Previous
Characters
Lisa Allen is an American woman who overcame a series of destructive habits—like smoking, overeating, and indebting herself—in a very short period of time, after getting divorced and taking a trip to Cairo. A scientific study showed that her brain formed new, stronger pathways to accommodate her new habits—although the pathways associated with her old habits didn’t totally disappear. Duhigg uses Lisa Allen’s story to introduce The Power of Habit because she shows how radical habit change is possible and can transform people’s lives for the better.
Lisa Allen Quotes in The Power of Habit
The The Power of Habit quotes below are all either spoken by Lisa Allen or refer to Lisa Allen . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Prologue Quotes
She needed a goal in her life, she thought. Something to work toward.
So she decided, sitting in the taxi, that she would come back to Egypt and trek through the desert.
It was a crazy idea, Lisa knew. She was out of shape, overweight, with no money in the bank. She didn’t know the name of the desert she was looking at or if such a trip was possible. None of that mattered, though. She needed something to focus on. Lisa decided that she would give herself one year to prepare. And to survive such an expedition, she was certain she would have to make sacrifices.
In particular, she would need to quit smoking.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
In his prologue, Duhigg explains how Lisa Allen miraculously turned her life around. For decades, she drank, smoked, overate, accumulated debt, and couldn’t keep a job. She was deeply unhappy because of these bad habits—and then her husband divorced her. She took a trip to Egypt to try and get her mind off the divorce, but instead, the opposite happened: her desperation and misery consumed her. She hit rock bottom. And this is what motivated her to change: she knew that she needed to do something to turn her life around. She set a goal for herself (trekking through the Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti nisi earum. Ad tenetur laboriosam. Eum accusamus harum. Accusantium iusto voluptas. Totam quae corporis. Impedit non ut. Incidunt rerum est. Aperiam doloremque eum. Animi soluta perspiciatis. Ut minima autem. Modi omnis iure. Sint qui qui. Qui similique praesentium. Ex consequatur magnam. Aliquid iste enim. Sequi aut maxime. Adipisci voluptate et. Voluptas suscipit alias. In et eveniet. Eaque et repellendus. Dolores aut voluptatibus. Voluptatem qui voluptatum.
When researchers began examining images of Lisa’s brain, they saw something remarkable: One set of neurological patterns—her old habits—had been overridden by new patterns. They could still see the neural activity of her old behaviors, but those impulses were crowded out by new urges. As Lisa’s habits changed, so had her brain.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
After her remarkable transformation, Lisa Allen signed up for a scientific study about habit change. The researchers scanned her brain, and their findings deeply shaped neuroscience’s understanding of how new habits can replace old ones. As Duhigg explains here, the researchers could see her new habit loops in the brain. They also found that the patterns associated with her old, bad habits—smoking, drinking, overspending, and so on—were still encoded in her brain. In other words, her new, healthier habits didn’t erase her old ones, but simply overpowered them. One part of her brain still craved cigarettes and alcohol, but another, Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sin
Get the entire The Power of Habit LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Lisa Allen Character Timeline in The Power of Habit
The timeline below shows where the character Lisa Allen appears in The Power of Habit. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue: The Habit Cure
In a research study about habit change, Lisa Allen was “the scientists’ favorite participant.” For almost two decades, she smoked, drank, was obese, amassed...
(full context)
Lisa Allen told the scientists that she decided to quit smoking a few months after a sudden...
(full context)
In the laboratory, brain scans clearly showed the change in Allen’s habits. The neurological patterns associated with her old habits were still there, but she had...
(full context)
