Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research
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What is a Habit?

April 24, 2020
Dr. Jibran Khokhar

What are habits? How can we change the habits we have and form new ones? Dr. Jibran Khokhar defines what a habit is and suggests ways we can develop good habits throughout the year.

Definition of a habit

Habit is a shift in our behaviour from being goal-oriented to being automatic or habitual. It’s our brain’s way of automatizing behaviour so that we become more efficient in our daily actions.

Characteristics of habits

  1. Habits are unaffected by the value of the outcome
  2. Habits are created through the repetition of behaviour
  3. Habits can form quicker if the reward is unpredicted, or occurs at an unpredictable schedule

Dr. Jibran Khokhar

Dr. Jibran Khokhar

Senior Fellow | Dr. Jibran Khokhar was born in Kuwait where he memorized the Quran with an ijazah. He completed his Bachelors in Life Sciences from Queen's University and his Doctorate in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Toronto followed by a post-doctoral fellowship in Psychiatry at Dartmouth College. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Guelph where he studies topics related to substance use and severe mental illness, and how drugs of abuse affect the developing brain. He also serves as a Khateeb for the Guelph community and a Senior Fellow at Yaqeen Institute.

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