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It's definitely not a myth. Roy Baumeister mentioned in the article did most of the work in describing how willpower behaves, and a few years back somebody else
by radu_floricica 15y ago
It's definitely not a myth. Roy Baumeister mentioned in the article did most of the work in describing how willpower behaves, and a few years back somebody else pinned down the actual mechanism (something to do with glucose - drinking a glass of something sweet restores most of the will power back).
- LiveTheDream 15y agoThe first thing I thought after reading this was how unfortunate it is for people on diets that they have to drink a sugary beverage in order to regain the willpower to avoid sugary beverages.
- TeMPOraL 15y agoSounds like a negative feedback loop, it should stabilize at some point. The thing is, it might not stabilize where the person on diet would wish it to. :).
- radu_floricica 15y agoYeap, that's one of the lessons to draw from this. Another is that it's twice as hard to change two habits at the same time: i.e. maybe people who quit smoking and find themselves getting fatter to this because of a self-regulation issue. For what's worth, I remember the "magic number" for creating a habit is 60 days - and there's also good research on the stages one goes through when creating a habit and what's most likely to sabotage him/her at each stage. We really really need more "science in plain English" books about modern psychology.
- tomjen3 15y agoThat is sorta where I loose it - that should mean that people who drinks lots of sugar would never be willpower deprived, right? But they are not those most likely to loose weight.