Learning is Linking: How to Get Power Over Cravings

As I hefted my 2-year-old up the stairs for his mid-afternoon nap, he whimpered in a sing-songy tone, “I want my biiiiiiinky.” It was another left jab — one that sent me to the mat scrambling for the silicone spigot, the comforting cork, the parental panacea.

Battle of the Binky, Round 9: Toddler 1, Dad: 0.

Over the past few months, we’ve been weaning our little guy away from his pacifier and have made, well, halting progress. Admittedly, Mom is better at resisting his unmelodious roar than I am. It’s not that Mom and I are being cruel. We’re actually trying to help him grow. But there’s something about that stinky binky that just won’t quit.

Or will it?

What’s interesting is that he doesn’t need it all the time. He’s actually quite content without it for long stretches of the day. But the inevitable always happens — at some point, he realizes he doesn’t have it and then he asks for (ahem…demands) it — seemingly out of the blue.

Are his binky cravings just random? A series of unpredictable behaviors designed to drive any parent mad? Or is there a predictable pattern — a series of foreseeable brain links that are more clear than they might appear?

What about you? Are your cravings just random? Emotional hijackings from the whims of your limbic system? Or is there more to it — a secret code of links you can use — to detect and thereby avert, overcome, or avoid those self-sabotaging cravings in the first place?

Here’s what I discovered with my toddler.

He craves his binky if (and only if) the following triggers occur: seeing, feeling, or timing. His brain has linked these situations with the craving for a binky:

• When he sees the dishwasher (where the binkies get washed)
• When he feels sad
• When it’s time for a nap or bedtime

Seeing: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

If I can keep our little guy out of the kitchen, it’s pretty miraculous — he never asks for the binky. It’s only when he sees the dishwasher (specifically, when it’s open) that he beelines over to it and tries to dig a freshly-washed binky out of the utensil holder before I can close it. He wins about 50% of the time on this one. It’s possible that your odds might be even worse.

I want you to do a little experiment. Next time you’re working on your email, put your phone on your desk (where you can see it) and try to clear out your inbox. Seriously — give it your best shot. You’ll last for a while without checking it. But eventually, it’ll wear you down. The pain of the inbox is no match to the pleasure of checking your phone. Again, it’s not to say you can’t do it for a while — you can. It’s just a war of attrition…and your phone has the bigger guns.

Importantly, however, you don’t want to check your phone until you see your phone. This is critical. And critically overlooked. If you don’t see it, you won’t want it. Just like my toddler — no open dishwasher, no craving. No visible phone, no urge to check.

Feeling: Difficult Emotions Need Soothing

It’s like clockwork — as soon as an upset erupts, our little guy crows, “I want my biiiiiinky.” But if I can hang with him long enough, he doesn’t necessarily want his binky, what he wants is to be soothed. Specifically — his nervous system wants to be soothed. In other words, if I can hold him, talk to him, ask him what emotion he’s feeling, or otherwise show that I care, he nearly always calms down.

So what does this look like for you?

Dr. Kristen Neff’s research on self-compassion has shown that when you’re in distress or you’ve made a mistake, if you talk to yourself (in your mind or out loud) the same way you would talk to a good friend — with reassuring kind words and tones — it soothes your nervous system and helps you rebound from the upset. Being kind to ourselves is one of the best things we can do to calm our nerves and soothe our emotions, which helps us be more resilient and get back on track.

Timing: Surf the Urge

It’s impressive how closely linked asking for the binky is with going to bed. As soon as we start up the stairs or the pajamas come out, it’s like something flips and bam — “I want my biiiiiinky.” With our little guy, we currently have an agreement that he gets his binky at nap time and bedtime, but occasionally he wants it at other times like dinner.

What then?

Well, on average it takes about fifteen minutes for a craving to subside and a few weeks ago, at dinner time, this played out exactly as the science would predict. Our little guy started his well-known sing-songy whine for his binky. In a team effort, my wife, our nine-year-old, and I acknowledged and then pushed through his persistent requests by engaging him in the fun conversation we were having. Every few minutes he would erupt again — “I want my biiiiinky!” However, eventually, it stopped. Almost like magic, his last “I want my biiiiinky” request was between ten and fifteen minutes from the first one, and from then on out, he completely forgot about it. We redirected his attention to fun family time and the craving simply wore off — it evaporated like dew off grass.

Next time you have a craving, it may hit you sideways. It may feel so intense that there’s no other option but to give in. But now you know your brain’s little secret — it can’t hold onto that craving for more than about fifteen minutes, at which point your brain’s neurochemistry resets to “non-craving homeostasis.” Your brain can’t handle the neurochemistry of craving for too long — it’s simply too much work. If you can — as Stanford Prof. BJ Fogg recommends — “surf the urge” long enough for it to crest and crash, you’re home free. Again, one of the keys to this is to fully engage your mind in something totally different until the fifteen minutes have passed.

Cravings aren’t always what they appear — something we have to constantly fight and then ultimately give into. They’re simply links your brain has formed between two things. See dishwasher, ask for binky. See phone, must check phone. This fundamental principle — that learning is linking — is why you have more power over your cravings than you think. Once you start to practice these three skills — keeping the trigger out of sight, soothing difficult emotions, and surfing the craving for fifteen minutes — you’ll feel like you’re in the driver’s seat again instead of your cravings always driving you.

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Also published on the Brain by Design blog and in Better Humans on November 21, 2022.