Exercising Willpower Strengthens It

Wow. Apparently you can exercise your willpower, just like a muscle, and strengthen it over time. The New York Times has an article on willpower that says two interesting things.

The article is called Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Wallet. The authors are Sandra Aamodt, the editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience, and Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton. Together they have also written a book called “Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life.”

The first point they make is that apparently you use up blood sugar when you use willpower. By choosing not to eat that donut, you actually use up some of your blood sugar. Their experiment showed that exerting willpower repeatedly became harder over a short period of time. Your body begins to deplete the available blood sugar and it becomes harder to maintain your willpower.

The second point is that your brain appears to become more efficient at using blood sugar while exercising willpower. While in the short term, willpower gets harder, over extended periods of time using willpower you are more able to continue exerting willpower. Practicing exerting willpower makes it easier to exert willpower. Just like exercising a muscle.

The article suggests that this is why it is initially hard to diet and save money at the same time. Experiments indicate that refreshing the bodies blood sugar between bouts of exerting willpower makes it more likely that you will be successful with the subsequent tests of your willpower. After your diet salad for lunch if you drink some lemonade, you will be less likely to overspend when clothes shopping.

Also, continuing your frugal spending habits will make it easier to push away from the dinner table without having that second helping because you will have trained your willpower.

Interesting article, check it out.

I wonder how much of a bonus on my willpower check I get for eating a Snickers bar?

Personal Finance and Emotions

I just read an interesting post by Tim over at Canadian Dream. It rang very true to me, because I had recently posted about the disconnect between what I felt and what I thought I should be feeling. He makes the point that we make financial decisions based on emotion and justify them to ourselves afterwards. I recommend reading the post. When you're making money decisions, it's important to understand what is influencing those decisions. It's not an incredibly deep thought, but I thought that I would share it.

Ellen Roseman

Saturday night I was doing some browsing, (yeah, I'm a party kind of guy! :-) ), and I came across Ellen Roseman's blog, Ellen Roseman On Your Side; Straight talk on personal finance and consumer issues. She is a columnist for the Toronto Star who writes two columns; On Your Side and Money 911.

They are all great reading and if you are concerned about the lack of customer service that we Canadians are getting from big business I would recommend that you read her stuff. Bell, Rogers, Future Shop, the stories from customers are pretty horrifying. She also writes on a number of financial topics as well. The debate (in the comments between a larger mutual fund broker and and index fund proponent where fun to read.

Definitely recommended reading!