Find it difficult to resist cupcakes, chips, chocolate, soda, French fries and other greasy, gooey, yummy foods, especially during Week 3 and Week 4 of your cycle when progesterone kicks your desire for high-calorie foods into high gear? Try making a fist whenever you’re about to cave in to a craving. A just-released study published in the Journal of Consumer Research reveals that clenching any muscle, such as your hand, finger, thigh or calf, automatically pumps up your willpower, making it easier to resist temptation. In fact, the researchers found that this easy technique can bump up your willpower to reach all your health goals where you need to exert self-control, such as withstanding a foul-tasting yet helpful medicine, getting through the pain of a flu shot and motivating yourself to exercise! Turns out, simply tensing a muscle, which is a physical act of willpower, sends a non-conscious message to the brain to amp up its self-control, the researchers explain. There is one caveat, however: This trick works only at the moment when you’re making the decision to be healthy or not. Study participants who clenched a muscle beforehand depleted their willpower by the time they had to make their choice.
[photo: Neil Alejandro]
