7 Seemingly Unhealthy Behaviors That Are Actually Good for You

1. Having a glass (or two) of wine with dinner
When it comes to losing weight, you've likely heard that it's best to avoid the liquid calories found in alcohol. But a recent review of studies on the impact of alcohol on weight gain published in Current Obesity Reports found that frequent light to moderate alcohol intake — meaning at most two drinks a day for men and one for women — does not seem to be associated with obesity risk. However, binge drinking (consuming five or more drinks on an occasion) and heavy drinking (more than four drinks in a day for men, or more than three for women) were linked to an increased risk of obesity and a growing waistline. So go ahead and enjoy a glass or two of wine with dinner — just don't overdo it. Drinking too much may lower your inhibition and cause you to polish off that pint of chocolate chip cookie dough.

2. Indulging in your favorite comfort foods
Whether you're trying to lose weight or not, you already know you shouldn't indulge in mac and cheese and bacon double cheeseburgers every day. However, "it's ok to enjoy comfort foods from time to time," says Rachel Beller, RDN, a nutritionist based in Los Angeles. In fact, if you deprive yourself of the foods you love, your efforts could backfire and lead to binge-eating down the road. The key to indulging your cravings, says Beller, is selecting comfort foods that yield a return on your health — think mashed potatoes made with clean ingredients or pizza made with whole grain crust. In other words, don't reach for a bag of Cheetos, which offers no nutritional value. "That would be counterproductive no matter what," notes Beller. If you do indulge in a meal that's not nutritionally stellar (hello, margaritas and nachos!), don't beat yourself up and slide into a junk food-filled abyss. Just pick up where you left off and make the next meal a healthy one.

3. Taking a break from your exercise routine
When you're trying to reach a health goal, it can be all too easy to fall into a must-work-out-every-day mindset. But the truth is, it's not a good idea to hit the gym on a daily basis. Many people don't realize that recovery is just as important as exercise, says certified personal trainer Kelvin Gary, owner of Body Space Fitness in New York City. "When you work out, your body breaks down muscle tissue," he explains. "You then need to allow your body time to recover so it can re-build the muscle tissue and make it even stronger." Not allowing your body time to recover can lead to problems such as decreased performance, fatigue and injuries. The amount of recovery time your body needs varies (depending on your age and fitness goals), but Gary recommends, at the very least, one day of rest each week. "That means not exercising at all or doing something restorative like yoga or easy stretching," he says.

4. Nibbling on chocolate
It's ok to indulge your sweet tooth once in awhile. "Chocolate's main ingredient cacao contains a wealth of polyphenols — a powerful anti-inflammatory agent," says Beller. "In fact, it has twice the amount found in red wine, three times that of green tea, and four times more than black tea." According to Beller, cacao has a host of health benefits including lowering blood pressure, reducing bad cholesterol, staving off diabetes (by reducing insulin resistance), and sharpening your mental function by promoting neuronal growth and blood flow to the brain. To enjoy chocolate the healthy way, try nibbling on a few squares of 70% or higher dark chocolate paired with strawberries or melted onto bananas, mix 2 tablespoons unsweetened pure cocoa powder into your coffee or a cup of warm milk or sprinkle cacao nibs on oatmeal or a smoothie bowl, suggests Beller.

5. Stressing out
Believe it or not, stress isn't always a bad thing. "Stress itself is not the enemy," says Leslie Connor, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist based in Wilmington, DE. "It can be an important signal or ally to us, as long as we know how to cope with it." In fact, moderate stress levels can improve performance, a phenomenon you may have experienced while working under a tight deadline. "Too little stress equals low performance — basically we aren't getting activated enough to put forward our best," says Connor. "But too much stress can also lead to low performance because it may cause you to freeze up. What leads to maximum performance then is moderate stress." In other words, you want to feel worked up enough to perform well, but not so crazed that you freeze up or panic.

6. Procrastinating (er, pondering)
"Never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time," Charles Dickens once said. It's a wise sentiment that's often easier said than done. Indeed, 20 percent of people are chronic procrastinators, says Joseph Ferrari, Ph.D., professor of psychology at DePaul University and author of the book Still Procrastinating: The No Regrets Guide to Getting It Done. But while everybody procrastinates, not everyone is a procrastinator, he notes. What does that mean? First, it's important to understand the definition of procrastinating. "Procrastination means actively putting something off," says Ferrari. "That's different from pausing or pondering, in which you're actively collecting information so you can move forward." So it's ok to not do a task immediately, as long as you're actually taking actions to prepare for it. The bottom line? Strive toward pondering, not procrastination.

7. Netflix and chilling
It turns out cozying up on the couch with your partner can actually improve your relationship. A study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found that sharing media — like TV shows, books and movies — with your partner can help you feel closer, especially if you're not part of the same social world. Previous research has shown that couples tend to feel more satisfied and committed to their relationship when both partners are part of the same social circle. So, if you're not hanging with the same friends on the regular, sharing "media experiences" can have a similar effect, says researchers. Our advice? Grab the remote and start snuggling.

Understanding Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors

To this day, Katie Koppel, a 23-year-old recent college graduate who lives in Boston, still remembers the exact moment she first pulled out her hair. She was a bored 7-year-old, sitting in front of the television. Mindlessly, her fingers wandered to her face and landed on her eyebrows. "I pulled out half my eyebrow in a couple of hours," Koppel recalls. "I just remember looking into the mirror and seeing what I had done, and not understanding what had just happened. I felt this tremendous sense of fear." Koppel's pediatrician thought her hair loss might be caused by lupus. Her parents were stymied. Nobody thought to ask Koppel – who by then had begun shutting herself in closets for hours at a time, yanking at her face and scalp with swollen fingers – if she was pulling her hair out herself. Eventually, Koppel's mother did a Google search for "unusual forms of hair loss."

She discovered a clinical term for her daughter's condition: trichotillomania. Trichotillomania is a condition in which individuals feel the compulsive urge to tug out their body hair. Leg hair, scalp hair, arm hair and armpit hair are all fair game, as is facial hair, eyelashes, chest and pubic hair. However, Koppel and her mother would soon learn that trichotillomania falls under an even broader umbrella of little-understood disorders called body-focused repetitive behavior, or BFRBs. These are behaviors that involve compulsively damaging one's physical appearance – picking at skin, pulling hair, biting nails and even chewing one's lips or the inside of the cheeks. But wait – doesn't everyone pull their hair or pick their skin from time to time?

According to Dr. Nancy Keuthen, a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Trichotillomania Clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital, individuals with BFRBs "have tried repeatedly to decrease or stop. [Their behaviors] cause distress and impairment in functioning," she says. "All of us do some skin picking or hair pulling, whether you're going to admit it or not, but the people who come in for treatment are the people who are seeing significant tissue damage or hair loss." About 1 to 3 percent of the population is thought to have trichotillomania, and about 1 to 5 percent is thought to have a skin picking condition known as excoriation disorder. The people who have this clinical level of the diagnosis, Keuthen says, will often start picking or pulling around puberty – although they can also start earlier or later in life. Both men and women struggle with BFRBs, although women are more likely to seek treatment. Patients with BFRBs might spend an hour or more a day picking, pulling, biting or thinking about it. They'll constantly try to manage their urges – which might negatively affect their relationships, friendships, family functioning and focus at school or work. There are also medical and cosmetic concerns. Those who pick at their skin might experience infections and scarring. Individuals who pull out their hair might find it difficult to grow back. In rare and extreme cases, people can pick down to the muscle or dig away at their nose so much that their septum collapses. And, of course, like many psychological conditions, trichotillomania, excoriation disorder and other related behaviors are accompanied by stigma. BFRBs are "disorders of isolation and of shame," says Koppel, who wears a wig to hide her hair loss. "I think in a lot of ways that's more damaging than any more physical or medical consequences could ever be. Every single person I know with trichotillomania has, at one point, felt like they were the only one who did this.

They didn't know it had a name, they didn't know it was diagnosable. And people were reinforcing that shame by telling them [they] could stop if they wanted to." Men with trichotillomania often escape scrutiny by shaving their heads or beards. With women, who tend to have longer hair, it's a little harder to hide. And those with excoriation disorders will often pick at areas covered by clothing or wear garments to conceal their marks. So why do people pick and pull? Doctors are still trying to figure that out. Trichotillomania and excoriation disorder are both listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; both are considered obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, though they're unique from OCD. (Nail biting, lip chewing, nose picking and other behaviors aren't yet listed; they aren't as often reported, nor are they as widely studied.) "OCD is really all anxiety-driven," says Carol Mathews, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Florida. "You feel a sense of relief when you've acted on your compulsion, but you don't feel a reward. With hair pulling, you feel a sense of relief, a sense of reward, if you got the right hair or you got that scab." Mathews adds that OCD is usually accompanied by obsessions – fears of contamination, or a thought that you might harm someone. Compulsions are in direct response to those thoughts. But rather than being triggered by thought, hair pulling and skin picking are driven by urges. "It's a very physical act," Mathews says. "There are mental compulsions that you can have with OCD, but it doesn't have to be a physical compulsion." BFRBs feel different for everyone. Some people feel an increased sense of tension or anxiety before they pick or pull, and a feeling of relief after. Yet others pick or pull – almost in an absent-minded manner – when they're understimulated or bored. And many individuals engage in both hair pulling and picking; Keuthen says that up to half of people with trichotillomania also have excoriation disorder. "They're kind of kissing cousins," she says. Angela Hartlin, a 29-year-old from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, who has excoriation disorder, finds she's more prone to picking while dealing with stress.


Her skin picking "was personally driven by anxiety," Hartlin says, who once picked at her skin for hours a day and has experienced both infections and scarring. "I found it calming. So calming down the anxiety is something I have to do as part of my self-care routine. You have to know your own specific triggers and counter them." Hartlin eventually recognized her triggers. But it took help from a professional therapist, who started working with Hartlin after she appeared on a television show to talk about her experience with excoriation disorder. For years, Hartlin couldn't find help. Both Hartlin and Koppel faced a common problem that many patients with BFRBs experience – a difficulty finding a medical provider who understands their conditions. Many physicians have little clinical understanding of BFRBs and aren't trained to treat them. Or they'll mistakenly diagnose excoriation disorder or trichotillomania as an unrelated skin or psychological disorder. There are experts out there who treat BFRBs. But if you have a BFRB and don't live near a major hospital, your best bet is to seek a therapist who specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy, says Dr. Jon Grant, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Chicago. They should be well versed in these behaviors and can hopefully tailor their approach to fit your needs. Antidepressant medications like SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, are often prescribed for individuals with BFRBs. But although they might help with anxiety and depression – which, in turn, might alleviate skin picking or hair pulling – Grant says they show little efficacy for treating conditions like trichotillomania and excoriation disorder. However, studies have indicated that a pharmaceutical drug and nutritional supplement called N-acetyl cysteine might reduce patients' urges to pull or pick.

 Even then, treatment is highly individualized for each patient. Some people might respond to cognitive behavioral therapy, which teaches patients to recognize their thoughts and behaviors and change them. Yet others might not be motivated enough to fully engage in a series of sessions. N-acetyl cysteine might yield improvements in one individual, but not another. Bottom line? What works for you might not work for someone else – and vice versa. For instance, Koppel has not found much success with cognitive behavioral therapy, but she did once stop pulling for six months after trying hypnotherapy. And Hartlin didn't notice much of a difference with N-acetyl cysteine, but she greatly benefited from therapy. Is remission possible? Experts and patients alike agree it is – although "remission" might not necessarily mean that you'll never pick or pull again. Some people are able to stop completely. But you shouldn't be too hard on yourself if you occasionally find your hand straying toward your face or scalp, Grant says. Hartlin agrees. "Recovery is possible, but you need to accept yourself and where you're at with picking or pulling. Loving who you are will enhance your life," Hartlin says. "I'm in a state of recovery now where I … still have urges, but I can emotionally work through them." Hartlin still occasionally finds herself picking – but after many years, she says she's finally able to wear shorts for the first time.

She also finds it rewarding to spread awareness of BFRBs; she's formed support groups, and her memoir, "Forever Marked: A Dermatillomania Diary," recounts her years of struggle. And Koppel – who recently authored her own memoir – found her greatest source of solace through the Trichotillomania Learning Center, which was founded in 1991 to provide advocacy, awareness and support for individuals with trichotillomania. Since then, it has expanded to include those with other BFRBs. While Koppel isn't in "remission" per se, she is actively seeking treatment. Most importantly, she's no longer ashamed. "What I really attribute my emotional healing to is the Trichotillomania Learning Center's conferences," Koppel says. "I finally realized for the first time that I wasn't alone. It's one thing to read an article on the Internet, but another to be surrounded by people in a room who are going through the same experiences you are. That really drove things home in a way nothing else could."