The stop brain needs information, for instance, in order to sense that there might be trouble, and so anything that keeps us from collecting that information will put the stop brain to sleep. For example, the expression “mindless eating” is off the mark. When we polish off a whole bag of chips while, say, working on a computer, and don’t even realize we’ve done that until we notice our hand is searching around a bag that is now empty, our go brain in fact has been working feverishly behind the scenes. It’s just the stop brain that’s been checked out, put to sleep by our preoccupation with the
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