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- [00:02]
Captain
Race the rudders. Race the sails. Race the sails.
- [00:05]
LinkedIn Representative
Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over.
- [00:08]
Captain
Roger. Wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution?
- [00:13]
LinkedIn Representative
Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title and more. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started today@LinkedIn.com results, terms and conditions apply.
- [00:34]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
Hey there, curious minds. I'm Dr. Samantha Yamin, also known as Science Sam, but my friends just call me Sam. And I'm here to tell you all about the new season of Curiosity Weekly from Discovery. We're mixing things up a bit. We're going to talk about the latest and greatest in scientific research. And we're also going to chat with experts so we don't need to break our brains to understand it. I've been obsessed with science from a very young age. Science is more about questions and being stumped than knowing all the answers. It's about Discovery. I studied neuroscience, but honestly, I get sucked into any topic. And we're going to get to dive into that on Curiosity Weekly. I can't wait. So let's get started.
- [01:24]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
With all of us setting New Year's resolutions. It would be so helpful to have a scientifically informed guide. That said, this is the habit that you're trying to form, and this habit, on average takes two months. And these are the cues that predict behavioral execution.
- [01:37]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
That's Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya, a behavioral scientist. Later we'll talk with her about her research on habit formation and debunk the 21 days myth. Because who doesn't want the secret to actually sticking to their New Year's resolution? And then for all you southpaws out there, we'll cover a newly discovered link between musical training and left handedness. Bacteria are living on the International Space Station. And not only are they surviving, but they are thriving.
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LinkedIn Representative
January 15, 1998. NASA astronaut Dave Wolf is on board Russia's Mir space station. They need to know if microorganisms pose.
- [02:20]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
A threat to the astronauts.
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LinkedIn Representative
When the crew opens a rarely used service panel, they find a huge globule, essentially of water that's just teeming with organisms.
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
That documentary produced by the Science Channel explains how bacteria are living in space. NASA has been studying the microbes on the ISS for about a decade, and their latest finding is pretty interesting. Microbes from Earth are living on the space station right now. And they got there as stowaways, riding along on an astronaut's body or hitchhiking with carbo and equipment on supply missions. But life in space is harsh, right? Even in the controlled environment of the iss, microbes and astronauts alike have to deal with microgravity, plus higher levels of solar radiation and carbon dioxide. So could they even survive? Well, it turns out they're busy evolving new traits to adapt to life in low Earth orbit. Microbes. They're such overachievers. So here's what went down. In a recent study at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, researchers discovered new strains of bacteria living in the iss. They sequenced the genomes of these space bacteria and compared them to the genes of their closest cousins on Earth. They found that the space microbes have developed adaptations to help protect themselves against radiation and microgravity. But here's the crux. Some of these bacteria are also showing signs of increased virulence. That's talking about how much harm they cause the host, meaning the astronauts. So these microbes could become a health risk to the astronauts, who already have a lot going on. Scientists can't yet say exactly how harmful they'll be, but the bacteria could develop biofilms, making it harder for antibiotics and disinfectants to do their job. So these scientists say NASA will need to keep a close eye on moisture levels inside the spacecraft to prevent these biofilms from taking over. In the grand scheme of things, understanding how these bacteria thrive in space could actually lead to new treatments in space and back here on Earth.
- [04:35]
Boost Mobile Representative
To make switching to the new Boost Mobile risk free, we're offering a 30 day money back guarantee.
- [04:40]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
So why wouldn't you switch from Verizon or T Mobile?
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Boost Mobile Representative
Because you have nothing to lose. Boost Mobile is offering a 30 day money back guarantee.
- [04:46]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
No, I asked why wouldn't you switch from Verizon or T Mobile? Wouldn't.
- [04:51]
Boost Mobile Representative
Because you love wasting money as a way to punish yourself because your mother never showed you enough love as a child.
- [04:57]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
Whoa, easy there.
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Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Yeah.
- [04:58]
LinkedIn Representative
Applies to online activations, requires port in and auto pay. Customers activating in stores may be charged non refundable activation fees.
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
The idea of a fresh start at the New Year dates back over 4,000 years, starting with the Babylonians who made promises to their gods. Later, the Romans and medieval knights tied New Year's resolutions to chivalry or religious vows. And by the 18th century, personal growth became the focus that likely shaped the modern concept of New Year's resolutions, which are more about self improvement than divine promises. But can resolutions really give us a fresh start? And how long does it really take to form a habit? If you've ever resolved to start a yoga routine, or floss every day. You've likely wondered when it might start to feel effortless. Popular wisdom says it takes 21 days to form a habit. But a 2023 study found that this magic number is more myth than than fact. With me today is Dr. Anastasia Buelsayev. Thank you for being here today, Anastasia.
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Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Thank you, Sam, for having me.
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
Now, we've all heard this claim that it takes apparently 21 days to form a habit, but your study shows that's not exactly true. Can you tell us what you found and why some habits stick quickly and why others take months?
- [06:24]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Yes, absolutely. So typically, when I ask my students, how long does it take a habit, they will say something like 21 days as well. And it turns out that that number doesn't really come from any sort of scientific research. It's sort of hearsay. And experts in habits, like Wendy Wood, have busted that myth, I think, a couple years ago. But we were really keen to bust it using field data. So instead of looking at how people form habits in a really controlled setting like a lab, we really wanted to look at how people form habits in the wild. Like, you know, how long does it take to form a gym habit or a hand washing habit? And so we did a large study applying machine learning methods to, to field data from two institutional partners. One was a big gym, and one was a kind of a cool technology that allows you to monitor hand washing behavior in hospital workers. And so we had millions of data points and we were able to look at truly, how long does it take for people to form those two habits?
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
It was an incredible, like, when you say large dataset, I think, for the hand washing study was over 40 million data points. So no surprise you needed to develop a new machine learning approach in order to manage all that data, reduce bias in the analysis. How did this help you understand habit formation in a new way compared to older studies?
- [07:43]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Yeah, so I would say a lot of older studies relied on more traditional survey techniques. So, Sam, for example, if I wanted to know, how long does it take you to form? I don't know. I don't know. Running habit. Right. I have to kind of send you a survey every morning and say, sam, did you run today? Yes or no? And then, by the way, you know, what was going on in the environment, like, what time was it and did you sleep well? And all these other things that we know were called context cues, things that we know will cue whether you will run or not. And you can imagine that's very time consuming. I can't really do that for thousands of people, let alone millions of data points. And so you're a little bit limited by those survey methods. It's just hard to survey 30,000 people. And then we looked at, I think the average time of gym going we had was about four years. So that's a really long time.
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
It's incredible.
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Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
If you were in my data set, Sam, I could see you over the course of four years going to the gym. I'm sure you would stop taking my survey after a couple months. So that was really the benefit of this more empirical approach.
- [08:47]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
That's incredible. And for the record, it's been years and I have not formed a running habit. We saw simple actions like handwashing can become automatic in just a few days. But something like going to the gym might take months, in my case, maybe years to build that habit. Why is there such a big difference?
- [09:05]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Yes, absolutely. So this is something that's really hidden in that 21 days number. You know, it's like it just assumes that any habit will take 21 days. And, you know, it should be relatively intuitive that that's not the case. And what we find in our research is that in the two domains that we look at, to your point, the time it takes is hugely different. So when it comes to handwashing, most people develop a good handwashing habit. Predictable hand washing Behav within 10 days, it's on the order of days for gym going, it's on the order of months. It really takes months to develop a more predictable gym going behavior. And we can't exactly answer why that's the case. But we have some hypotheses and I think the hypothesis that we like the most is the complexity of the behavior. So something like hand washing, this is a relatively simple motor behavior. Most kids by the age of five, hopefully know how to wash their hands on their own. They've developed it, they can do it pretty automatically. Most adults still struggle developing a gym going habit. It's a much more complex behavior. It requires planning, it requires equipment, you know, all sorts of things that make that behavior just naturally harder to to become automatic.
- [10:17]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
And I imagine with hand washing there are strong context cues for when you need to do it versus a gym habit. You're like trying to slot into a busy schedule that's ever changing versus, you know, you finish in the bathroom, you wash your hands, the sink's right there.
- [10:31]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Exactly. So one of the things we were able to look at was a whole bunch of context cues to see what was actually predictive of people Washing their hands or going to the gym. And in the case of hand washing, and this was a hospital setting, so it was a little bit specific. But one context cue that was really predictive was the room. So the room that they were in. And I don't know enough, we don't know enough about the rooms to know whether it's specific cases that were in different rooms or maybe certain rooms had a huge poster like remember to wash your hands. But it was the physical location that was a huge context queue for gym going. It was much more varied. The one thing that I'll mention that was predictive for a lot of people was day of the week streak. So if you're somebody that goes, yeah, so if you typically go on a Friday and then you go next Friday and then you go the Friday after that, then the model starts to predict with pretty high accuracy that you're going to go like every Friday after that.
- [11:26]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
Interesting. So context cues or environmental cues, they're important for forming habits, but are they as important when it comes to breaking, quote unquote, bad habits or things we want to change?
- [11:39]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
I would think so. We didn't focus on breaking habits in this study. So I'm going a little bit outside what we know based on the study. But my prior would be that because context cues are so important to building habits, then one of the key ways to break habits is to break those context cues. And I think research from Wendy Wood and others would support that.
- [11:58]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
And you've mentioned a few times that consistency is so important when building habits. That makes sense. It feels, it feels intuitive to me in my own anecdotal experience. What happens when we miss a day or two?
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Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
That's a good point. We didn't really look at this in our research, but I think research from Katie Milkman and others would show that that's not the end of the world. She's got some really interesting research looking at people that gave themselves, that had a routine, but gave themselves a little bit of flexibility within that routine were actually more likely to stick with their habits than people that didn't. Again, not something we addressed in this study. But my hunch would be that missing a day or two is not the end of the world. As long as you try on average still go like the same amount of times per week. For example.
- [12:48]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
I wanted to ask you. It can feel overwhelming. That is something for me. When I set a new goal, I'm like, ah, how do I achieve this? Do you have any other advice for someone struggling with a big goal yeah.
- [12:59]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Well, I guess one piece of advice that falls directly from this research is to probably start small. So if it is something about the complexity of the behavior, which means that more complex behaviors will take longer, then giving yourself a really big goal, like going from 0 to 100 is going to be much harder than saying, you know, I just want to stand up every hour. Right. Or starting with these really small changes that I think have the same overarching goal of being healthier, you know, being more fit, but maybe are more manageable and more likely to become habitual in a shorter period of time. The other thing is, again, going back to context, just recognizing the different things that might cue your behavior and making it easier for yourself. So if you know that you're much more likely to go to the gym when, I don't know, your running shoes are out and visible, then just make sure they're always out and visible. Actually change your environment such that you're much more likely to be cued to execute the good habit that you want to build.
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
I like that trick of keeping the gym bag by the door so you're like, oh, I guess I got to pick that up and I guess I got to go because my gym bag's in my hand.
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Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Exactly.
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
Did you notice any common factors that help all types of habits, regardless of what they are?
- [14:14]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Oh, that's an interesting question. We didn't look at that directly. We did look at, however, demographic predictors of whether you're more likely to be habitual in general. So one thing we were able to do is we were able to link our gym data because we had things like gender and age and we had their zip code. So we could link their zip code to census data around, you know, are you living in an urban area or kind of more suburban? Are you in a high income area or low income? And what we found, which I think will sound intuitive, but we found that younger people that live in more urban areas are much less predictable. So they go, maybe they go to the gym on Monday and then Tuesday, and then they don't go for three weeks and then they'll go Friday. And you know, the model has a really hard time predicting their behavior. They versus older people that tend to live more in kind of suburban areas, they're more likely to have kids, much more predictable. So, you know, they go every Monday morning. And I think intuitively that that makes sense, right? That sort of vibes with what we know about the people in our lives. But it was really cool to see.
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
That in the data that's so interesting what an incredible data set you had. And it's so rich and it's really telling of the times and what we can do now that we have not only access to really rich data sets, but these new machine learning based tools to analyze them. It's just something that we couldn't have done, let's say even 10 years ago.
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Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
It's just amazing.
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
What do you think this will lead to? Are we going to get more personalized analyses of our goals?
- [15:43]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
I think from a research perspective, even with this paper, we were able to look at two domains, but our dream was actually to look at 20 different domains. We would have loved to look at eating habits and toothbrushing habits and all sorts of, you know, commuting habits. Because I think to your point, it would be so helpful to have a scientifically informed guide. That said, you know, this is the habit that you're trying to form. And by the way, this habit on average takes, you know, two months or two weeks or whatever it is. And then these are the cues that tend to be highly predictive of behavioral execution.
- [16:15]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
If someone wants to use your findings to finally make a lasting change in their life this year, what's the one thing you think they should focus on first? No pressure, right?
- [16:27]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
No pressure, no pressure. It's a big question. I guess I would go back to context and really doing kind of a personal audit of the times in my life where I was successful for even a short period of time of executing that behavior and really doing some reflection around those context cues that were successful historically. And then implementing them going forward would probably be my biggest piece of advice.
- [16:53]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
I don't think I ever paid attention to my cues until you were talking. And then it clicked. I was like, oh yeah, this is totally what it must be for me, just thinking over the last decade and when I've been most consistent. So hopefully folks listening feel the same way as you're talking, they start to realize, okay, this is probably what it is. For me.
- [17:13]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
There's a third aspect which is important, which is that habits become less sensitive to reward changes. So what that means is once you're doing something really automatically, again, not really kind of thinking too much with your prefrontal cortex, you're less likely to be sensitive to the reward value of that behavior changing. And so the way we tested for that in our data set was there were a bunch of interventions that were run to encourage people to go to the gym more often. And what we find is that the people that already had habits were much less responsive to those interventions than the people that didn't yet build habits. So let's say you're joining a gym for the first time. That's the perfect time for somebody that is trying an intervention to have the greatest impact. Let's say you are a manager and you have a new employee. The first couple months of that employee will be the time that they're making new habits. And so as a manager, that would be the time to, you know, really encourage the good habits. By the time that employee's been there for a year, they're probably less sensitive to any sort of interventions that you're likely to, to show them.
- [18:24]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
Interesting. I love this topic. So I, I could have talked to you for hours.
- [18:30]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Wonderful.
- [18:32]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
And for those of us who haven't yet picked a New Year's resolution, how about try a few of the more popular ones from last year? Practice mindfulness a few times a week, stick to a monthly budget, or learn a new hobby. Think of artists like Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Prince, Billie Eilish and Jimi Hendrix. What do they have in common other than being talented musicians? You see where we're going with this? You guessed it, they are all left. There's been a recent study linking musical training to how the brain processes language, particularly in southpaws or lefties. You know, left handed people, language is usually processed in the left side of the brain. But for left handed musicians like these, the way language is handled can actually shift to the right. So let's unpack this. Researchers from Universidad Jaume Premier in Spain recently published a study in the Journal of Neuroscience where they found that left handed musicians are more likely to process language on a different side of their brain. So instead of relying on the left hemisphere of the brain for language, like most right handed folks do, some left handed individuals shift language processing to the right side of their brain, or the wrong side rather, let's just say the opposite side. This study suggested that musical training might actually change our structures and brain connections in relation to language. Now, you might wonder why this matters. Well, traditionally, if you're a righty, chances are very high your brain processes language in its left hemisphere. Lefties show more variation. However, the reasons behind this variation haven't been fully understood, primarily because there just wasn't enough research with left handed people until now. The team at Universidad's Xiaome Premier brought together 112 left handed people, splitting them into two equal musicians and non musicians. Then they did some cool neuroimaging tests while the participants did tasks like speaking and listening to words. And tones. Here's what they found. Both groups, musicians and non musicians, were left handed and had people where the language processing in the brain was switched from the usual side to the opposite side, meaning language processing happened on the right side of their brains, though likely for different reasons. Our brain's left and right halves are pretty separate. You could technically pull them apart, but not that you should, but they're connected by a bundle of white matter acting like a highway. People with this unusual language setup had more connectivity in this highway, but in different areas. For non musicians, it was stronger in the front. For musicians, it was in the back. Interestingly, this was more common in musicians with more training or those who focused on a single instrument. This gets neuroscientists like me really excited because it's yet another example of how musical training changes not just the structures but functions of pathways in the brain. It reveals the plasticity of the brain, which we love, and the possibilities for different routes for processing language. Scientists have been working on this for over 150 years. How does the brain decide which side handles language? This is such a fascinating piece of that puzzle. Let's recap what we learned today. We learned that bacteria on the International Space Station have adapted to the harsh conditions of life in space. But some bacteria may also become more virulent, posing a potential health risk for astronauts. We also discussed habit formation, which was just in time to remind me about my New Year's resolution. Our guest debunked the 21 day myth. Habits can form sooner or later depending on you and your goal. And it is never too late to try again if you stumble. And finally, lefties are more unique than we thought. Researchers discovered that musical training appears to strengthen specific brain connections between hemispheres and left handed people. This suggests another way that long term musical training may reshape brain pathways and their function. For Warner Brothers Discovery Curiosity Weekly is produced by the team at Wheelhouse DNA. The senior producer and editorial correspondent is Theresa Carey. Our producer is Chiara Noni. Our audio engineer is Nick Karisimi. And the head of Production for Wheelhouse DNA is Cassie Berman. And I'm Dr. Samantha Yuin. Thanks for listening. Sam. Do you ever do New Year's resolutions? Yeah, I. I killed it this year.
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Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
What was your New Year's resolution?
- [23:27]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
To floss every day.
- [23:28]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Who are you every day?
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Dr. Samantha Yamin
And yeah, what's yours? I'll steal yours. I think I want to do a handstand every day.
- [23:34]
LinkedIn Representative
Who.
- [23:34]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
Who said that?
- [23:35]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
I'm so Nick, do you have a New Year's resolution?
- [23:38]
LinkedIn Representative
No. The last one I did was to wear more fun socks.
- [23:42]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
Love that. For you.
- [23:43]
LinkedIn Representative
Yeah.
- [23:44]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Mine is to just slouch less.
- [23:46]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
Bar is very low.
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LinkedIn Representative
I'm, like, as hunched over as possible.
- [23:49]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Yeah, that's a good idea.
- [23:50]
Dr. Samantha Yamin
No one wants yours, Teresa. Yeah.
- [23:54]
LinkedIn Representative
I think they all kind of sound fun. Like, why not do more handstands like that?
- [23:58]
Dr. Anastasia Bielskaya
Sounds great.
- [24:04]
Captain
Race the rudders. Race the sails. Race the sails.
- [24:08]
LinkedIn Representative
Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over.
- [24:11]
Captain
Roger. Wait. Is that an enterprise sales solution?
- [24:15]
LinkedIn Representative
Reach sales professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started today at LinkedIn.com results. Terms and conditions apply.