How to make a healthy habit stick

In the 2006 movie “Stranger than Fiction,” Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) discovers that he’s the protagonist in a novel — and that the voice he’s been hearing in his head is the author’s narration of his life. “Every weekday for 12 years, Harold would tie his tie in a single Windsor knot instead of the double, thereby saving up to 43 seconds.”

While Harold’s habits sound extreme, adding a new healthy habit to your morning routine is a good idea.

Researchers think that’s because your levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that makes learning more difficult, is highest in the morning, and focusing on learning something when it’s a challenge may mean that the info is more solidly encoded in your memory.

In a study published in Health Psychology, researchers instructed 48 people to adopt a new stretching routine. Half were told to do it after waking up, the other half before going to sleep. An app tracked whether they’d done the stretch. While both groups made progress, the daily routine became a habit much more quickly for the morning group.

So if you’re looking to adopt a healthy habit (say, meditation or yoga), start doing it first thing in the morning. Before you know it, you might find that it’s second nature.

Potential colon cancer cure: How real is it?

Claims for “super cures” often are so exaggerated or even downright bogus that they leave your head spinning.

It’s always smart to have a wait-and-see attitude about unconventional health-bestowing claims. But there’s a new mouse-tested treatment for colorectal cancer that claims a 100 percent cure rate — and it’s got us intrigued.

A study published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine explains how researchers used radio-immunotherapy to target and kill off cancer cells without any negative side effects or damage to surrounding tissue. Researchers developed a three-step system that uses a radioactive antibody to target an antigen found on over 95 percent of primary and metastatic human colorectal cancers.

The researchers now hope to set up a safe and effective human trial.

If that turns out well, they say, the system also may be useful in snuffing out cancers of the breast, pancreas, lung, esophagus and skin (melanoma). Here’s hoping that’s one grand claim that turns out to be true!

Email questions for Mehmet Oz and Mike Roizen to youdocsdaily@sharecare. com.