Willpower Ch: 6

David Blaine's Endurance Feats: A Scientific Exploration

• Blaine's feats involve extreme willpower, not illusion.
• He stood atop a narrow pillar for 35 hours, spent 63 hours in a block of ice, and endured a week in a coffin with minimal headroom.
• He fasted for 44 days on water alone, losing 54 pounds, suspended in a box above the Thames.
• His feats aren't analyzed in terms of "why" but rather "how" he achieves his incredible endurance.

Blaine's Breath-Holding Record Attempt

• Blaine meticulously prepared for a breath-holding world record attempt.
• Practice involved filling lungs with oxygen, remaining completely still underwater to conserve oxygen, and lowering heart rate below 50 beats per minute.
• Practice sessions saw his pulse drop to below 50 and allowing him to hold his breath for 16 minutes.
• However, complications arose during the televised attempt due to heightened stress (audience, glass sphere), preventing him from submerging into the meditative state of his practice sessions.
• His heart rate remained above 100 beats per minute and he started to experience intense pain and discomfort resulting in him breaking the old world record.

Training Willpower

• Blaine's training is multifaceted, focusing on daily exercises to build endurance for specific tasks, such as daily breath holds, cold baths, and fasting.
• Training from childhood included card tricks, swimming races under water, and eschewing coats in winter.
• This rigorous self-discipline was influenced by his hero, Houdini.
• Blaine incorporates peculiar goals, such as stepping on a biker's drawing, to further develop focus.

Scientific View on Willpower Training

• Initial ego-depletion experiments from Baumeister suggested that acts of willpower led to self-control depletion.
• Later research aimed at strengthening willpower sought to understand what would lead to self-control improvement.
• Posture control, food logging, and mood regulation were tested, all in controlled settings.
• Posture control showed the most consistent success: a positive improvement in willpower.

Willpower Stamina and Experiment Results

• Researchers differentiated between willpower "power" and "stamina."
• Power refers to the strength of self-control, whereas stamina relates to the ability to sustain self-control under exertion.
• Two-week exercises in posture and food-monitoring improved self-control stamina.

Techniques for Willpower Strengthening

• Changing habitual behaviors, such as using the non-dominant hand for routine tasks, enhances self-control.
• Avoiding slang or abbreviations, opting for full words in speech, also strengthens willpower.

Sustaining Willpower Enhancement

• Maintaining self-discipline over prolonged periods remains challenging even with successful exercises.
• Experiments demonstrated short-term benefits, but long-term consistency required motivation.
• Blaine's personal experience highlighted the difficulty of continuous discipline, balancing periods of intense training and relaxation.

Case Study: David Blaine and Prolonged Self-Control

• Blaine's most challenging feat was the sixty-three-hour ice-encased ordeal.
• Sleep deprivation, fear, claustrophobia, and extreme cold all contributed to the intensity of the challenge.
• Blaine's experience mirrors the difficulty of maintaining enduring discipline in everyday life, as he struggles with motivation.

Conclusion

• While Blaine's feats are extreme manifestations of willpower, they underscore the underlying principles and challenges of building and sustaining a highly disciplined lifestyle, both in controlled experiments and real-world applications.