A Whole Field of Psychology Research May Be Bunk. Scientists Should Be Terrified. →

May 11, 2016 by The Science of Self Help

Yikes. I don’t quite know where to begin on this one.

It’s scary for me because a lot of my theories on behavior change on this blog rest upon Baumeister and his experiments. The idea of conservation of willpower, of working on habits individually, lowering thresholds of willpower in order to facilitate habituation with Bj Fogg’s Tiny Habits….

As the article says (despite the sensational title) it could be that his theories are still correct. But we don’t know yet based on this problem with reproducibility in psychology.

The chance that it might be wrong can also be quite freeing - if willpower isn’t depleteable or acts differently than I thought it does, it could open the gateway for change that’s much more rapid. Rather than working on one or two habits, I could work on a dozen.

But my initial hunch is that it is true, at least with respect with willpower across times. This whole project started with the question - how come highly motivated people aren’t good at more than one thing? Baumeister’s theories explain this pretty well.

Also, every single time I’ve bitten off more than I could chew my entire project fell a part. I’ve never been good at doing things long term for myself even when I was in very structured conditions, even when I didn’t assume that willpower was depleteable. And this project has allowed me to concretely change this based on this theory.

I guess we’ll just have to see.

Delayed Onset Willpower/Endurance Drain

July 16, 2015 by The Science of Self Help

In the post entitled “Why Do Depletion Days Happen?” I asked the question - why do I have some low willpower/endurance days?

There must be a reason. And in the post entitled “Right on Schedule: Emotional Breakdowns a Week into New Habits” I talk about noticing a trend in emotional fluctuations (normally combined with low willpower/endurance) when exerting discipline to start a new habit.

Lydia has noticed that this also occurs the second week of really pushing a habit. In fact, a lot of my recent questions has to the efficacy of the entirety of the project could be laid at this door. After all, I had been roughly a week into the DiSSS protocol for writing when I essentially had a melt down.

But with my recent travel I’ve also noticed that in the past I’d often have the wherewithal to perform habits while traveling but would be exhausted the day or two after even when I had plenty of time to do them.

I’ll call this Delayed Endurance Drain. What is this? The theory is that if we use the engine metaphor, where forward momentum equals habits, and mastery, drag is caused by higher degrees of Endurance that overwork the system’s threshold. Too much, and drag forces (ego depletion, endurance depletion, negative emotions) come into play.

In this case the endurance load takes a while to settle. For a new habit, it may be week two, as it seems to be the case for pushing a new skill towards mastery. For travel, it’s the day after that the load settles, causing setbacks.

What’s this mean? Protocols should be enabled during these breaking points - lowered thresholds, or even a strategic planned “weekend” for those days to conserve strength.

The Holiday Effect Part 2

December 09, 2014 by The Science of Self Help

Yesterday I described the Holiday Effect, how this time of year tends to really mess with self discipline.

Specifically, a last minute trip to my personal kryptonite, Tex-Mex food.

What I did was use mental contrasting and implementation intention. I also took my phone along and, a la my No Bread Challenge and the Flash Diet, took pictures of the bread, tortillas, etc, that I would have problems with.

This went well, and the picture taking really underscored and boosted my willpower. I even, in the last picture, took an appetizer - a breaded and fried stuffed jalapeño, and took it out of it’s breading and ate it. That’s a lot of willpower for the problems I had and described before we went.

Here’s where I can improve:
-Make the implementation more detailed. I didn’t describe how I would treat getting a Margarita, so I ended up getting one and drinking the rest of my dad’s when he couldn’t finish it.
-Ask for more food. I was hungry after sharing fajitas for one, so I ended up eating a little bit of the breading after I ate the de-breaded stuffed jalapeños. After that I was still hungry, and I could have very well just asked for something more in order to be full. The key is eating enough - or at least having enough options - you can always take the rest home, which makes it easier for the next few days. In that way you can think of it as an opportunity in addition to being a challenge.

Again great job - I didn’t eat ANY chips, no tortillas, no rice, maybe half a spoon full of the beans, and none of the sopapilla that they ordered. More than anything implementation intention and the “flash diet” of taking pictures helped. Did mental contrasting really help? I don’t know, but it really helped with underscoring the situation before I went out.

Let’s see how it works the next time - AND it may very well be a great protocol to put into motion when I’m home or visiting friends for the holidays in general.

The Holiday Effect

December 08, 2014 by The Science of Self Help

I just got a text message from my mom:

Can u get back by 6? I think dad wants to go to Los cucos

I was just talking about lapses in willpower caused by friends. But really it’s not just friends - it’s family as well. And this is so natural during the holiday season. I’ll call it the Holiday Effect.

It’s almost like the universe just provided me with a perfect opportunity to practice a protocol to handle this.

There’s nothing wrong with Mexican - it can be great as a high carb day. But Mexican is my kryptonite. I want nachos and flour tortillas. I have so little discipline right now.

But I know how to deal with it in theory. Using my meditations I take several steps back from the problem, and I’m also using blogging to step back. Implementation intention and mental contrasting are techniques that work. I can do this. So….

Implementation Intention:
When I go to Los Cucos tonight I will drink water instead of reaching for chips.

When I go to Los Cucos tonight I will order fajitas or something meat and veggie intensive and tell the waiter I don’t want any tortillas.

Mental Contrasting:
Positives: In nailing my eating I get to lose weight. I can lose fat. I can gain the body I need in order to do other things - like breakdancing and martial arts and more advanced bodyweight exercises like pullups and enjoying travel and take advantage of new experiences that come with that - surfing, hiking, climbing. I will look and feel great, which will increase my confidence so that I can take that energy and invest it in everything else.

I can move on from the eating habit instead of floundering. I can nail it, I can move on, and master all the other skills I need to have the life of my dreams, including writing a book on all this - techniques that will actually help other people improve in their life when it comes to fitness, but also in habit formation in general. And I will be the one who has broken through this skill that humans have yet to master.

Things stopping me: I’m hungry. When I’m hungry my discipline plummets. I love Mexican food. I will think to myself - well, I messed up the last two days, so why not forget this for today and pick it up another day?But I must know that in that path lies the destruction of this entire project. I fear this - I fear falling back into failure, and it’s hilarious because this isn’t as hard as my depression. I know that I can summon up willpower through my meditative techniques. I fear that I will just flounder on in fixing my body, and somehow that fear of moving on makes my flounder on, because I can be secure in knowing that the world is out to get me. Because if it’s out to get me than I have an excuse to not be my best.

Floundering is what everyone does in this - how many people do I know who have learned how to eat right and keep doing it for years at a time, such that it becomes a part of who they are? This is the power of real transformation, and not just floating in these concepts without any real lasting self change. And I’m afraid of being that non-changing person.

These tests always come when you’re at your weakest. But it’s a fantastic opportunity and challenge to show excellence - it’s like jumping ahead of the curve instead of just incrementally advancing. It’s a chance to gain major points if this were a game.

I’ll use this as an experiment, and we’ll see how it goes afterwards.

Day 241 and Dynamic Meditation and Willpower/Endurance

October 25, 2014 by The Science of Self Help

Day 241 Record Keeping
Day 209 Fixed Meditation
Day 155 Bodyweight Exercise (3 bridges, 3 dragon lifts)
Day 82 Writing = 60
Day 255 Eating = 63
Day 12 Work = 41
Great sleep, great wakeup. Still having problems getting into the rhythm.

Dynamic Meditation and Willpower/Endurance
I was talking to Lydia about the collapse of my will and endurance after coming back from my travels. She suggested using my dynamic meditation protocol of writing and “catching” all negative thoughts, anxiety, etc for the day. In her mind, my doing this raised my mood.

I responded saying that I agree that dynamic meditation will help all of my other habits - but so many of these initial habits are like that. Working out affects multiple habits, writing is foundational for all my work, etc. I can’t do it all because my endurance and willpower are depleteable resources that are expended on habits until they become super habits.

Her response was that it isn’t necessary to inculcate a full habit - maybe there are some actions to use as bandaids during this process. In her mind, my one day of dynamic meditation has a mood lifting affect for the rest of the week - significantly helping me out with my other habits and my schedule.

I think I might agree.

In this way a greater exertion of willpower on one day contributes to greater endurance for the rest of the week. If this really is how it works, it would be an interesting instance because up until now now I’ve envisioned endurance as simply being willpower over time. In this case exerting more willpower during a day would result in the opposite of would should be happening …I think. I really need to talk to a mathematician about a formula for all this….

Lydia sees negative emotional states as a leak in the tank of willpower or endurance. And exercises that plug it up, like dynamic meditation, tend to make discrete habits easier, both during the day and for future days.