A {{c1::supernormal stimulus}} is a heightened version of reality that elicits a stronger response than usual: junk food. Foods high in sugar, salt, fat, and dynamic contrast in texture to excite your brain to the maximum extent possible. More palatable foods that are more satisfying to your brain make it easy to make it a habit to eat those foods.

If you want to increase the odds that a behavior will occur, you need to make it attractive. Not every good {{c1::habit}} can be transformed into a {{c2::supernormal stimulus}}, but we can still make them more enticing.

The start of the {{c2::craving}} of a habit can be tracked by measuring {{c1::dopamine}} (this makes mice behave like crazy). Habits are a feedback loop involving dopamine (which plays roles in motivation, learning and memory, punishment and aversion, and voluntary movement). {{c1::Dopamine}} is released when anticipating pleasure in addition to the pleasure itself (Atomic Habits). Dopamine increases when anticipating a reward and this is what gets us to take action. The system that is activated when you receive a reward is the same as the anticipation. This is the difference between wanting and liking. More neural circuitry is allocated for wanting than liking rewards. 100% of the {{c1::nucleus accumbens}} is active during wanting but only 10% during liking (Atomic Habits). Desire is the engine that drives behavior.

We need to make our habits attractive because it is the expectation of a rewarding experience that motivates us to act.

Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want to do with something you need to do. Businesses do this a lot. ABC launched a Thursday night television lineup where every Thursday, the company aired 3 shows by the same screenwriter, branded it, and encouraged viewers to enjoy the evening with popcorn and wine. The brilliance is that they associated the thing they wanted the viewers to do with the things the viewers wanted to do anyway (drink wine and eat popcorn). The habit of turning on the TV becomes more attractive. Something will be more attractive if you get to do something you like to do anyway at the same time. Temptation bundling is a way of applying the Premack Principle: more probable behaviors will reinforce fewer probable behaviors.

After [habit I need], I will [habit I want].

Doing the thing you need to do will mean getting to do the thing that you want to do. It creates a heightened version of a habit you want by linking it to an already attractive habit.