1."The brain that changes itself" by Norman Doidge, 2,007.
2."SPARK; the revolutionary new science of exercise and brain"
by John Ratey.
3."Principles of psychology" by William James, 1,200 pagge,1890.
4."The happiness advantage" by Shawn Achor, 2,010.

"Knowledge is only part of the battle in life. Without action,
knowledge is often meaningless. As Aristotle put it, to be excellent we cannot simply think or feel excellent, we must act
excellently. Yet the action required to follow through what we know is the hardest part. That's why even though doctors know better than anyone the impotance of exercise and diet, 44 % of them are overweight. It's also why organization gurus are messy, religious leaders can be blasphemous and why even some positive psychologists aren't happy all of the time.
The fact of matter is, positive habits are hard to keep, no matter how commonsensical they might be. The NYTimes reports
a whopping 80% of us break our New Year's resolutions. Even when
we feel committed to positive change, sustaining it for any length of time can seem nearly impossible. If our brains have the capacity to change, as we now know they do, why is changing our behavior so hard?, and how can we make it easier?" - 4.
Whew! I need a break.

"Humans, James said, are biologically prone to habit "and it is because we are "mere bundles of habits" that we are able to automatically perform many of our daily tasks - from brushing our teeth first thing in the morning to setting the alarm before climbing into bed at night.

"It is precisely because habits are so automatic that we rarely stop and think about the enormous role they play in shaping our behavior, in fact our lives......
I am guessing that you didn't wake up, walk into the bathroom,look quisically into the mirror, and think to yourself,"Should I pup on clothes today?" You didn't have to debate the pros and cons. You didn't have to call on your reverves of willpower. You just did it - the same way you probably combed your hair, gulped your cofee, locked your front door, and so on. You did not have to remind yourself all day to keep these clothes on. It was not a struggle. It didn't deplete your reverve of energy or brainpower. It was the second nature,
automatic, a habit.
"Given our natural tendency to act out of habit, James surmised, couldn't the key to sustaining positive change be to turn each desired action into a habit, so that it would come automatically, without much effort, thought or choice? As the Father of Modern Psychology so shrewdly advised, if we want to create the lasting change, we should "make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy."

"Of course, this is where the phrase "easier said than done"
has particular relevance. Good habits may be the answer, but how do we create them in the first place? William James had a prescription for that, too. He called it "daily strokes of effort." This is hardly relevatory, basically a reworking of the old dictum "practice makes perfect." "A tendency to act," he wrote,"only becomes effectively ingrained in us in proportion to the uniterrupted frequency with which the actions actually occur and the brain grows to their use." In other words, habits form because our brain actually changes in response to frequent practice.

"In fact, James had this exactly right, though it would take a hundred years before neuroscientists explain why. Remember how we learned that the brain's structures and pathways are flexible and elastic (and plastic)? The more we perform a particular action, the more connections form among corresponding neuron cells. (This is the origin of the common phrase "neurons that fire together , wire together." - 1.
The stronger this link, the faster message can travel down the pathways. This is what makes the behavior seem second nature and automatic."

"Given all that William James had right so many years ago, we should forgive him one thing he got wrong. He believed as did most scientists of his day, that this ability to create lasting brain change was exclusive to the young. - essentially the " you can't teach an old dog new tricks" school of thought. Thankfully that's not the case. Scientists now know that brain remains plastic and malleable well past age of 20, through even
our most senior years. That means that we have the power to create new habits and then reap the benefits whether we're 22 or 72."

Whew! again. So far, I introduced why it is possible scientifically to change bad old habits to create new good ones.
Shawn Achor describes 7 principles for how to make those changes;1. Happiness advantage, 2. the fulcrum and the lever,
3. The Tetris effect, 4. Falling up, 5. The Zorror Circle. 6,
the 20-second rule, 7. Social investment.
You may know most of them already, or you can read them in his book if you want. Books 1 and 2 above will give more depth in
understanding our brain with many case stories. Hope and wish you'll have a new happy life.