FTA: One of the experiments tested whether water-deprived participants would experience an energy drain from visualizing a glass of icy cold water (a simple but

FTA: One of the experiments tested whether water-deprived participants would experience an energy drain from visualizing a glass of icy cold water (a simple but elegant study design) and found that indeed, in even something so basic, the brain responds as if the goal has been reached. So positive fantasy makes you less likely to get a glass of water. What about important goals? The ones that generate stress, and feelings of being overwhelmed? You, know, important goals? FTA: Ironically, shifting into positive fantasy mode is most effective when we need to decrease our energy expenditure, when, for example, anxiety is getting the better of us. In that case, the healthiest move is denying the fire more fuel, and it seems that positive visualization is a commendably effective tool for doing exactly that. Oh. "Ironically" in the sense that our article suggests that all these positive thinking books are wrong, when in fact, its this entire article that is wrong and we wait till the last paragraph to make this clever little "ironic" claim. So, can we change the title to "Visualize success if you want to fail at getting a glass of water, but succeed at anything remotely fucking important".