Active strategies such as classifying, debating, deliberating, and delaying can help change what you think. They do so by changing where you think. Your know system starts to kick in, and you transfer control from the amygdala to the frontal lobe. Once you change where you think, you change how you think, which in turn changes what you think. You’re now able to carefully contemplate, ruminate, and take a longer-term view. So, if, like Henry, you find yourself obsessing over the possibility of gorging yourself on chocolate—or maybe gambling or spending obsessively to the point where you can
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