As you can imagine, corporations are willing to spend a lot of money to understand consumer habits in an effort to increase their bottom line. I recently read a NY Times article that outlined some of the research Target Corporation has paid to have done in an effort to understand the habits of women in their first trimester.
What they learned is that once our brain recognizes a pattern or habit it remembers it in a way that the next time you do it you use significantly less brain power. What this means to me is that we check out - we are less connected to ourselves - less yoked between mind and body.
In our practice of yoga - by yoking mind and body we can practice awareness and making choices that support our bigger vision and goals for ourselves. We can begin to recognize habits and find the source of the reward that has programmed the habit. If we can 'check in' and understand the motivation driving the habit we can use our mind to re-pattern the habit into something that supports our greater goals.
If you would like to read the article you can find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?ref=magazine
