“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got…”
-Theme from Cheers

The Problem: It’s true, getting along in the world–daily interactions with others, doing business, even getting to work on time–it all takes a fair amount of self-control and willpower. But willpower takes energy; and human energy oftentimes runs on empty. While energy can be renewed by something as simple as a pleasant chat with a friend, if your self-control is already ebbing, you could still “lose it” by accident. Far less obvious is the danger of running your energy even lower… Get depleted too low too often and serious psychological and health problems may be the result.

The Study: A study published in Social Psychological and Personality Scienceby Jaye L. Derrick, PhD, research scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo, University of New York, looked into the effects of watching TV reruns and found some surprising results. In one test, researchers gave the subjects word puzzles designed to deplete self-control and–literally–test their patience. Then over the following two weeks, subjects tracked recovery activities after high-stress situations whenever willpower became depleted. [Read more…]