Monthly Archives: September 2011

Is it time to start planning your next vacation?

From Joe: That looks like an odd question to find at TheFittestLoser. But I recently encountered some information about vacation planning that made me wonder if thinking and planning about vacations might be similar to thinking and planning other journeys – real and metaphorical – we take in life. In a recent “how to” article giving tips for planning vacations, Michelle Higgins summarizes what scientists have found about how your happiness is affected by vacation trips. It turns out that your anticipation of the vacation plays an extremely important role in the effect your vacation will have on your overall happiness. In many cases, the anticipation and planning of the vacation will create more happiness than the vacation itself! Hence, Ms. Higgins advises us to relish the anticipation of the event:

One more thing to exercise … your willpower

  From Eileen: The hardest part of any diet and/or exercise program is … staying on the diet and/or exercise program.

 We get tired. We get tempted. We give in. We give up. It happens to us all.

 And then we berate ourselves for our lack of willpower.  A new book called, appropriately enough, “Willpower” by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney, examines the mysteries and vagaries of self control. The authors compare willpower to a muscle that needs to be built up.

 In a review in the New York Times, noted author Steven Pinker writes: