Habits - good and bad - die hard

The study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, contradicts the idea that being under pressure leads to bad habits like over-eating or shopping sprees.

Instead, people are just as likely to maintain gym habits or eat healthily.

In short, they say stress does lead to relapses into bad behaviour - but that it can reinforce good habits too.

Doughnuts v oatmeal

According to BBC, the University of Southern California team looked at the behaviour of 65 students over a 10-week term.

They wanted to study how much willpower someone had in a time of stress - in this case, during exams.

They found that during testing periods, when students were stressed and sleep-deprived, they were even more likely to stick to old habits - as if they didn't have the energy to do something new,

So those who ate pastries or doughnuts for breakfast during the term ate even more junk food during exams.

But the same was true of the healthy "oatmeal eaters" - they too were likely to stick to their routine and habits.

Those who read the editorial pages of the newspaper every day continued even when they were short of time.

And regular gym-goers were even more likely to go to the gym even more when stressed.