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THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVINGSTURBRIDGETIMES

THE

MAGAZINE

NOVEMBER, 2011

10 THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVINGTHE STURBRIDGE TIMES MAGAZINE

BY RICHARD MURPHY

Go into any bookstore in this country, and you willfind shelves filled with tomes on self-help. It’s a half fullor empty situation, depending on your outlook. Are we anation of benighted folk who feel so low that we are des-perate to raise ourselves out of the swamp of despair?Maybe self-improvement is a noble goal, to be better thanwe are. Take your pick, there is a book for every taste.Some volumes seem to signify narcissism and are of the

bring out your inner super star genre. Yet another have asa theme stop being that lazy slug and be more productive.It is a subject that many have written about. One of thefirst was Napoleon Hill, with his Think and Grow Rich.Whether it worked for the 20 million readers is question-able, but it worked for old Nap.In WILLPOWER Rediscovering the Greatest Human

Strength, Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney have writ-ten a book that is not going to work miracles. It is, how-ever, realistic on what the will can and cannot accomplish.The two men are not a couple of guys selling a self-help

cult. John Tierney writes on scientific subjects for the NewYork Times. Professor Baumeister heads the social psy-chology program at Florida State University.Maybe the most interesting aspect of the study is that

you may not be a weakling, just hungry. Obviously anoversimplification, but without sufficient fuel in the formof glucose, temptation is harder to resist. Not under-standing the biological basis of willpower leads us to asktoo much of it.Glucose is a form of sugar that the body needs. Too

much and it becomes fat. Not enough at the right timeand you might be tempted into getting that Red Sox logotattoo on your forehead. It would not be smart to swallowa bag of m&ms just before you go into an automobileshowroom, but making a deal while starving is not a wisestrategy. The authors are adamant, “No glucose, nowillpower.”Near as bad as not enough glucose is lack of sleep. You

probably realize that already. Even if we’re not self aware,most of us have observed a cranky toddler who should bein bed. It ties in with the glucose problem. Sleeping low-ers the demand for glucose and helps the body utilize it.Sleep deprivation not only impairs glucose processing, itcan also lead to a higher risk of diabetes. Simply put, “Arested will is a stronger will.”Willpower can be used up. You only have so much of

it. The authors detail experiments where subjects are of-fered temptations and heroically resist. In the second partof the test, they collapse and give in with little resistance.Again, we ask too much of the will at our peril.If there is one aspect of willpower that has the atten-

tion of the multitudes it is dieting. The subject weighsheavily on the nation. This is understandable as most ofhistory, the struggle to feed the world was just that, a strug-gle. In an age of abundant, relatively cheap, if not good,food, why not eat? The consequences stare back at us froma full-length mirror. Hence, dieting has become an in-dustry.Are you contemplating a diet? The authors have one

word of advice, don’t. They chronicle the travails of Amer-ica’s most famous dieter. Oprah has risen from poverty to

Rediscoveringthe greatest human strength

BOOK REVIEW

WILLPOWERBy Roy F. Baumeisterand JohnTierneyPenguin, Sept. 1, 2011304 pagesList price: 27.95Amazon: 17.04 (10/26)ISBN-10: 1594203075ISBN-13: 978-1594203077Also available on Kindleand Audio CD, Unabridged

11THE CHRONICLE OF STURBRIDGE COUNTRY LIVING THE STURBRIDGE TIMES MAGAZINE

much and it becomes fat. Not enough at the right timeand you might be tempted into getting that Red Sox logotattoo on your forehead. It would not be smart to swal-low a bag of m&ms just before you go into an automobileshowroom, but making a deal while starving is not a wisestrategy. The authors are adamant, “No glucose, nowillpower.”Near as bad as not enough glucose is lack of sleep.

You probably realize that already. Even if we’re not selfaware, most of us have observed a cranky toddler whoshould be in bed. It ties in with the glucose problem.Sleeping lowers the demand for glucose and helps thebody utilize it. Sleep deprivation not only impairs glu-cose processing, it can also lead to a higher risk of dia-betes. Simply put, “A rested will is a stronger will.”Willpower can be used up. You only have so much of

it. The authors detail experiments where subjects are of-fered temptations and heroically resist. In the secondpart of the test, they collapse and give in with little re-sistance. Again, we ask too much of the will at our peril.If there is one aspect of willpower that has the atten-

tion of the multitudes it is dieting. The subject weighsheavily on the nation. This is understandable as most ofhistory, the struggle to feed the world was just that, astruggle. In an age of abundant, relatively cheap, if notgood, food, why not eat? The consequences stare back atus from a full-length mirror. Hence, dieting has becomean industry.Are you contemplating a diet? The authors have one

word of advice, don’t. They chronicle the travails ofAmerica’s most famous dieter. Oprah has risen frompoverty to untold wealth. She is legendary for her drivenpersonality. If any one could be poster child for the willtriumphant, it would be her. Yet, her ongoing battle withweight has not been successful. Even Oprah has askedtoo much of willpower.Remembering what was mentioned earlier about glu-

cose, the authors present the dieter’s nutritional catch 22:1. In order not to overeat, a dieter needs willpower.2. In order to have willpower, a dieter needs to eat.Okay, dieting is not the way to go. Are we to just slurp

our way to inevitable tonnage? Not necessarily. There arestrategies that can help. Still, it’s no slam-dunk, more abit of jui jitsu. The authors are not presenting a diet plan,

but strategies to make it easier to avoid or neutralize someof the temptations. Be warned, it’s never going to be alose 40 pounds over the weekend deal.The last chapter also presents strategies to help those

of us with slug tendencies become more productive. Theycite the method of Raymond Chandler, arguably thegreatest detective novel writer.“Chandler had his own system for turning out the Big

Sleep and other classic detective stories. “Me, I wait forinspiration,” he said, but he did it methodically everymorning. He believed a professional writer needed to setaside at least four hours a day for his job: “He doesn’thave to write, and if he doesn’t feel like it, he shouldn’ttry. He can look out the window or stand on his head orwrithe on the floor, but he is not to do any other positivething, not read, not write letters, glance at magazines, orwrite checks.””The authors hail this as a “marvelously simple tool

against procrastination for just about any kind of task.”What they don’t write about Chandler was his profoundlove of the bottle. Your man was a stone drunk. The pic-ture of Ray, tumbler of Jameson in one hand and otheron the typewriter has a certain charm, but is not proba-bly going to work for the rest of us no matter how manyhours we do nothing in the morning.Despite that, Willpower is the most realistic book ever

published on the subject of what is possible for humansto accomplish by will. You may not become a dynamoafter reading it, but nothing they suggest is unreasonable.

“...life simplyis will

to power”FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHEBEYOND GOOD& EVIL