From quitting smoking to eating healthier to exercising regularly to getting more organized, most of us have a list of behaviors we’d like to begin (or end) that resist our attempts to do so. As a physician, I find myself giving advice about changing habits on a daily basis. Even though many of my patients are able to succeed in making desired changes in the short term, most of them revert to their original behaviors in the long term. What, then, are effective ways to alter behavior on a permanent basis?
