Our coping habits are not the only habits triggered by stress. In fact, stress biases the brain toward any of our old habits over new actions.3 The dorsal striatum says, “Let’s do it this way, because we’ve always done it this way.” And the prefrontal cortex says, “But that won’t help us get where we want to go.” Meanwhile, the nucleus accumbens says, “Ooh, that cupcake looks delicious.”
