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The PoWeR technique: a strategic approach to self-discipline
- onemoresoop 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y ago"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3." "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- barbazoo 3y agoThis one, this one will surely help me break my social media addiction...
- dreamy1 3y ago[flagged]
- sxp 3y agoI strongly recommend the book referenced in the article. I finished reading it a few weeks ago and is a fascinating coverage of various hypotheses regarding the connection between proper breathing and health. I'm still experimenting with some of the items from the book, but it's a good read for anyone interested in self-hacking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath:_The_New_Science_of_a_Lost_Art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breath:_The_New_Science_of_a_L...
- rcarr 3y agoWhat an overcomplicated load of baloney. If you become aware that you’re scared, stressed or overactive and distracted, do some 4-4-4-4 box method breathing until your mind calms down. The end. Just saved you having to remember this stupid acronym and this “ransom decision” nonsense. What’s more, it’s a proven technique that’s used by military personnel in life or death scenarios, as opposed to whoever this person is who’s claiming to have “10,000 learning cycles” of self discipline, whatever the fuck that means.
- username135 3y ago10000 of anything is just key wording to allude to being a 'master' at something since that number was arbitrarily used to determine who or who is not an expert.
- rcarr 3y agoIt was referring to hours of practice so 10,000 hours made you a master but what the fuck constitutes 10,000 learning cycles of self discipline? Has he spent 10,000 hours sat in meditation like a monk? I highly doubt it. It’s nonsense the author is using to try and give himself some credibility. He also links to a blog post describing his “somewhat hardcore work routine” and how adhd is his “superpower”. It’s a hard pass from me.
- username135 3y agoYa, I was referring to the book Outliers. When ever I here someone mention 10k of anything related to mastery or skill I assume they're parroting that book
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y agoNever heard of it, but according to random website [0]. > Box breathing—also known as square breathing and 4-4-4-4 breathing—is a breathwork first popularized by Navy SEALs who used it to quickly sharpen concentration and enhance alertness. It requires inhaling for four counts, holding your breath for four counts, exhaling for four counts, and then holding your breath again for four counts. [0] https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/box-breathing https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/box-breathing
- xbar 3y agoPerhaps the author meant "clenching."
- jeron 3y agojust short of kegel exercises
- ChanningAllen 3y agoIndeed the author did. Thanks for the catch.
- readthenotes1 3y agoCouldn't get part the foundation on the debunked marshmallow test.
- carabiner 3y agoNot sure it was debunked, maybe a bit deflated though. The replication only found the effect to have half of the power as the original. Edit: nvm looks like it's garbage lol https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/new-study-disavows-marshmallow-tests-predictive-powers/ https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/new-study-disavows-marshmal...
- ChanningAllen 3y agoThe replication problems of the marshmallow test are certainly interesting, but I'm not sure how they are relevant to the point being made by Robert Sapolsky in the quoted passage. His point has nothing to do with the predictive powers of the test. Instead it's that the children who succeeded in deferring gratification succeeded by means of effective strategies rather than by stoicism or genetics.
- Thoeu388 3y agoIt is question of motivation. Motivation uses logical forebrain, best way is to take thinking out of equation. - marshmallow test is invalid, if kids do not trust adult. It would not work on kids from rough neighbourhood, who would get second marshmallow stollen. Single marshmallow is logical choice in this case. Apply that on savings and inflation... - if phone alarm does not wake you up, use lamp with timer. 10000 lumens works pretty well... - phone doom scrolling can be avoided by switching phone into black and white, or inverting colors... Or disable java script everywhere... Or use very very slow proxy server... Key is not to think about it. The moment you have to switch on your brain, to convince yourself, is the moment you lost!
- HumanOstrich 3y agoThese are fascinating points, and I'd like to know more. Can you link to your sources?
- Aerbil313 3y agoThe case of smartphones is unique. There is a war waged by corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees to take the most of your attention out from you (for sweet ad money), with attention engineers working on new designs and innovations all the time. I don't think that is a battle %95 of people can win. Just look around to people. I avoid fighting the battle by making heavy use of screen time features to ban all un-absolutely-necessary features (apps, websites) and whitelist only a small amount of apps and websites. And I make those restrictions unchangeable by myself, otherwise it becomes pointless.
- Thoeu388 3y ago> take the most of your attention... with attention engineers working Typical victimhood conspiracy theory. > I avoid fighting the battle by making heavy use of screen time features to ban So you avoid that by spending more time on your phone. And someone has parental control over your phone...?!
- rmilejczz 3y ago
- QuantumG 3y agoSome of the best advice I've heard from alcoholics who got sober is: if you can have two drinks and then stop, you don't have a drinking problem. Similarly for self-control: if you have enough patience to read this comment, you don't have a self-control problem. Don't get sober for fun, it's no fun.
- jchw 3y agoHmm. The way I see it, self control is not a switch that is flipped on or off, it's definitely more like a spectrum of some kind, and generally I think having more of it is always going to be an improvement. Can't attest to whether or not this particular article's advice is actually useful; explanation hits me as a bit pop-sci but even if there were no scientific reason it should work, I bet it still helps in a sort-of placebo way. But I digress. If I want to lose weight, I know "going on a diet" is not how it works. You need lifestyle changes that you keep. You need to change your relationship with food, exercise, and have some self-restraint to continue to make better choices and hold yourself to them. But that does require deciding that you should "lose weight" or perhaps "eat healthier". On the other hand, if you decide that two beers every so often is OK with you, well, of course, everyone is pretty much entitled to decide that for themselves. But maybe to some degree, self-discipline is also partly not letting oneself make excuses for their own pointlessly harmful (even if only a tiny bit at once) behaviors that they'd probably ultimately be better off without. It's easy, since well, all of us, including me, do this sort of thing all the time: we're only human, after all. That said, there's obviously no objectively correct answer, it's definitely not that simple. Nobody orients their lives around just what is "healthier" or "safer" because that would be boring and depressing, no doubt about it. But to the point about alcohol, I don't really drink anymore and even though I never had a drinking problem, I just don't really miss it. It never really did a ton for me, I mostly am just dumber when drunk. I'd prefer to be in control of my state of mind for the most part, so I don't generally have interest in drugs that impair your state of mind much. Not to mention, alcohol is probably not good for you in moderation after all anyways, so eh. I feel that it's pretty likely that people need to hear different things at different phases of life, though, and this is just what I feel like I need with where I'm at now. Maybe I'll have to throw it all out later :)
- Aerbil313 3y ago
- koryk 3y agoI would recommend Walter Mischel's 2014 book "The Marshmallow Test." He argues that the power of the marshmallow test is not in demonstrating that some children innately have more self-control than others, but in revealing how this skill can be cultivated and improved with practice and the right strategies. I think the critiques are completely valid, Mischel did not account for many variables like socioeconomic status, family environment, etc. However, I do not believe it necessarily disproves his conclusion of being able to cultivate skills like self-control.
- elishah 3y agoYes, that famous marshmallow test has now been debunked several times from several angles. Many of them come down to the issue that the test was not measuring the participants' willpower so much as it was measuring their confidence that the test administrator would follow through on their promise. So regardless of the validity of the method proposed here, I'd say that framing this article around references to that experiment is a mistake.
- danielheath 3y agoI’d argue it offers an equally important conclusion; the people around you have better outcomes if you give them reason to trust you will follow through on your word.
- throwanem 3y ago> In short: You hold your breath and don't allow yourself to breathe again until you begin taking an action that aligns with your goals. So...this is a method to develop iron self-discipline, which requires nothing to start save for iron self-discipline.
- GavinMcG 3y agoNo, the point is that the self discipline needed to hold one’s breath is lower than the self discipline needed to take one specific values-aligned action. And that, in turn, is lower than the self discipline needed to simply not do the thing that isn’t values-aligned, without a method. Of course doing anything requires some degree of self discipline, if you want to call it that. But not all actions need iron-clad discipline.
- hm-nah 3y agoHahaaH!! After intently reading the first few paragraphs, I remembered that I have to mow the yard! Off now to that place of self-discipline.
- mindaslab 3y agoLol
- oluwie 3y agoMom
- LoganDark 3y agoAs someone with severe ADHD this is one of the only strategies that seem to work for me!
- ChanningAllen 3y agoReally glad to hear that. My recommendation is to put a lot of emphasis on the "environment" step toward the end of the article. Otherwise, you might find yourself gaining a merely temporary hold of self-control only to get distracted and fall back into a previous pattern of thinking/behavior.
- LoganDark 3y agomy technique has always been "if you need to do something but your ADHD won't let you, refuse to do anything else in the meantime". it takes less effort than suddenly deciding to get up and do the thing, but if done properly, culminates in you eventually deciding to get up and do the thing anyway. never thought of the holding breath thing though, that would probably result in less literally-fifteen-minute pauses wouldn't it
- throwaway7868 3y agoAside from some trick (as in the article) of using the breath to momentarily affect the amygdala, I believe the general emerging rule is to pause, in response to a temptation, just long enough to call to mind a preferable/practical alternative. I've seen this characterized as "you only need a moment of willpower".
- penjelly 3y agowhy does the like button cover 15% of my screen (mobile) and pop off the bottom constantly, making it even harder to read? and you can't dismiss it?
- yungporko 3y agoi always find it interesting how hostile people generally are to these sort of ideas, or towards anything that contains the implication that these problems are something that can be worked on and aren't just something that people are helpless victims of. it really is like clockwork, i knew what these comments were going to be like before i even read any of them. i guess "it's not my fault" is an easier pill to swallow than "this weakness i have means i have to work harder than most people to compensate for it".
- dave333 3y agoEasier just to take a modafinil pill - seems that when I do that I get everything I need to do done that day.
- nonrepeating 3y agoPardon me for asking what sounds like an aggressive or leading question, I assure you it’s not: if you have to take a pill to get your work done, could it be that you’re doing the wrong work? I always feel like if I have to take drugs to accomplish something non-medical, maybe I wasn’t meant to accomplish that thing.