Willpower: A Muscle To Flex, Or Spoons To Conserve?

Today’s almonds have been activated by:

⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Is willpower a finite resource to conserve, or an infinite tool to build up? The answer, it turns out, depends on you (and your experiences, more than your choices!)

  • However, there are ways we can still leverage this information to our advantage, by recognizing which kinds of willpower can be built up, and which need to be conserved.

• Hydration is a critical and often-neglected part of good health, and healthy habits are (by science!) best picked-up when they’re made more convenient and easy.

  • Today’s sponsor, Hint Water, are offering 10almonds subscribers 45% off and free shipping, on their already very reasonably-priced flavored waters and vitamin waters

    • They are, by the way, free from sugar and artificial sweeteners, so these are different from ones you’ve probably tried before

Read on to learn about these things and more…

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

Neuroscientist: How To Boost Your Focus Permanently, in Minutes (7:14)

Dr. Andrew Huberman explains the value of certain meditative practices:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Focus menu:

• 1:04 | Attentional blinks

• 2:30 | Open monitoring

• 3:00 | Panoramic vision

• 4:07 | Interoception*

• 6:32 | Dilated gaze

*Start at 4:07 if you’re short of time and/or focus! It’s the “meat” of the video.

Prefer text? Dr. Huberman doesn’t do such, but you might enjoy our previous main features:

• No Frills Evidence-Based Mindfulness

• The Kitchen Doctor (this is also largely about interoception)

💪 MAIN FEATURE

Willpower: A Muscle To Flex, Or Spoons To Conserve?

We have previously written about motivation; this one’s not about that.

Rather, it’s about willpower itself, and especially, the maintenance of such. Which prompts the question…

Is willpower something that can be built up through practice, or something that is a finite resource that can be expended?

That depends on you—and your experiences.

• Some people believe willpower is a metaphorical “muscle” that must be exercised to be built up

• Some people believe willpower is a matter of metaphorical “spoons” that can be used up

You can read it here: But You Don’t Look Sick? The Spoon Theory

So, why do some people believe one way, and some believe the other? It comes down to our experiences of our own willpower being built or expended. Researchers (Dr. Vanda Siber et al.) studied this, and concluded:

Source: Autonomous Goal Striving Promotes a Nonlimited Theory About Willpower

In other words, there’s a difference between going out running each morning while healthy, and doing so with (for example) lupus.

On a practical level, this translates to practicable advice:

• If something requires willpower but is energizing, this is the muscle kind! Build it.

• If something requires willpower and is draining, this is the spoons kind! Conserve it.

Read the above two bullet-points as many times as necessary to cement them into your hippocampus, because they are the most important message of today’s newsletter.

Do you tend towards the “nonlimited” belief, despite getting tired? If so, here’s why…

There is something that can continue to empower us even when we get physically fatigued, and that’s the extent to which we truly get a choice about what we’re doing. In other words, that “Autonomous” at the front of the title of the previous study, isn’t just word salad.

• If we perceive ourselves as choosing to do what we are doing, with free will and autonomy (i.e., no externally created punitive consequences), we will feel much more empowered, and that goes for our willpower too.

• If we perceive ourselves as doing what we have to (or suffer the consequences), we’ll probably do it, but we’ll find it draining, and that goes for our willpower too.

Until such a time as age-related physical and mental decline truly take us, we as humans tend to gradually accumulate autonomy in our lives. We start as literal babies, then are children with all important decisions made for us, then adolescents building our own identity and ways of doing things, then young adults launching ourselves into the world of adulthood (with mixed results), to a usually more settled middle-age that still has a lot of external stressors and responsibilities, to old age, where we’ve often most things in order, and just ourselves and perhaps our partner to consider.

Consequently…

Age differences in implicit theories about willpower: why older people endorse a nonlimited theory

…which explains why the 30-year-old middle-manager might break down and burn out and stop going to work, while an octogenarian is busy training for a marathon daily before getting back to their daily book-writing session, without fail.

One final thing…

If you need a willpower boost, have a snack*. If you need to willpower boost to avoid snacking, then plan for this in advance by finding a way to keep your blood sugars stable. Because…

The physiology of willpower: linking blood glucose to self-control

*Something that will keep your blood sugars stable, not spike them. Nuts are a great example, unless you’re allergic to such, because they have a nice balance of carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats.

Want more on that? Read: 10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

🌍 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

• New discovery could delay relapse in triple-negative breast cancer

• Why we know so little about cannabis—and why scientists are worried

• Telestroke program improves stroke care for rural patients

• mRNA COVID vaccines saved lives and won a Nobel Prize—what’s next for the technology?

• Mobile health-delivered coaching cuts blood glucose levels in patients with diabetes: study

• Loneliness could raise risk for Parkinson's, study finds

• Minimally invasive transperineal laser ablation of the prostate appears effective

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness – by Dr. Susan Smalley and Diana Winston

"The Science and the Art of..." tends to be a bit of a fuzzy obfuscation, but in this case, it's accurate, especially in this presentation. The authors are, indeed, a scientist and an artist—and both practitioners, meeting in the middle.

As such, we get the clinical insights of a researcher and professor of psychiatry, and the grounded-yet-spiritual insights of an erstwhile Buddhist nun.

While the book is pop psychology in essence, the format is much more that of a textbook than a self-help book. Will it be useful for helping yourself anyway, though? Yes, absolutely, if you apply the information contained within.

Don't be fooled into thinking that a textbook format makes it dry, though—the writing is very compelling, and you'll find yourself turning pages eagerly. There's no time like the present, after all!

Bottom line: if you find the scientific evidence-base for the usefulness of mindfulness appealing, but find a lot of guides a little fluffy, this one is perfectly balanced—and very well written, too.

Click here to check out Fully Present, bring yourself into the moment, always!

Wishing you health and strength this Sunday,

The 10almonds Team