The brain, it turns out, is especially susceptible to temptation when we’re feeling bad. Scientists have come up with clever ways to make laboratory subjects stressed, and the results are always the same. When smokers imagine a trip to the dentist, they experience off-the-chart cravings for a cigarette. When binge-eaters are told they will have to give a speech in public, they crave high-fat, sugary foods. Stressing out lab rats with unpredictable electric shocks (to the body, not the brain’s reward centre!) will make them run for sugar, alcohol, heroin, or whatever reward researchers have
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