Totally fascinating post from Steve Clark titled Why is change so difficult?
The human organism is resistant to change. The body tries to maintain what physiologists call homeostasis. This is the physical state of equilibrium or status quo. The body is designed to operate in a very narrow range of physiological processes. The brain is no different.
And now for the explanation:
Change creates psychological stress.
Change engages the prefrontal cortex, the conscious part of the brain that is responsible for judgment, planning and decision making. The prefrontal cortex is like RAM memory in a PC. It is fast and agile, able to hold multiple threads of logic at once to enable quick calculations. But like RAM, the prefrontal cortex’s capacity is finite—it can deal comfortably with only a handful of concepts before becoming overloaded. When it becomes overloaded it generates a palpable sense of discomfort, anxiety, fatigue, and frustration.
Like a computer the brain prefers to run off its hard drive or basal ganglia, which has a much larger storage capacity. This is the part of the brain that stores the hardwired memories and habits that dominate our daily lives.