Gargling With Sugar Water Boosts Self-Control

Gargling with sugar water can provide a boost to your self control, a new study published in the journal Psychological Science reveals.

Researchers led by University of Georgia's professor of psychology, Leonard Martin recruited around 51 people, half of whom were given Splenda-sweetened lemonade to rinse their mouth with while the other half were given lemonade sweetened with sugar.

They were then made to take two tests, one of which involved crossing out of Es on a page from a statistics book, a test which is known to deplete a person's self control, while the second test, known as Stroop test, involved identifying the color of the flashes on the screen that spelled out names of other colors.

The researchers found that those who had rinsed their mouth with sugar sweetened lemonade did better with the Stroop test compared to those who rinsed it with artificially sweetened lemonade. "The glucose seems to be good at getting you to stop an automatic response such as reading the words in the Stroop task and to substitute the second harder one in its place such as saying the color the word is printed in. It can enhance emotive investment and self-relevant goals", Martin said.

Source: Medindia