People who are stressed out are more likely to lapse back into
easy habits rather than to work toward their goals, and now
researchers say they may know why. Healthy study participants
who took stress hormone pills were more likely to keep
performing the same task, which earned them chocolate as a
reward, even after they'd had their fill, whereas people given a
placebo changed their course and worked harder to earn a
different treat. Brain images of the "stressed out" participants
suggested that the interaction of two stress hormones — cortisol
and adrenaline — lowered the activity of brain regions involved
in goal-directed behavior. The hormones didn't affect brain
regions involved in habitual behaviors. "This impairment of the
goal-directed system produces habit behavior," and is likely to
hamper people's abilities to make changes in their behavior, the
researchers wrote in their study published July 25 in the
Journal of Neuroscience. Stress, chocolate milk and orange juice
The study involved 69 healthy, no