually think that’s great. It’s just that I don’t particularly enjoy it that much and it adds absolutely no value. Like Jenny, I like, I watch TV shows with Jenny a lot of evenings and that adds value. I like the show. I think it’s, I think their art. I’m sitting close with Jenny. We’re spending time together like that has value. Solitaire has really none.
Speaker 4 00:15:16 Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:15:16 And so what I generally have done in the past is I just set up a little blocker where I’m like, okay, start my workday, set up the blocker, it blocks the one solitaire site I go to, and that’s usually enough because, I mean, I know there’s a thousand solitaire sites, but what I need is just reminded for a second, don’t do that.
Catherine Gray 00:15:34 Yeah. And do you know what that does? That that activates your prefrontal cortex, which is what the neuroscientist told me in the book. Just that tiny delay. Just installing that friction, installing that obstacle means that it can come online. And that’s all about the bigger picture. And long term, you know, it’s like, do I actually want to spend 45 minutes in solitaire? No.
Eric Zimmer 00:16:19 When I went to England and I saw you, I realized something. And what I realized was, when I am not sitting in front of my work computer, I never think of playing solitaire. It just doesn’t come up. Yeah, but the minute I sit down in front of this thing, it’s right there. And so in my case, I was like, okay, this just feels like habit energy. It just feels like context. Like I get into a certain context and this behavior emerges. And I was like, you know what? I’m going to try and starve this one out. I’ve been doing sort of the moderate, like just block it, play a little bit here and there.
Eric Zimmer 00:16:56 And I was like, okay, I’m going to try and starve this one out. And I have not played solitaire since I was in England. And it’s interesting. I can sit down and feel something inside of me. And so I’ll go ahead and I’ll go ahead and block it. I don’t generally block it now. I don’t need to.
Speaker 4 00:17:10 But so in.
Eric Zimmer 00:17:11 Some days I’m like, I feel it, you know, like I’m working on something hard and I don’t. I didn’t sleep great last night. Kind of to your point. Like these things group up so I don’t feel good. I didn’t sleep well. I’m not thinking clearly. I’m sitting here in front of the computer, and I’m finding myself, like, wanting to sort of escape. And so then I’ll block it. And I think this speaks to something you’re talking a lot about, and I’d love you to expand upon, which is this idea of this pole between these different parts of our brain.
Catherine Gray 00:17:41 Yeah, absolutely. And something which is really interesting about what you just said.
Catherine Gray 00:17:46 Right. So for a start, I’ve worked this out because we’re we’re around the same age, right. And I figured this out through some maths. That was far too complicated for me, but I managed it. So I figured out that if I spend 54 minutes a day doing something. So that’s around the time you were spending doing solitaire. That’s two years of my waking life left out of my, you know, 35 theoretical years. If I die right on the average age of death. and that really brings it home. You know, do you want to spend two years of your waking.
Speaker 4 00:18:27 Remaining.
Catherine Gray 00:18:28 Life playing solitaire? Now, like you just said with TV, I do want to do that with TV, but I am capping it at 54 minutes a day because of that. You know, I can swallow two years. I can’t swallow four. I’m not up for that. I’m not up for spending four years. So two hours a day. Way too much for me. 54 minutes is just right.
Catherine Gray 00:18:50 The thing you’ve just talked about with when you sit down in that situation, that specific situation where you play the solitaire and you feel the pull. So something that I discovered, talking to neuroscientists and professors and all sorts is that dopamine, which is what creates that craving. It learns. And what happens is that it has a back propagation of cues. So say, for instance, with the solitaire thing, it’s only you sitting down. That’s the cue at your work computer. But with my alcohol addiction, that daisy chain went all the way back. So it might have been, you know, when I, when I was 19 or whatever, you know, walking past a pub would have been the cue to trigger the dopamine to trigger the wanting. But that went all the way back to, you know, any glass, any cashpoint, because I would have gone to the cashpoint before nights out. Anything to do with, you know, my alcohol use. And the same happens with any sort of clinical addiction to the point where, you know, say, for instance, somebody who is addicted to smoking crack and they do it out of a broken light bulb, you know, light bulbs are a massive trigger for their dopamine, you know, to come cascading and, and the craving to ensue.
Catherine Gray 00:20:13 And so it’s really interesting how q hiding can help and changing that up, you know, changing it up. So so for instance, if you frequently game on your phone and you’re hooked on Candy crush, you know, simply deleting that from your phone. It sounds so ridiculously simple, but it works because that’s the situation that you do it in. And like you said, there are different parts of our brain that are pulling in different directions, and that’s why we feel this constant push pull. It’s like a tug of war because what is driving the addictive behavior is the limbic system, which is basically I want what I want and I want it now. It’s very emotional. And then there’s the prefrontal cortex, which is really helps by delay and really comes online if we do things like read instead of watch and all sorts of things that we can do practically meditate, exercise, you know, all of that strengthens our prefrontal cortex. And it’s about putting that in the driving seat. And yet re angling our reward system towards healthy pursuits, which is sources of slow dopamine.
Catherine Gray 00:21:26 Yeah. I found out so much about dopamine. Well, while researching this book, I had no idea how central it is to addiction and how it really is the lifeblood of all addiction. but it’s also the source of, you know, any motivation. It’s the source of everything that we do that’s good as well. You know, it’s why we get up and see people and work and strive.
Eric Zimmer 00:21:51 Right. Yeah. We need it for sure. Let’s talk about some of the challenges that are are unique to where we find ourselves today. And you share in the book that we’re in a space where the speed of technological advancements outstrips generational hand-me-down wisdom. We have no playbook of structure, of coping strategies to draw upon. Which brings us to how we now live, each holding a clutch of little addictions.
Catherine Gray 00:22:20 Yeah, I mean, I think we are now living in the age of peak addictiveness. Our parents did not have to deal with this, you know. They did not have limitless TV shows on their sets to watch, you know.
Catherine Gray 00:22:33 They just had four channels and they didn’t have the bottomless scroll of porn. And if they wanted to gamble, they had to go down to the bookies or to the casino. Whereas now everyone has apps on their phone. It’s just everything is here. You know, it’s the same hour delivery. It’s ever more we can afford it and it’s there. And there’s aisles in the supermarket of ultra processed food that are just designed to be as Moorish as possible. So we really haven’t been in this situation ever before. And what is really interesting is I spoke with a couple of experts who described it as what’s called an evolutionary mismatch, in that our brains really haven’t evolved that much since hunter gatherer times. And so what’s happening is a lot of these things that we find so impossible to put down are pressing on ancient urges. Like, for instance, one of my neuroscientists said, we metaphorically still have a honey axe in our hands, which is, you know, if we were strolling through the forest, you know, back in hunter gatherer times, we would have cracked open a beehive and eaten as much honey as we could.
Catherine Gray 00:23:46 You know, that made sense. That was a survival method. Gorge on the high calorie, high sugar food. and our brains are still designed to have the urge to do that. so there’s a real problem. You know, we still have these brains that have these impulses, and we’re living in a world where algorithms are designed to be as hooky as possible. You know, exits are hidden, friction is reduced. You know, it’s just it’s a nightmare. So we need all the tools that we can get.
Speaker 4 00:24:20 Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:24:20 I’m always very struck by how resistant a lot of people are. That I’ve talked to and done work with to using technological tools to fight technology addiction.
Catherine Gray 00:24:33 That’s a really good point.
Eric Zimmer 00:24:34 There’s this belief like we should be able to do it.
Speaker 4 00:24:37 Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:24:38 Oh, occasionally come across this this is going back a while. But there was a drug called an abuse that would make you violently sick if you drank. And I would find people saying like, well, I shouldn’t need to use that.
Eric Zimmer 00:24:49 And I’m like.
Speaker 4 00:24:49 Well.
Eric Zimmer 00:24:50 Okay.
Speaker 4 00:24:52 And yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:24:54 Exactly. And you clearly continue to drink. So I would suggest it. And I find a similar thing like, well, I shouldn’t have to set up, you know, all these weird rules and blockers and I’m just fully in the like the way I felt about, like, heroin. Like I’m in over my head with this thing. Like, I’ll take help wherever I can get it. And that is the one thing from doing my book that I would say, if you got all the behavioral scientists in the world together and force them to agree on one thing. They would a have a very difficult time doing so, but they would all probably agree that the more that you can do to make it easier on yourself to do the thing you want to do or not, or harder to do the thing you don’t want to do, the better. Like we all have to rely on some degree of, I don’t know, whatever term you want to call it self-control, discipline, something.
Eric Zimmer 00:25:48 There’s some there’s some thing that comes on that we need to pull us through. But we want to we want to use that as little as possible.
Catherine Gray 00:25:57 I mean I completely agree and I think it’s the sheer willpower method. That’s, that’s what how people approach things. They think I should be able to do this. And so they enter things like Dry January in the UK and just don’t have any tools. They expect themselves to be able to live in a house that’s still heaving with alcohol and not drink it. And most people don’t make it. You know. Yeah. And they expect to be able to go to the pub and not drink. They’re just like, I should be able to do this. So I’m going to grit my teeth and white knuckle my way through it, and it just invariably does not work. So like you say, I mean, I always say to people, make it as easy for yourself as possible. Yeah. To do the thing that you want to do and, you know, install obstacles and create friction, that is absolutely the way to do it.
Catherine Gray 00:26:51 And like you say, there’s so many apps and devices out there that can help us. There’s one called brick. I don’t know whether you have it in the States, but it’s this, this thing separate to your phone where you can tap it and disable whatever apps you choose for a number of hours. So say, for instance, if you don’t want to go on social media for the rest of the day, you can disable everything for the rest of the day, and then you tap it to reactivate them. What a brilliant idea, right? And they’re adopting it like nobody’s business. I think they’re the ones that are really spending the most time on their phones, but they’re also the ones most willing to pick up these tools. and there’s another one called one SEK, which makes you take three deep breaths, which is, you know, allowing your prefrontal cortex to come online before you open apps that you have designated as your stickiest apps, whether it’s, you know, vintage or right move or, you know, a roulette app, you know.
Speaker 4 00:27:48 So I don’t.
Eric Zimmer 00:27:49 Know what any of those are that you just described. Now I suddenly feel very, very out of the cool apps.
Catherine Gray 00:27:55 Well, I did talk to a lot of millennials and Gen Z.
Speaker 4 00:27:57 Okay.
Eric Zimmer 00:27:58 All right, all right, all right.
Catherine Gray 00:27:59 Well, to get the tip.
Eric Zimmer 00:28:22 Hey, friend, before we dive back in, I want you to take a second and think about what you’ve been listening to. What’s one thing that really landed, and what’s one tiny action you could take today to live it out? Those little moments of reflection. That’s exactly why I started good wolf reminders. Short, free text messages that land in your phone once or twice a week. Nearly 5000 people already get them and say the quick bursts of insight help them shift out of autopilot and stay intentional in their lives. If that sounds like your kind of thing, head to one Eufy net SMS and sign up. It’s free. No spam, and easy to opt out of any time. Again, that’s one you feed.
Eric Zimmer 00:29:07 Net. Tiny nudges, real change. All right, back to the show. I use something called Clear Space on my phone, which does a similar thing. It just it doesn’t stop me. It just makes me take three deep breaths and say, I want to do it, which again, very often is enough. My thing is I check email on my phone way more than could possibly be necessary when I’m like when I’m really lost in it. And so clear space just sort of stops me because I’m like, all right, you know, I’m going to click that thing. I’m going to have to wait three seconds. I’m going to have to take a deep breath. And oh, yeah, I actually I don’t need to check it because I just did four minutes ago.
Speaker 4 00:29:46 Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:29:47 Right. But but but that’s all happening on an autopilot method. I want to talk more about this pulling of the two parts of the brain, which in essence, I think you’re saying comes down to a little bit of a battle between what we may call our limbic system, our emotional systems, and our prefrontal cortex, which is where all our executive function lives.
Eric Zimmer 00:30:08 It’s the part of our brain that can say, here’s what I think is most important to me. Here’s what I think is good to me. Here are the plans that I want to follow. And it’s a battle between, you know, to a certain degree, between those two. But what I found fascinating is I think you’re quoting Anna Lemke from the book Dopamine Nation, that we get prefrontal cortical atrophy as our reward pathway has become the dominant driver of our lives.
Catherine Gray 00:30:37 Yeah. And I mean, this is what happens when we have a clinical addiction as well. Our prefrontal cortex, literally it loses synaptic density. In other words it shrinks. And what happens when people enter recovery and become, you know, begin a path of abstinence is that it regains that lost volume. And there’s even been one study doctor Martin Lewis commented on where that shows that it goes beyond the level of those those people who were never clinically addicted to anything in the first place, because you’re having to do all that resisting. So your prefrontal cortex gets really strong and it’s just so interesting to me.
Catherine Gray 00:31:17 I’ve found out nine practical ways that we can activate and strengthen our prefrontal cortex. And Alek and I, we exchanged some emails about this as well. And one of the ways that she suggested is telling the truth about everything, you know, big or small. And I couldn’t agree with that more because it’s something that’s central to my recovery. My partner calls it my weird honesty thing.
Speaker 4 00:31:42 And.
Catherine Gray 00:31:42 Suggested he was like, you should write about that for the book. That’s definitely one of your little addictions, because sometimes he’s like, can’t we just lie? Can’t we just say that you know, me as ill or whatever, so we can’t go to the party? And I’m like, no, you know, we have to be honest. But I told so many lies when I was in active addiction that that is just something that’s a pillar, and I’m not willing to compromise on that.
Eric Zimmer 00:32:06 So how does that help us make our prefrontal cortex more synaptic dense?
Catherine Gray 00:32:12 I’m not actually sure, but I guess it’s.
Catherine Gray 00:32:14 It probably comes down to. Discomfort, because almost everything. That activates the prefrontal cortex isn’t. Something that’s easily one. It’s something that involves some sort of mental grit or, you know, pushing through a bit of a wall. So, you know, the things that activate it are exercise, meditation. You know, meditation is really hard. I’ve started doing it on a daily basis, and it is hard, and, you know, reading books rather than watching things, even if you read the news rather than watched it, that helps you gain some distance from it. So I always do that now with the news, rather than watch clips of atrocities. I’ll read about it because it just enables me to sort of maintain that emotional knowledge, but also not getting really, really wrapped up in it. And you know telling the truth. this I can’t remember all of them now. But you know, there’s lots of ways that we can consciously activate it. And almost all of them to do, to do with delayed gratification.
Catherine Gray 00:33:26 And, and you know, cold water therapy for instance, that’s that’s hard. You know, getting into an icy plunge is hard, but it really helps your prefrontal cortex. So it’s so interesting finding the ways that we can we can do this consciously. And almost all of them aren’t fun to begin with.
Eric Zimmer 00:33:49 Right. Right. Yeah. You’ve got a couple others on here. Talk about exercise. Talk about big picture judgments. Talk to me about that.
Catherine Gray 00:33:59 Yeah, yeah. So because the prefrontal cortex, it really zooms out and sees the whole picture. So say for instance, the experts that I spoke with. He said that the reason people in recovery. You know, they strengthen their prefrontal cortex is because he said to me, okay, so you liked getting high and you like being sober, but what do you like better? And that’s what the prefrontal cortex decides. Now I didn’t like getting high. I liked getting drunk but you know whatever. It’s the same principle. And where it really comes online is I want to watch TV right now but I have a deadline tomorrow.
Catherine Gray 00:34:42 It’s the decisions that really have a bigger picture in mind. You know the in five years time I want to or in a year’s time I want to. So one of the ways that you can you can use this is I don’t make vision boards because I can’t be asked to collage.
Speaker 4 00:35:01 And I don’t.
Catherine Gray 00:35:02 Want to, you know, get scissors out and cut out pictures of whatever. but I do. Every January I write a letter to the universe or whatever you want to call it, and outline what I want to achieve this year. And that’s a big picture judgment. That is that is me, you know, looking at the whole year and thinking, what do I want to do? You know, it’s not the here and now. It’s not instant. I want to watch Tehran. You know, I.
Speaker 4 00:35:30 Want to watch.
Catherine Gray 00:35:31 This new show on Apple TV. It really is thinking about your long term self. And the more that you can do that, the better off you are and the stronger your prefrontal cortex will become.
Catherine Gray 00:35:44 It’s kind of like weightlifting. You know, it just gets stronger and stronger and then it will be able to overcome whatever your, you know, limbic system and striatum are telling it to do so. One of the neuroscientists I spoke with, Alex, Doctor Alex Korb, he described, he said the prefrontal cortex is like the adult in the room. and I’ve extrapolated on this and made it, you know, the most responsible adult, you know, the one who owns packing cubes and uses them has three types of pension. You know, the one you invite to the pub quiz because they know about foreign policy, whereas the striatum and the limbic system, which really power all addiction and short term decisions, are like a dog and a teenager. And if you leave your striatum limbic system to the range of choices, they will run your life. So you.
Speaker 4 00:36:38 Really.
Catherine Gray 00:36:39 Need the adult to come into the picture and, you know, take control. That’s what the prefrontal cortex does. So it’s absolutely key to any sort of addiction recovery or management.
Eric Zimmer 00:36:53 Yeah. Yeah. The term I use for myself is I, I think about like I call it my wise or true herself. Like what’s the what’s the better version of me want.
Speaker 4 00:37:02 Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:37:02 But a question and I was just writing about this because it’s I’ve got a section in the book on it that I find encapsulates this really well for me is what do I want most versus what do I want right now?
Speaker 4 00:37:15 Yeah, right.
Eric Zimmer 00:37:16 Because oftentimes we end up in this thing of like, I want this thing, this moment. I want that thing. But then there’s that, you know, I do have a deadline. Instead of realizing, like, oh, I really do want to turn my book in on time, that’s really important to me right now. I’m sort of giving that prefrontal cortex a little bit of emotional energy to use also because I’m recalling like, oh, that is that is important to me. I do want that. And I think that’s what a lot of these battles come down to is.
Eric Zimmer 00:37:48 They just come down to that basic. Yeah. What is it that I want now versus what do I want most? Yeah. And not everything is that way. Sometimes we get into values, you know, conflicts between our values. And that’s a whole nother avenue of challenge. But when we’re talking about these little addictive things, I couldn’t agree with you more. That basic idea of just getting enough resources to the parts of our brain that are capable of making better decisions.
Catherine Gray 00:38:18 Yeah. And it’s tough. It’s harder to to do that. So one of the things that I’m doing right now, is I’ve just set up a pension. Do you use the term pension in the States? You know, it’s retirement savings.
Eric Zimmer 00:38:33 Yeah, we would call it a retirement or a 401 or an IRA, but yeah, similar thing.
Speaker 4 00:38:40 Yeah, yeah.
Catherine Gray 00:38:40 Well, I’m only just doing that at age 45, which is absolutely too late. And so I’m trying to do battle with I love eating out. I love I love going to my gym and buying an overpriced salad and smoothie.
Catherine Gray 00:38:55 And I worked out that I’m spending, you know, £60 a week on these overpriced salads and Smoothie. I don’t necessarily really enjoy. So what I’m now doing is, you know, trying to trying to prepare, eat beforehand something tasty at home that’s nicer and putting that away for my pension. And it is the harder choice and it takes more planning and prep. But I know that future me which, by the way, one of the tips in the book, which I found really interesting, is that there was this study and it showed that if you see an age progressed picture of yourself, then you will double the amount you put away for retirement savings, which I found so interesting. So I used this app while I was researching the book to look at a picture of myself when I’m 70, and now I have it on my phone and I always think about my 70 year old me. And you know, she’s going to want to go on holiday. She’s going to want to eat out.
Speaker 4 00:39:58 Yep, yep.
Catherine Gray 00:39:59 So putting that money away for her is is hard, but it’s important.
Eric Zimmer 00:40:04 So I’d like at some point to get into some of the specifics, because you name a bunch of common tiny addictions in this book. Gaming and gambling, people pleasing, shopping, television. There’s more than that, and I’d like to get into some of those specifically, but the book kind of does two things. One is it sets up all right. Here’s the problem. Across all of these, here are some tools that you can use that are helpful across all of these. And then here are some specifics related to this particular tiny addiction. Are there any big picture tools that we that we haven’t really hit yet that you think are important?
Catherine Gray 00:40:46 Yeah, I mean, so something that I write about in the book is that dopamine detox and dopamine fasting is really overused at the minute. and It’s it started off as something that I think was well-meaning, but now it’s become very misrepresented. Everyone thinks that dopamine is a pleasure chemical, and that we like our phone because we get quick hits of dopamine while we’re scrolling through it.
Catherine Gray 00:41:16 And that just isn’t what dopamine is. So dopamine, like we’ve covered is about wanting, not liking. But it also gets us to do everything good in life. So, you know, create a beautiful family, family Christmas or write a book. You know, the irony is that is that you would never do a dopamine fast without dopamine.
Speaker 4 00:41:38 So yeah, there’s a whole chapter in.
Catherine Gray 00:41:40 The book which is which is about dopamine shifting, which I think is a much more accurate term. And re angling our reward system towards these slower social sources of dopamine, which don’t drag us into a deficit afterwards. And, you know, there’s a bunch of them, they’re very similar to the ways that we activate the prefrontal cortex in that they’re to do with delayed gratification. So it’s, you know, things like gardening or painting or writing, you know, with your hand or, reading, you know, anything that isn’t instant, that is slightly harder one. And that’s a huge way that we can do battle against the sources of fast release dopamine.
Catherine Gray 00:42:25 That is basically every little addiction listed in the book. So, yeah, that’s an overarching thing that I wanted to mention.
Eric Zimmer 00:42:33 And that is hard. I mean, all of these things are difficult because my experience is that what we try to substitute for the behavior that let’s say our thing is playing games on our phone or like, okay, I don’t want to play games on my phone. Instead, I’m going to do a puzzle, an old fashioned puzzle on the table, right? The slow, slower dopamine. The problem is that in the beginning, an old fashioned puzzle isn’t as stimulating. And this is the core problem of anybody who’s gotten over a big addiction. Knows is you’re like, well, okay, yeah, I’m doing these other things, but they’re a far cry from the high, you know, from getting high. And we’ve got to be able to stick with it long enough for our brains to change, for us to, you know, have more synapses in the prefrontal cortex for our our neurochemicals to shift.
Eric Zimmer 00:43:26 How do you think about bridging that gap? You know, how do you think about staying with something when our initial reaction is, well, this is not giving me what I need?
Catherine Gray 00:43:36 Yeah, I think that’s it’s a really interesting question. And I don’t think the gap has to be that large. So I know my partner won’t mind me talking about this, but my partner used to have a real gaming addiction with apps on his phone, and there were very simple games, things like balloon popping, you know, Or, you.
Speaker 4 00:43:55 Know.
Eric Zimmer 00:43:56 Solitaire.
Speaker 4 00:43:57 Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Catherine Gray 00:43:58 Exactly. And so what he’s now done is and and this is, this has come from experts in the book as well, which he read and was inspired by, is he’s deleted all the games from his phone and he still games, but he does so on, you know, a big desktop with, you know, proper kit where, you know, it’s a proper console. so making that shift means that he has to go to a physical place.
Catherine Gray 00:44:25 The game isn’t always in his pocket, and now he’s playing games with more of a narrative arc, you know, like, the, the EverQuest and the. I think he plays God of War or something like that. so it doesn’t have to be so radical a shift. You know, something as simple as that. You know, moving away from the app. Games that are my expert described them. So professor Natasha Scholl, she was like there there repetitive ludic loops. These games like Candy crush and you know, they’re just they’re not doing anything. There’s no story, there’s no quest. You’re not taking a team and going off and doing something cool. And it was really interesting to me because a lot of my experts were gamers. In fact, most of them were. It reframed how I think about gaming, but only when it’s done in a physical place. They all did it in the same way at a console and played these games with the narrative arc, which I found really interesting. So you can still get the fun.
Catherine Gray 00:45:29 That’s the thing, it’s not about never gaming again, it’s just about doing it in a more deliberate way, in a way that’s more in line with your intentions.
Eric Zimmer 00:45:39 Okay, so we’ve got dopamine shifting. Any other broad tools that we should be thinking of before we get into some of the smaller, specific tools?
Catherine Gray 00:45:48 Trying to think, well, I think it’s about being Aware, so many people don’t realize that addiction is just learning, and some of my experts would describe it as disordered learning or maladaptive learning, and others didn’t use any negatives to preface it whatsoever. They just said, it’s a terrific example of how the brain has a hyper ability to learn, but it’s about repetition, learning in a repetitive way, which then becomes a habit, which then becomes an addiction. And so what we do in a row really matters. And oftentimes it’s just a matter of pushing through that discomfort, of doing something different in a row. And then it starts to bed in. You’re learning a new way of doing it, you see.
Catherine Gray 00:46:39 So for instance, with TV, I’ve, I still love TV. I’m always going to watch TV. It’s one of my joys. But I’ve time boxed it within 9 to 10 p.m. and that’s now become habitual so that it feels strange if I turn the TV on before that or.
Speaker 4 00:46:56 Watch.
Catherine Gray 00:46:56 It beyond that. And so I’ve learned a new way of watching TV. And I think all of us, if we if we’re given a chance and we don’t rely on sheer willpower like we were talking about earlier, and we make it as easy for us as house as possible, we can learn new ways of using all of these things. And that’s certainly what I’ve done while I’ve written the book. So yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:47:19 Excellent. So let’s talk about, I don’t know, pick one. Do you call them the sticky eight? Am I remembering that right.
Speaker 4 00:47:27 Yeah.
Catherine Gray 00:47:27 So the sticky eight are alcohol, nicotine and cannabis gaming. Gambling and porn. Our phones and ultra processed food. And then we’ve also got seven more.
Catherine Gray 00:47:42 So three of them are more behavioral. and people don’t realize how addictive these behaviors are, but they are procrastinating judgment and gossip and people pleasing. And then we’ve got caffeine shopping. let me see if I could remember them all. And dating flirting in sex, I think I’ve hit them all. so. Yeah, I mean, choose. Choose your poison. What do you want to talk about?
Eric Zimmer 00:48:11 Well, I don’t want to talk about caffeine. No, no, no. Well, I guess I should say I don’t want to talk about caffeine, because I certainly am physically addicted to it. I am certain, and I, I don’t do more than what I set out to do on any given day. Generally, it’s I’m not downing the 3 p.m. espresso that I regret later, but it is a it is a temptation. let’s see, we did gaming. Let’s do people pleasing.
Speaker 4 00:48:41 Okay.
Eric Zimmer 00:48:42 Let’s do people pleasing.
Speaker 4 00:48:43 Yeah, that’s an interesting one.
Eric Zimmer 00:48:44 Not that I have any challenges with that.
Catherine Gray 00:48:48 So people pleasing is a really interesting one. So my psychotherapist that I spoke with very quickly corrected me and said it’s it’s actually falling. And it’s the fourth unknown sibling, largely of the survival mode family which is fight flight freeze for one. And obviously you’ll you’ll know about it because you’ll have interviewed people about it. But one of the reasons it’s so hard to turn off and we experience true withdrawal, like physical discomfort when we start trying to stop fawning, is because it would have ensured our survival. Back in the day, you know, even a hundred years ago, if you were ostracized by your family, for instance, you didn’t stand great chances of survival. So it is such an inbuilt urge to please our families in particular, which is why people pleasing is so acute there. but also our wider community, and that’s one of the reasons why social media is so insidious, because our wider communities have become our followers. You know, we want them to like what we’re doing. And that’s why when we post, we check, check, check to see if people like us like what we’ve posted.
Catherine Gray 00:50:04 And it’s being aware that it is going to be uncomfortable. And I’ve certainly experienced it in my whole body when I started saying no to things and pushing through that, because that’s the only way that we can change it. But the discomfort is real and it’s normal and it will go away eventually. Once you teach your amygdala, that it’s okay. one of my experts said the amygdala has to be open for you to change it. So the only way through is through.
Eric Zimmer 00:50:41 I love that. That’s really good. That’s really good that you can only work through that fear when you feel it. Is what.
Speaker 4 00:50:47 You’re saying. Yeah. He he.
Catherine Gray 00:50:50 Used. He describes it like a clam shell. You know, it has to be open and activated. You have to be, you know, in the situation where somebody wants you to laugh at a joke that you find really problematic and say, actually, I, you know, I think that’s funny. And that’s the only way you can teach your physiology and psychology that it’s okay not to do the thing.
Eric Zimmer 00:51:15 Well, that adds another brick to the wall of why avoidance is so destructive. Right. I mean, because avoidance is just every time you avoid something, you subtly send signals to yourself that it is something to be feared and you should avoid it, and then you feel bad about yourself for avoiding it. But, but what you’re also saying is that you don’t have the chance to realize that what you’re scared of isn’t that scary unless you actually face it and feel feel the fear.
Catherine Gray 00:51:46 Yeah. And do it anyway. And I mean, I would definitely recommend if people are trying to stop people losing or falling, that they start with baby steps and, you know.
Speaker 4 00:51:56 Start start.
Catherine Gray 00:51:56 With a WhatsApp, you know, or saying no over email before you tackle the the bigger, thornier topic of saying no in person. But once you start, it can be a little bit. I found that it was almost a little bit addictive.
Speaker 4 00:52:13 The.
Catherine Gray 00:52:14 The batting back and the saying no. And I took it a little bit too far.
Catherine Gray 00:52:19 and I had to walk it back and start saying yes again. So yeah, the people displeasing can be addictive too.
Speaker 4 00:52:28 Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:52:28 Well, I don’t know, timing of episodes. So listeners, I don’t know when you’ll be hearing this in relation to something else, but a woman wrote a book about fawning called Ingrid Clayton, I believe, and Chris is editing that episode right now.
Catherine Gray 00:52:43 So fascinating. Can’t wait to hear that.
Speaker 4 00:52:46 Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 00:52:46 All right. I think you had ultra processed food, right. Give us a couple tips there.
Catherine Gray 00:52:52 Okay. So with ultra processed food it’s again about being aware that there’s this bliss point installed. I mean that’s everyone knows about the bliss point. Now it’s that exact confection of you know fat sugar salt. That means that the minute we finish the last morsel, we want more, I found. So I’ve now shifted my diet away so that it’s 80% non ultra processed. And some of the changes were really actually quite simple. Like you can find ice cream that isn’t ultra processed.
Catherine Gray 00:53:24 You can you know most bread is ultra processed which surprised me. But if you buy bread from the bakery, even if it’s in store, like in the supermarket, and that’s generally okay, or it’s the organic baked beans rather than, you know, the non-organic. So the the changes that you can make are pretty simple. But one of the most surprising things I found out, one of the books I read when I was researching this chapter was by Doctor Kessler, and it’s called Food or Fiction The Truth About the Ultra Processed Foods Making America Sick, and I had no idea. So I knew about the gut brain connection. But there is actually a reward system in the gut. So I found that really interesting. And that’s one of the reasons we found we find some of these foods so compelling because they hit that reward system. so and many of the tips that my experts gave me were just about friction, you know, making sure that you don’t keep these foods within, within reach. It’s obvious, but it’s true.
Catherine Gray 00:54:30 And if you do want to keep them, then something that you can employ is called unit bias. So we see whatever serving of a food as one unit, whether it’s a Big Gulp or a tiny little, you know, kids can. So something that I’ve started doing if I want to have M&Ms or whatever, you know, I’ll put it in a tiny little bowl, the tiniest.
Speaker 4 00:54:54 Bowl I have.
Catherine Gray 00:54:55 You know, I have a family pack of crisps in the cupboard, but I’ll decant them into my into my smallest bowl. And I see that as one unit. And that’s really helped. And I also put ice cream, which I love, into a cone. And that’s meant that I, you know, I used to eat a quarter of a tub. Now I eat a sixth of a tub. And also identity change can be really compelling. so saying I’m not the kind of person who eats ice cream every night. So, for instance, once I started telling myself that, it became a source of pride that I don’t eat ice cream every night, rather than I can’t eat ice cream every night.
Catherine Gray 00:55:36 It’s so bad for me. I’ve got to stop that. You know, that small sidestep in meaning and language is just so much more appealing to our brains. But yeah, I mean, there’s a ton of tips in the book, but I can’t remember them all. But the way the way that I approach food now is completely different.
Eric Zimmer 00:55:53 As we wrap up, take one thing from today and ask yourself, how will I practice this before the end of the day? For another gentle nudge, join good Wolf Reminders text list. It’s a short message or two each week, packed with guest wisdom and a soft push towards action. Nearly 5000 listeners are already loving it. Sign up free at one. You feed us. No noise, no spam, just steady encouragement to feed your good wolf. Yeah, it’s become so challenging in how easy everything has become. Like I, I remember there was a point where I could say to people like, just, yeah, don’t have junk food in your house, but now, you know, you can have nearly anything delivered to you in like 20 minutes.
Eric Zimmer 00:56:39 You know, DoorDash will bring the worst of it right to your door. It’s it’s become harder to to engineer yourself out of some of those things. I do find food a fascinating one in how the palate really does adjust over time. I guess it’s similar to what we’ve said with other things in the beginning. My experience is a lot of these things are really, really hard, and then they slowly become much easier. Like when I’m not eating like a lot of processed sugar at all, I find it very easy not to eat it. Yeah. It’s just not really an issue. Yeah, but once I start, you know, once I start, the sugar monster wakes up and is is is ready to go. And a lot of times for me, it’s just getting through those first couple of days again. Okay, wait. Just stop. Like, I’ll go on vacation. When I go on vacation, I’m like, I’m going to eat what I feel like eating. And then I come back and I’m like the sugar monster is still hyper aware.
Eric Zimmer 00:57:38 In everywhere I go. Oh look at that, look at that. But after a few days he just sort of goes back to sleep a little bit and isn’t, you know, checking out every candy aisle everywhere I go.
Catherine Gray 00:57:50 Yeah. And it’s just about finding substitutes that that make you feel good. So, I truly used to eat ice cream every night, and now I’ve discovered that pear and yogurt, really hits it for me. It just feels. It feels decadent. And once I’ve had that, I’m not craving ice cream anymore. you know, it is these simple shifts, and it just it feels almost ridiculously elementary, but it does work.
Eric Zimmer 00:58:18 Well, it is trying to make the sort of changes we’re talking about. I think of it in two broad categories. The first I would call like structural. And it’s all these sort of tips that you’re giving around. Make it as easy as possible. Don’t have it in the house. Set up your environment to make it easier or harder to do it.
Eric Zimmer 00:58:35 Be specific about what you’re going to do. Think through your cues. Try and think through the habit loop that you’re in. It’s all this structural stuff and that solves a lot, a lot of problems.
Catherine Gray 00:58:49 Yeah, it’s about creating new normals. So one of them experts in the book, Doctor Kessler, he as soon as he sits down in a restaurant now, he says, please don’t bring the bread.
Speaker 4 00:58:59 Because.
Catherine Gray 00:59:00 They automatically bring the bread. And that’s just become a habit for him. And so he’s not going to eat the bread, you know. So it’s yeah, it really is just about installing new ways of doing things. And actually I spoke with one expert called Shirou Azadi, and she’s a behavioral change expert. And I said, look, I’ve got a real problem with biscuits. I just love biscuits. I could I could eat ten, you know, I want to eat three, but I eat ten. And she really turned it on its head. And she said, is there ever a time when biscuits aren’t a problem? And I was like, yeah.
Catherine Gray 00:59:35 I mean, of course, all the time. And she said, okay, so you’re not powerless over biscuits. You know, I want you to go away and reclaim that untapped power over biscuits. So I did I kept biscuits in my house for the following week and.
Speaker 4 00:59:51 Did.
Catherine Gray 00:59:52 Eat them in a moderate way. But what I discovered was I don’t want them in my house. I actually don’t want to have to even think about it. You know, I want to eat the odd cookie when I’m out and that’s it. I don’t actually want to entertain them and host them. So, you know, I think a lot of the time we we have more power than we realize than it is about reclaiming that.
Speaker 4 01:00:15 Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 01:00:16 The thing with the biscuits is you are having to exercise self-control when they’re there. Yeah. And and that’s sort of like, you know, the first point being we get everything structurally as best we can. then we do need to rely on some self-control and learning how to work with ourselves in that moment.
Eric Zimmer 01:00:35 Some of the things you talk about, about how we shift back to our prefrontal cortex, it’s kind of having both those skills, the ability to pre-plan our environment and then the ability to, in the moment, resist temptation. But we’re going to have a lot better chance of doing that if we are at that moment far less. And your book does a great job of teaching us how to do both those things.
Catherine Gray 01:00:58 Oh thank you. And something that’s also really interesting is the shift from I can’t to I don’t. So I used to think I can’t have biscuits in my house because I can’t resist them. Now I think I don’t have biscuits in my house because I don’t want to have to resist them. And there’s been many studies that show that that is a compelling change. You know, the I don’t drink is much more attractive to our brains than I can’t drink. And that’s why that works.
Eric Zimmer 01:01:28 That that is a really valuable switch. Okay. I would like you to read as we close here, a section from your book.
Eric Zimmer 01:01:37 It’s on page 309 as a closing.
Catherine Gray 01:01:40 Okay. All right. We’ll do. Once you step into your untapped power, then not doing the thing can become more of a rush than the sugar or alcohol or nicotine or gaming or porn, whatever it was ever was. Because we pick it. You feel that small push of pride in your chest, that pulse of slow dopamine from what you choose to do instead, which sustains you for much longer than instant gratification ever did. It’s a home cooked protein breakfast rather than a shop bought sugary pastry. Our rebelliousness, our mischief, our kicks start to come from the not doing, and we don’t find ourselves as darkened as we expected to by the deprivation. We’ve reframed the refrain as the bigger, better choice for us. The reward from it isn’t the flicking on of spotlights. It is a steady, flickering oil lamp.
Eric Zimmer 01:02:36 That’s beautiful.
Speaker 4 01:02:37 I love that, thank.
Catherine Gray 01:02:38 You, thank you. I’ve really enjoyed this chat.
Speaker 4 01:02:41 Thank you.
Eric Zimmer 01:02:41 Yeah, I think that’s a great place to wrap up.
Eric Zimmer 01:02:44 Thank you so much. As always, until we do number six.
Catherine Gray 01:02:47 Yeah, absolutely I can’t wait.
Eric Zimmer 01:02:49 Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity. But we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom. One episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.
