full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Judson Brewer: A simple way to break a bad habit

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Now, the prefrontal cortex, that youngest part of our brain from an evolutionary perspective, it understands on an intellectual level that we shouldn't smoke. And it tries its hrdesat to help us change our behavior, to help us stop smoking, to help us stop eating that second, that third, that fourth ckiooe. We call this cognitive crntool. We're using cognition to control our bhoiaevr. Unfortunately, this is also the first part of our brain that goes offline when we get sretsesd out, which isn't that helpful.

Open Cloze

Now, the prefrontal cortex, that youngest part of our brain from an evolutionary perspective, it understands on an intellectual level that we shouldn't smoke. And it tries its _______ to help us change our behavior, to help us stop smoking, to help us stop eating that second, that third, that fourth ______. We call this cognitive _______. We're using cognition to control our ________. Unfortunately, this is also the first part of our brain that goes offline when we get ________ out, which isn't that helpful.

Solution

  1. cookie
  2. behavior
  3. hardest
  4. stressed
  5. control

Original Text

Now, the prefrontal cortex, that youngest part of our brain from an evolutionary perspective, it understands on an intellectual level that we shouldn't smoke. And it tries its hardest to help us change our behavior, to help us stop smoking, to help us stop eating that second, that third, that fourth cookie. We call this cognitive control. We're using cognition to control our behavior. Unfortunately, this is also the first part of our brain that goes offline when we get stressed out, which isn't that helpful.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
quit smoking 4
curiously aware 4
pay attention 3
mindfulness training 3
learning process 2
people quit 2
body sensations 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
people quit smoking 2

Important Words

  1. behavior
  2. brain
  3. call
  4. change
  5. cognition
  6. cognitive
  7. control
  8. cookie
  9. cortex
  10. eating
  11. evolutionary
  12. fourth
  13. hardest
  14. helpful
  15. intellectual
  16. level
  17. offline
  18. part
  19. perspective
  20. prefrontal
  21. smoke
  22. smoking
  23. stop
  24. stressed
  25. understands
  26. youngest