I have just been away on holiday and unfortunately sustained a serious knee injury on the first day of my holiday and hence instead of looking around Europe I spent the whole holiday sitting and reading! But never one to dwell anymore on the bad stuff I used it as an opportunity to read some new material and found a fantastic study by David Schneider about not thinking about white bears.
In the 1980's David Schneider did an experiment where he asked people to actively not think about a white polar bear but to ring a bell everytime they did, it turned out that people who were asked not to think about the white bar rang the bell twice as much as people who were allowed to think about it.
As David Schneider put it 'These observations suggest that attempted thought suppression has paradoxical effects as a self control strategy, perhaps even producing the very obsession or preoccupation that it is direct against.'
Now you are probably think what has this go to with weight management and a healthy lifestyle, well in reality most people on a diet are trying to not think about food, they are trying to ignore the foods they like the most and concentrate on anything but food. But like not thinking of a white bear the more they try and not think about a glass of wine, a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps the more they think about it.
I have said for years now that the best way to be slim long term is not to diet as I believe the more you diet and 'not diet' then you become obsessed with dieting and living the diet lifestyle and it was nice to see some studies which supported what I already knew.
More information on the study can be found at Don't Think Of A White Bear
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