How to Break a Bad Habit

No matter how early you started smoking, drinking, gambling,overspending, lying, procrastinating, binge eating, or tossing recyclables into the regular garbage bin, you weren't born doing any of them. You learned how to do them.

Learned behavior is a wonderful thing because it makes life so much easier. It helps you move through the day in a more efficient way without having to waste mental energy on mundane daily tasks like boiling water and brushing your teeth. You do them without even thinking.

But learned behavior that allows you to act without thinking is not such a good thing when it results in bad habits that become difficult and often impossible to break. Take food, for instance. A yet-to-be-published study out of Duke University has shown that people who are in the habit of eating popcorn at the movies will eat it whether it's fresh or stale. While all students preferred fresh popcorn, those who consumed with a goal of eating something good while watching a movie ate less when it was stale. Those who consumed with the specific goal of eating popcorn at the movies, ate just as much whether it was fresh or stale.

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