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The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

nytimes.com

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Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#11

Post by byproxy »

w1ntermute wrote: post #9

> “Willpower”is filled with advice about what to do with your willpower. Build up its strength, the authors suggest, with small but regular exercises, like tidiness and good posture. Don’t try to tame every bad habit at once. This is the key. For example, instead of having a bunch of New Year's resolutions, come up with one resolution every month. Focus your (finite) willpower on making it into a habit, at which poin…

I made a New Years resolution (purely for convenience of logging time) to not eat meat on weekdays. So far, I've been pretty successful at keeping it. I guess the key here is that I'm able to eat meat on weekends as a treat, which refreshes my willpower weekly. Next year, I plan on restricting my diet further, but possibly keep the less-restricted, meat-free diet on weekends.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#12

Post by RobertHubert »

From my experience or learning rather while studying psych I came to believe that as all successful or enjoyable actions are rewarded by dopamine (everything from grasping a spoon so smoking crack). Also, the more closely an action and its reward are pared to one-another in time the greater the strength of the feeling of "that was a good choice or Success!". So it seems to follow that giving in sooner rather than later (for some potentially greater reward - delayed gratification) rewards the brain more and does so faster thus reinforcing that behavior model more and more successfully over and over.

Because delayed gratification is well, delayed, the chemical reinforcements in the brain don't happen (or happen in some other way that is more conscious rather than instantaneous without reflection). So for a child who has not developed the ability to delay gratification it becomes now or never and that mental reward structure can really hurt them later in life. Thanks for posting.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#13

Post by rytis »

ok, so let's go back to this for example: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2908015 (I am nothing).

As the author says: "I am nothing, and so I am finally free to be myself.".

Does being 'myself' mean I lack willpower and thus just ignore everything and everyone else and focus on myself?

Thing is, in my opinion having good self control wins over being myself (which I think is on the edge of being selfish).

I wonder what you guys think on the question 'being myself' vs 'self-control' ?

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#14

Post by mechnik »

rkalla wrote: post #2

A really excellent followup to the study that was linked to around here about 6 months ago that found out "willpower" is an exhaustible resource that needs to be managed throughout your day. The book[1] this article is reviewing discusses learning to exercise your will power through little mini tasks throughout the day (sit up straight, don't curse, don't eat the whole cake, pickup your desk before going to lunch, et…

Recent findings by Carol Dweck and others challenge the prevalent notion that willpower is an exhaustible AND finite resource. She found that the subjects who believed that exercising one's willpower strengthens it rather than depletes it actually increased their willpower. One's mindset was the key. http://www.stanford.edu/~gwalton/home/In_the_News_files/Job,...

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#15

Post by sliverstorm »

RobertHubert wrote: post #12

From my experience or learning rather while studying psych I came to believe that as all successful or enjoyable actions are rewarded by dopamine (everything from grasping a spoon so smoking crack). Also, the more closely an action and its reward are pared to one-another in time the greater the strength of the feeling of "that was a good choice or Success!". So it seems to follow that giving in sooner rather than lat…

It's always funny and somewhat humbling to remember that children have to develop the ability to delay gratification.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#16

Post by RobertHubert »

w1ntermute wrote: post #9

> “Willpower”is filled with advice about what to do with your willpower. Build up its strength, the authors suggest, with small but regular exercises, like tidiness and good posture. Don’t try to tame every bad habit at once. This is the key. For example, instead of having a bunch of New Year's resolutions, come up with one resolution every month. Focus your (finite) willpower on making it into a habit, at which poin…

Also, I have found that "breaking" the willpower mind wall has to do with taking tasks (like good posture, delaying FB status updates, doing dishes) and rewarding yourself mentally along the way by thinking or even saying things like "This is great! or I win!" even so much as smiling while doing these things helps to reinforce the dopamine pathways and can overtime help in "re-coding" your brain to be will-powerful. It's about feeling good while doing things and your brain doesn't know the difference between fake good and real good and before you know it neither will you and that's the point :)

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#17

Post by ehsanu1 »

mechnik wrote: post #14
rkalla wrote: post #2

A really excellent followup to the study that was linked to around here about 6 months ago that found out "willpower" is an exhaustible resource that needs to be managed throughout your day. The book[1] this article is reviewing discusses learning to exercise your will power through little mini tasks throughout the day (sit up straight, don't curse, don't eat the whole cake, pickup your desk before going to lunch, et…

Recent findings by Carol Dweck and others challenge the prevalent notion that willpower is an exhaustible AND finite resource. She found that the subjects who believed that exercising one's willpower strengthens it rather than depletes it actually increased their willpower. One's mindset was the key. http://www.stanford.edu/~gwalton/home/In_the_News_files/Job,...

Why can't you believe both? The analogy to muscles and strength training is appropriate here. The day after a workout with very heavy weights, it's hard to lift much at all. So you need to recover.

The thing is that recovery is as important as the actual exercising, because it is during recovery that muscle strength increases. It may be just like that with exercising willpower: it is depleted temporarily, but given time to recover, in the long-term, willpower strengthens.

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#18

Post by dlytle »

I've been wondering if there's a good way to test this on a personal basis using something like compounding interest, only with candy.

For example, keeping a bag of Reese's Pieces, and every consecutive (time period) you go without breaking goal X, you add (# of time periods) pieces of candy to a jar. Then at the end of the day, you cash out your jar.

So, longer periods of self control would result in a larger reward, and a physical/visual representation of your progress so far would help reinforce your motivation to remain on track.

Maybe if using candy, you get to eat half of what you'd put in immediately, and take advantage of the gradually escalating amount of sugar to help reinforce your willpower reserves?

Mostly just brainstorming here. :P

Re: The Sugary Secret of Self-Control

#20

Post by dualogy »

sliverstorm wrote: post #6

As far as food & overeating/unhealthy foods- I've learned you don't necessarily need self-control. You can stop caring instead. That's how I wound up after going hungry for months, and got used to it. It's frighteningly effective. Right now, the last meal I remember was about 20 hours ago, and the last meal before that was another 20-24 ago. My stomach is aching, but it doesn't bother me. Of course, this is not witho…

Starving for hours and ignoring your body's warning signals? Whatever happened to "don't eat less, eat better" -- "don't reduce quantity, increase quality"?

If you enjoy eating and don't enjoy the sounds made by a hungry stomach... you can munch down as many of those fresh veggies as you like and will feel all the better for it, while not gaining a pound. Something to consider. Not the same for fruits as they do contain sugars... but veggies, the sky is the limit!

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