We’re all creatures of habit for good reason. While the brain comprises 4% of our body mass, it consumes at least 20% of the body’s blood glucose to do all the hard work of thinking and running our bodies. That extra drain on resources makes the brain an inefficient system, so it conserves energy by routing neural messages along the most efficient and least resistive pathways.
“It’s similar to pathways in the woods; you can move more quickly on a well-worn path than if you need to forge a new one,” says Karen Gordon, CEO of 5 Dynamics, teamwork consultants whose clients include LinkedIn, IDEO, and Harvard.