We’ve all been hangry before. You feel empty, and someone just has to ask you a stupid question. You think to yourself, they don’t always ask dumb questions like this, do they? Your subconscious searches rapidly for an answer. Andddddddd SNAP! Your tolerance for bullshit is all muddled up and someone else has to pay price. All because you— you hangry little sausage— needed to be fed.
Being hungry— even without the rage— can seriously affect your cognitive function. That ranges from how nice and lenient you’re willing to be, to how much willpower you have. That’s right! Science says you’re intuitively sharper, nicer, and have stronger resolve if you’re well-fed. Well, actually, it doesn’t say it with so few words but check out what I found out in Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow, and see if you don’t come to the same conclusion as I did…
Sugar and willpower.
As it happens, the term ego depletion isn't used to describe what happens when you get rejected or see yourself from an unflattering angle, it’s used to describe what happens to willpower throughout the day— it depletes.
The (quite famous) psychology professor Roy Baumeister conducted several experiments to test the effects of glucose on ego depletion. It was his hypothesis that ‘mental energy’ isn’t just a metaphor; it’s a real thing that can be restored.
In one experiment he had volunteers watch a short film, with the instruction being to interpret a woman's body language. As the video went on a number of words— words the subjects had been told to ignore— slowly crossed the screen, causing the need for an act of self-control.
I haven’t told you that half of the group was given Lemonade sweetened with glucose, and the other half were given lemonade with no sugar.
After completing the ego-depletion task they were given questions that challenged their intuition and made them think twice.
Like this…
If a bat and ball cost £1.10, and the bat is £1 more expensive than the ball, how much does the ball cost?
Quickly…
Hold that answer in your head for one moment.
Did you get it?
The participants who had the lemonade performed better on intuition-challenging tasks than those who had the sugar-free option. Because they were all topped up on glucose, they had found the ego-depletion task easier, they had more mental energy, and were sharper than the others. Proving the effects of ego depletion can be undone by ingesting glucose.
So…. a brain full of sugar is good for your willpower. That’s my conclusion, you might want to check out Baumeister’s work on ego depletion yourself. His book is called: Willpower
(The ball costs £0.05)
Hangry judges
This is all very interesting, but what about when people’s lives are at stake. Surely, the people who run society and make big decisions are aware of this little trick. Well, no. A while ago a story emerged about eight parole judges— who actually judge for a living— in Israel, that showed the harrowing link between hunger levels and judgment.
The judges spent an average of 6 minutes looking through each application for parole and recorded the time on each one. The default approval rate is 35%, so most people are shit out of luck with Israeli judges. What’s interesting is that after meal times “65% of requests are granted. During the two hours or so until the judges’ next feeding, the approval rate drops steadily, to just about zero just before the meal.”
These are real-life judges, making real-life decisions about real-life freedom. The fact that whether or not they’ve just eaten makes such a substantial difference to their decision is really quite troubling— especially if you intend on going to jail in Isreal.
It seems so obvious. But, I’ll be the first one to put my hand up and say I never think to take into account my satiation levels when making decisions. This means I should be able to get a quick win out of knowing this stuff, hopefully, you can too.
I’m certainly going to make sure I’m well fed before I go about making any decisions that future me is going to have to pay for. And, if I need to call a favour from someone, you best believe that person will be taken out for dinner— or force-fed several Maltesers— BEFORE I ask them.
Also, thanks for bearing with me during the short break from the emails! I’ve had a case of writer’s block, and it’s been dreadful. If you didn’t see a couple of new episodes on your podcast app, then here’s a link to the latest. Ben is such a nice guy, and he happens to have written a book on the practical applications of Stoicism called: How To Control The Uncontrollable. I really enjoyed the podcast, and I hope you do too.
You can listen now by clicking this link.
p.s If you know of anyone who might like what I write, or what I say, you can just click this fancy button and share it with them! How cool!
p.p.s If you have any suggestions for topics you want me to explore, chuck them in the comments! I’d love to know if I’ve left stones unturned etc.