 That's right. In this video, we're gonna be talking about why the office triggers me, but it might not be for the reasons that you expect, so stay tuned. You know what, Toby? When the son of the deposed king of Nigeria emails you directly, asking for help, you help. His father ran the freaking country, okay? What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, something I like to do is pull different topics from movies, TV shows, pop culture, YouTube, all sorts of stuff and see what we can learn from them. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So yeah, real quick story time. I'm gonna be diving into a little psychology and a little neuroscience and full disclaimer. I am not a licensed psychologist. I am not a neuroscientist. I am just a nerd who loves to learn about this stuff and I am somebody who is very passionate about learning about how the way our minds work. So anyways, real quick story. I am one of the few people and so is my beautiful girlfriend who never watched The Office. So recently we've been watching it. I think we're up to season six now on Netflix and basically yeah, we'll just watch like a few episodes a night or here or there. We'll just watch some episodes. And anyways, love the show. Love the show. Absolutely hilarious. I don't know why I waited so long, but it's great that I get to watch it and just kind of like, you know, when you get to binge and just like not have to wait for like the next season and everything. But anyways, so my girlfriend Tristan, like as we watch different shows and things like that, like she'll be on her phone. She says she's not a gamer, but she plays like little like iPhone games and stuff. And one time I was like, what are you playing? And I check it out. And it's this game called Amaze. By the way, hashtag not sponsored. But I was like, Oh, that's a pretty, pretty neat little game. So I downloaded on my phone and I started playing it as well. So as we're watching the office, like it's just like a mindless game where you can just kind of go and play it and everything like that. And like I said, we have this kind of routine where we'll watch the office like at night when we're eating dinner or making dinner or whatever it is. And the other day I was out running an errand. I was waiting in line for a long time. And I opened up my phone and I was like, Oh, I'm not got some levels in Amaze. And I started to play it. And like, I got this urge to watch the office. And I'm like, Whoa, what is happening? Like I really wanted to watch the office. And I remembered what I've learned through my own like reading of different books about neuroscience and psychology and habit forming and everything like that. And one of the key lessons that they teach in neuroscience is neurons that fire together wire together. So what's happened is, is that I've trained my brain that whenever I am playing the game of maze, I watch the office. So this is something that like, it's interesting because I practice mindfulness and mindfulness is a form of meditation where you pay attention to what's happening right now. And it's just interesting to me because so many of us do this and we have so many habits that intertwine with one another. And for example, I want you to think about that. Like if you're somebody where every day you come home from work and plop down on the couch and you like, have a bite to eat, right? Like, this is something that just becomes habitual. Like, if you are trying to break that habit where you just come home and sit down on the couch without eating, you would notice that craving because what happens is this is something that was taught by Dr. Judson Brewer, who built upon what BF Skinner, a famous psychologist, did his work on, which is context dependent learning, right? And what it is, is this thing called the habit loop where there's a trigger, there's a behavior and there's a reward. Okay. And that's one of the reasons why it's so difficult to break habits, because our brains are wired like that because it helped us survive way back in the day. Another great example is if any of you are smokers out there, it is quite habitual for people to have a bite to eat and then smoke, right? Or some people have a cigarette with their morning cup of coffee or whatever it is. Trying to do one without the other can be extremely difficult because the brain has wired itself that way. Now for all of my fellow addicts in recovery out there, those of you who don't know me, I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, I've been clean for almost seven years now. And there are certain things that were very habitual for me. And it's, this is one of the reasons like I worked in addiction treatment for a little over three years. There's one of the reasons why it's so hard for people to get clean because they have wired so many different triggers with the behavior of drinking and using. So there are certain things for me, even with almost seven years, where they trigger a craving for me because it's been so ingrained in my brain. For example, my drink of choice was Bacardi and Diet Coke. All right? Like that's what I drink. That's what I drink daily all the time. I was a freaking alcoholic. All right? And even still to this day, like I can't drink Diet Coke without like my brain triggering a craving to have Bacardi. Another thing I used to mix it with was fruit punch rock stars, the energy drink. So I never drink those anymore because it triggers this craving. Now it's not a craving like I'm like, oh my god, I need Bacardi, but for somebody very early in recovery, this is something that could happen. Okay? Now when I was working in the treatment center, and I've also been involved with 12 step programs since I got clean, one of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of people make is that they are poly substance users and they think they can quit using one substance and keep using the other. Now while some people can, it is very, very rare. So for example, a lot of people who abuse a drug like cocaine, usually they use cocaine while they're drinking alcohol. So I've met a lot of people who had come through treatment for a cocaine problem, but think they can still drink alcohol. So they're like, okay, I'm not going to use cocaine anymore. I'm only going to drink, right? Well, most of those people would return to rehab because when they kept drinking, since they never broke that habit as well, they would end up turning back to cocaine because of what we're talking about, the brain wires these things together. So whenever the person was drinking, they would crave cocaine as well. So this is one of the issues that drug addicts and alcoholics face. But for any of you out there who are struggling with habits that you're trying to break, like a lot of this takes our own like inward analysis and seeing what our triggers are. How do they line up with the behaviors that we're using? Like I mentioned, Dr. Justin Brewer, he has amazing, amazing book on this called The Craving Mind. I highly recommend that you check that out. But he goes into depth and he explains all of this stuff. So if you have habits that you're trying to break or anything, whether it's like poor eating habits, whether it's substance issues, whether it's smoking, like for example, Justin Brewer created a program, which is one of the most successful programs to help people quit smoking because he teaches people about this and how to break those habits. But anyways, I just thought this was really interesting because I noticed how my brain was working when I was playing this game of maize and like wanting to watch the office, which I'm still doing. But anyways, let me know down in the comments below, like do you have any habits that kind of coincide with each other where every time you do this one thing, you do another thing as well? Oh, before I let you go, another one is a lot of people check their phone when they get to a stoplight. Is that something that you do automatically? All right, but let me know down in the comments below. Okay. Anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos and a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You're all amazing. And if you would like to become a patron, get involved in our monthly Q&A and all that good stuff, you can click or tap right there. All right. Thanks again so much for watching. I'll see you next time.