“The temptations we face today are bigger than ever,” says Brendborg. “Our lack of control isn’t weakness, it’s design. Powerful corporations are creating superstimuli that overwhelm our biology. We eat fake foods, spend hours online instead of talking to friends, and trade sleep for one more scroll.”

Potent enough to override appetite cues, sleep signals and even relationships, superstimuli are stealthily corroding our wellbeing.

So how do we fight back? Here, Brendborg explains the leading habits harming our health – and the science-backed ways to break them.

The worst habits harming our health

Eating UPFs

If you can’t stop snacking, don’t blame yourself. Ultra-processed foods (UPFs), such as biscuits, crisps and cereal bars, are designed to be irresistible.

Food scientists carefully tweak ratios of fat, sugar and salt – and adjust the crunch and texture – to maximise their effect on the brain’s reward system. There is even a manufacturer that shapes salt crystals to stimulate the tongue more intensely.

Colour plays a role, too. UPFs often contain artificial dyes to make them more appealing, because our brain associates vivid colours with ripeness and reward. Think how colourful sweets, such as M&M’s and gummy bears, keep you reaching for more.

A Japanese study, published in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, found that people given a UPF-heavy diet ate more than 800 extra calories a day more, compared with when given unprocessed foods. They gained roughly 900 grams in a week on the UPF diet and lost the same amount on the unprocessed one.

UPFs are optimised for wanting, rather than liking. You can intensely want something you don’t actually enjoy – which is why people crave something from McDonald’s, even when they know it won’t make them feel great.

Scrolling through social media

Scrolling works on the same principle as UPFs. Algorithms constantly adjust what you see to keep you on the platform – whether the content makes you happy, angry or insecure. The system simply notes: “This keeps you here – show more of it.”

The average person now spends several hours a day on screens, around half of it on their phone. It’s not just teenagers – adults are often horrified when they check their weekly screen-time reports. Many of us even sleep less because we think, “I’ll just scroll for a few minutes,” then realise it’s far later than planned.

Over time, scrolling desensitises the brain’s reward system. The more we scroll, the more stimulation we need. We try to cut down, feel bored, then fall back into old habits.

Addiction to sugar

Sugar is one of the most powerful superstimuli we encounter. Humans prefer sweet tastes because of our evolutionary history as fruit-eating primates, when sweetness signalled energy and safety.

Modern food companies use that instinct against us. Today’s refined sugar is far sweeter than anything in nature and is added to a vast range of foods, including burger buns, pizza dough, processed meats and savoury sauces – often in quantities we’d never use ourselves.

Fast-food chains add sugar to savoury items including fries, burger buns, sauces and coleslaw, and it will also be in their processed meats. It makes food more appealing, encourages overeating and keeps us reaching for more.

A typical Western diet now contains the equivalent of 15-20 teaspoons of added sugar a day, far more than our bodies are equipped to handle.

When we eat sugar, it triggers a sharp surge of dopamine – the chemical signal linked to pleasure and habit formation. That spike reinforces our behaviour, encouraging us to eat more sugary foods, even when we’re not hungry.

Over time, the brain becomes desensitised, meaning we need ever-larger hits to get the same effect. This contributes to weight gain, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and chronic inflammation.

Shrinking our lives

The most insidious effect of superstimuli is what I call “the shrinking of real life”: the more time we spend scrolling, binge-watching or eating engineered foods, the more our brain adapts to expect that intensity. Ordinary experiences start to feel flat by comparison.

Activities that once gave us pleasure now feel like an effort. Reading, learning a skill or even watching a full film seem slow when instant stimulation is on tap. People are having less sex but watching more pornography.

We’re outdoors less and seeing friends less often. Polished fictional characters on television out-compete real life. They’re funnier, and more dramatic and engaging, than any real person. So we sit watching a series about a group of friends while our own friends sit at home doing the same.

Superstimuli will always be part of modern life. But once you understand how they work, you can stop being controlled by them and reclaim your brain.

Here are five steps to break a bad habit – for good

1. Remove your triggers

The easiest way to break a habit is to remove the cues that trigger it.

If chocolate or crisps tempt you every time you open the cupboard, it seems simple but just don’t keep them at home. Relying on willpower is a losing battle, so remove it from the equation.

If social media are your downfall, stop waking up to them. Don’t use your phone as an alarm clock – the moment you check it, you hand over your attention. I keep mine in another room at night and don’t check it until lunchtime.

Buy an alarm clock, leave your phone in your bag and let your brain have a clean start. Remove social apps from your home screen and silence notifications – they’re designed as cues that pull you back into an app and reinforce the habit loop.

2. Make your habit an effort

If you can’t remove a cue entirely, make the habit harder to do.

Don’t shop when hungry, and walk past fast-food chains. Our brains evolved to conserve energy (because our ancestors lived with the threat of starvation), so they naturally choose the lowest-effort option. Make temptation inconvenient.

Hide treats and keep healthy snacks visible – a bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter, crudites on your desk. Plate up meals individually rather than serving from the table; if you can’t see more food, you’re less likely to go back for seconds.

Avoid buffet-style restaurants and variety packs of sweets. Our brains evolved to seek variety to ensure we get a range of nutrients, but today, that instinct is exploited to make us eat more.

Technology needs barriers too. Switch your phone to greyscale – it’s less appealing without colour – and use app blockers at bedtime. I go further and use two phones: a “cocaine” phone with addictive apps, and a “kale” phone with only practical tools. I leave the cocaine phone at home, so I don’t waste willpower resisting it.

The same logic applies to television: hide the remote, log out of streaming platforms, and disable autoplay so programmes don’t automatically stream to the next episode.

3. Resensitise your brain

The good news is your brain – and tongue – can reset surprisingly fast.

Cut out added sugar and natural foods will start to taste sweet again. A study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that people following a reduced-sugar diet for three months rated vanilla pudding and sugary raspberry drink as significantly sweeter than those on a regular diet.

In my experience, you can feel the effects in as little as two weeks. Cut out sugar, fruit juice and artificially sweetened drinks and you’ll soon notice fruits and berries taste far sweeter, while confectionery seems almost cloying.

Reduce UPFs and ready meals suddenly taste aggressively salty. You don’t need to give up favourite foods forever – just lower the volume long enough to regain sensitivity. A couple of weeks will do the trick, but the effect continues to increase for a while.

The same applies to screens. Step back from endless scrolling and your brain begins to enjoy quieter pleasures again, such as reading or watching a film without distraction.

4. Find a replacement habit

Instead of trying to suppress a habit, replace it with a better one. The brain is always looking for a reward, so provide another attractive option and your old behaviour will lose its pull.

If sugar is your weakness, keep berries to hand. They satisfy cravings for a fraction of the calories and retrain your taste buds. Replace pick-and-mix sweets with colourful fruit salads or crudites, to satisfy your brain’s appetite for variety. At meals, focus on protein and fibre to prevent grazing later.

If I had to cut just one thing, it would be sugary drinks. They’re one of the most efficient ways to fatten up a human. We’re not good at registering liquid calories. A study in Appetite found that whether you drink water or a can of cola with a meal, you’ll eat the same amount. The drink simply adds extra calories your body doesn’t notice. Try replacing sweetened drinks with sparkling water, flavoured with sliced fruit.

With screens, identify what drives your scrolling – boredom, stress, avoidance – and plan another real-world option. Go for a walk, call a friend, meet someone for a coffee. Fill the space before the urge arrives and your brain won’t look for shortcuts.

5. Reconnect with natural rewards

If your social life takes place in a WhatsApp group and your evenings revolve around Netflix, it’s time to step back into the real world – even if it feels like an effort.

Studies show introverts enjoy social connection far more than they predict, and that’s true for all of us now. We underestimate how good real interaction feels – how calming a walk is, how satisfying it is to sit opposite someone instead of a screen. I consider myself an introvert but I still make a point of doing large, public talks at least once a week.

In Denmark, more people are cutting back on screen time to reclaim the lives they remember – coffee catch-ups, fresh air, social events. Real life can still be rewarding, it just needs space again.

So, next time you reach for your phone, remind yourself that you’ll feel better if you go out. The more real-world pleasure you cultivate, the less power artificial rewards have over you.