Understanding and Retraining Conditioned Reflexes: The Toilet Trigger

 Have you ever walked past a restroom, thought you might need to go, and then the second you opened the door, it was like your bladder hit the panic button? You went from "maybe I could pee" to "I need to pee NOW!" in a matter of seconds. If you're nodding your head, you're not alone. This isn’t just a quirk of aging—this is your brain doing exactly what you accidentally trained it to do.

The Toilet Trigger: A Case of Classical Conditioning

What’s happening here is a form of classical conditioning. Just like Pavlov's dogs began to salivate at the sound of a bell, our brains associate certain environments or stimuli with specific responses. In this case, the sight of the bathroom (or even the door) becomes a trigger for your body to prepare for urination. Your brain has learned: bathroom = time to pee. The reaction is automatic. It bypasses conscious thought.

The good news? If your brain was trained into this pattern, it can also be retrained out of it.

How to Retrain Your Brain

Retraining your brain takes intentional practice. If you want to stop the near-accident urgency that hits when you see a toilet, you can.

Here’s how:

1. Awareness – Recognize that this is a reflex, not a true emergency. You have more control than it feels like.

2. Delay the response – When you feel that strong urge upon seeing the toilet, pause. Take a breath. Wait a few seconds. You’re teaching your body that the trigger doesn’t need to equal immediate action.

3. Gradual desensitization – Practice walking into the bathroom without immediately going. Do something else for a moment. Over time, this helps break the tight link between stimulus and response.

4. Consistency – Like any habit, retraining takes time—typically around 30 days of consistent effort. So practice. 

Why This Skill Matters

This isn't just about bladder control. This is about brain control. Once you understand how your brain is constantly reacting to triggers around you—often without your permission—you can begin to take your power back.

Your emotional responses to stress? Conditioned. Your defensiveness in conflict? Conditioned. Your impulse reactions when things go wrong? Conditioned.

Just like the bathroom example, all of these responses can be retrained.

This Is What My Book Is All About

In Mastering the Five Managerial Superpowers, I walk you through exactly how to retrain your brain to respond more strategically to the world around you. The foundational skills of self-awareness, compassion, and self-control allow you to stop reacting automatically and start choosing your responses with intention.

Whether you’re leading a team or just trying to lead a more centered life, understanding how to rewire your reflexes is a superpower worth mastering.

So the next time your bladder tries to boss you around, remember: it’s not magic. It’s just conditioning. And you can hack it.

Ready to learn how? Check out Mastering the Five Managerial Superpowers and start hacking your brain today. https://humanistlearning.com/mastering-the-five-managerial-superpowers/

Self Discipline is the art of decision making

Self-discipline is being able to make good decisions for oneself.  It is a form of responsible autonomy. You don’t just follow directions, you do what is right because – you yourself decided what is right.

All our actions have consequences. Most of the time we can chose our actions so that we are a benefit to ourselves and to others.  If we don’t take the time to think through our actions, we can hurt ourselves and others. To be self-disciplined is to be morally responsible for your actions and the consequences you have on others.

Eleanor Roosevelt in her book You Learn by Living, wrote, “When you come to understand self-discipline you begin to understand the limits of freedom. You grasp the fact that freedom is never absolute, that it must always be contained within the framework of other people’s freedom.”

I am a Humanist, which means I have accepted that it is my responsibility to balance my need for autonomy and my social obligations in a way that benefits not just me, but the society in which I live.  My autonomy is a socially embedded form of autonomy. This isn’t easy to do and I don’t always get the balance right, but I would suggest that actively being conscious of the need to do this yields better results than just winging it does.  The added bonus is that making an effort to ensure that your actions help others and yourself feels really good.  As Eleanor Roosevelt says (paraphrased) ,  it is a sign of emotional maturity to approach life in such a balanced and responsible fashion.  In fact, it’s the definition of being responsible.

Self Discipline is accepting the responsibility of choosing your actions wisely. 

I teach online courses in personal and professional development from a Humanist perspective.  I also have books and videos available on these topics and more.

https://humanistlearning.com/jennifer-hancock/

controlling your response to the uncontrollable

Most people don’t deal well with uncertainty.  This is why the serenity pray is still so important – to everyone.

I take a humanistic approach, meaning, I take a realistic and compassionate approach to the problem.


1. What can I control? Really. Having a science-based approach helps me know what is within my control and what is not.   The key to the serenity prayer – is knowing the difference between the things you can control and the things you can’t. Science can help you. That is what is known as wisdom.

2. I work on something else. When something is beyond my control. Instead of spending my time worrying about it. I find something that is within my control and work on that. It might be something tangential. It might be completely off topic. But I find giving myself something constructive to do helps me not waste time worrying about something I don’t have control over.

3. Flipping Coins and other superstitious behavior. I know flipping coins won’t help me know how something will turn out. But it still helps me reduce stress and gives me a good laugh. Most of our superstitious behaviors are to help us feel like we have control over things we don’t control at all. It gives us the illusion of control. And that illusion can be very calming. To take advantage of this without getting lost in fantasy/magical/wish fulfillment – I flip coins.  Not having control over something is very very stressful. If we can trick our brains into relaxing – we will be much better off. So I engage in coin flipping to help convince my brain – it’s under control so it will relax and let me focus on things that actually would be constructive. The key is to not take whatever superstitious thing you do seriously. Give your brain the illusion of control – but be aware – it’s still beyond your control. And yes – this does work. It’s like a placebo for the brain.

I have a 6 hour online course called Living Made Simpler that teaches humanist coping skills - step by step to help you learn how to be more effective at - life without resorting to supernaturalism.  https://humanistlearning.com/livingmadesimpler1/

Fear, Anger and Self Control

Thinking rationally and therefore behaving rationally is really hard to do when you are fearful and/or angry.

Yoda said, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. I gotta be honest, the Nazi’s in Charlottesville terrified me. Really terrified me. As a result, I got really angry. In a way I don’t normally get. I haven’t felt emotions that strong in a long while. It took me 3 whole days before my compassion started to kick in. Normally I can find compassion for people in a matter of minutes, not days.

I am sharing this because self-control is important. We can’t make good decisions or even act in a civilized way if we are fearful to the point of being angry. This is what is wrong with people in hate groups. They have uncontrolled fears that are causing them to get angry and fearful.

So how do we regain control?  First, when you can, remind yourself that your anger is based in fear. Then figure out why you are afraid to the point you are angry. Anger is a protective emotion.  Figure out what you are afraid of and why and remind yourself to be compassionate and you should find your fear ebbing away. That is what works for me.

Just please don’t let your fears consume you because eventually – it will lead to hate and hate doesn’t solve anything.

To learn how to manager anger in yourself and others - consider taking this online course - only $7.50 - https://humanistlearning.com/angermanagement101/ 

https://humanistlearning.com/angermanagement101/

Self Care

When you can’t help others, help yourself.

Compassion for self is as important as compassion for others. As Humanists we seek to live lives of personal fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of humanity. We know our meaning and purpose comes from helping others and working to benefit others.

The problem is that we can’t always help other people. Sometimes we are the ones who need help;  We all get sick. Sometimes very sick. We all have ups and downs emotionally. And sometimes there just isn’t enough fuel in the tank to help and care for others.  In those moments we need to care for themselves.

I am a mom. This means I have a kid who relies on me to provide food, clothing, shelter and emotional stability.  I am lucky that the first 3 of those are covered. Where I struggle is with emotional stability.

Struggle isn’t really the word. Most of the time it’s easy. I’m there for him.  But sometimes, I have my own anxieties and I can’t give him my full attention.  I get antsy and anxious and feel like if I have to listen to him talk about Minecraft for another moment, I’m going to burst.

It is in those moments, that to provide emotional stability for him, I have to be clear about what MY needs are.  When I do this – he knows to modulate his behavior so that I can have the head space I need for a moment. This is better for him and for me because instead of blowing up, I can calmly say – hey – this is what I need right now. He feels good that he can give back to me for a moment and I feel good that I’m teaching him self care and self advocacy through modeling.

Whether you are dealing with professional obligations or personal ones, self care is essential. Knowing what your limits are helps you to make sure that you are emotionally capable of caring for others. Taking short breaks to clear your head isn’t selfish. It’s self care. It’s what makes it so you can help others instead of being wrapped up in your own drama all the time.

So care for yourself. View it as mental maintenance to keep your brain and your body functioning so that you can do the good deeds for others you want to.

I talk about this concept more in my book: The Humanist Approach to Happiness: https://humanistlearning.com/the-humanist-approach-to-happiness-book/

And also discuss how to balance compassion for yourself with compassion for others in the course Living Made Simpler: https://humanistlearning.com/livingmadesimpler1/

The goal is self-control

If you can’t control yourself and succumb to temptation, the solution isn’t to remove temptation; the solution is to work on your self control!

A while back there was a news story about a Saudi cleric who recommended baby girls be clad in baby burkas. (see: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/342731#ixzz2JwH9Rk7i)

Why? Because apparently there are a number of Muslim men who are raping their young daughters. And it’s becoming a bit of a problem. Now, one of the solutions to this problem has been to advocate changing the law to make it illegal for a man to kill his wife or child or abuse them, which is apparently currently legal under Saudi Arabia’s version of Sharia. This seems like a rational step. Make it illegal for men to abuse women.

However a Saudi cleric has another idea. Since some Saudi men can’t resist themselves even around tiny little babies, that babies and young girls should wear burkas so that the men in their lives won’t be tempted to rape and torture them.

And here is where Humanism differs from a religious approach. We believe in personal responsibility and in respecting individuals. Rape and any form of sexual abuse against anyone of any age is not ok because it dehumanizes the victim on a very basic human level! It’s about control and power and ultimately about disrespect.

Further Humanism doesn’t tell 5 year old girls that they are responsible for their father raping them because they should have been wearing a burka!  We instead tell the father – he is responsible to protect his daughter and to not harm her in any way.

Asking everyone around you to accommodate the fact you have no self-control is to make other people responsible for your actions and choices. It is an immature response to bad behavior. It is like a 10 year old you have told not to touch something breaking it and then blaming you for leaving it out for them to play with in the first place.

Mature people take responsibility for their actions. The solution isn’t to ask half of humanity to not tempt you by their very existence. The solution is to work on your self-control so that you can be in the presence of your five year old daughter and not think of raping her! Or better yet – how about working on your self control and compassion and respect for others so that raping any girl is not something you would ever consider!

Family Rules for a Happy Household

Being explicit about expected behaviors helps children learn responsibility towards others. It teaches them that other people matter and are to be valued.

I was discussing family rules with some friends. These are rules of how members of a family are expected to treat one another. The goal is to have a happy household.  My friend Pam said her children came up with the following rules. 

• ·         Be kind
• ·         Be gentle
• ·         Exercise self-control

Her kids figured that everything fit within those three things and they did. The biggest hassle of being in a family is that your actions impact others directly. Being self centered hurts your family in a way that may not be evident or as direct and immediate as it is with your other friends.

For instance, if someone fails to put the milk away and it sours overnight, then no one will have milk for their breakfast cereal. Use the last of the hot water because you just had to have an extra-long shower and everyone else has to take a cold shower, which is rather annoying and unpleasant.

By focusing on being kind and gentle you remind yourself to take other people’s needs into account in addition to your own. By exercising self-control you take responsibility for your actions. You actively work to make sure you don’t negatively impact the other people in your house.  In short, these rules help make sure you balance your needs with the needs of those around you.  Which to me, is what Humanism is all about.

Does your family have rules of conduct? If so, what are they? My family’s rules are be nice, do your fair share of the housework and if you are in a bad mood, give yourself a time out so that you don’t negatively impact others.