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Mild electric jolts cure 14-year-old boy from distressing chronic cough

Nowadays, modern science understands most of the workings of the body. However, there are still odd challenges that require unorthodox or unusual solutions, as in the case of a 14-year-old boy suffering from a chronic cough.

Boy suffers from mysterious, persistent cough, causing him to be expelled from school

The cough started normally enough as a result of a cold. But once the cold had been cured, the cough persisted. A series of tests, medication, and eventually psychological help failed to produce any results.

Soon, the boy became a target for derision by both school mates and teachers. He was eventually expelled from school for disturbing class, and not allowed to return until he had his cough under control.

Finally, he was admitted to CARIH, the Children’s Asthma Research Institute and Hospital. Further tests proved definitively that the boy was not asthmatic.

So, doctors suggested the use of aversion therapy, which involves giving the patient mild electric jolts to stop compulsive behavior. It is a technique that has been used successfully for over 80 years.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for the unwanted behavior to disappear completely within just 5 sessions of treatment, with no relapse whatsoever.

In this boy’s case however, the results were nothing short of astonishing.

Treatment has immediate effect — cough is gone after a single mild electric jolt

The boy was first monitored to assess the frequency of his cough, which was found to occur 22 times in one hour.

Next, it was intended for the boy to receive an electric jolt to the wrist after every cough. Surprisingly though, following the first cough and single electric jolt, the boy’s coughing disappeared completely.

The boy did not cough for the rest of the day, nor the next. In fact, he was sent home and returned to school and resumed his studies normally.

Electric Jolts stop Coughing

More importantly, a follow-up assessment 21/2 years later found the boy still symptom-free and doing well at school, having just made the Dean’s list for the first time in his academic career.

Besides curing compulsive behaviors, electric jolts have also been found incredibly effective in breaking habits such smoking, alcoholism, overeating, and gambling.

Bibliography

Creer, T. L., Chai, H., & Hoffman, A. (1977). A single application of an aversive stimulus to eliminate chronic cough. Journal Of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 8(1), 107–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7916(77)90116-1

Save money on everything by shopping on a full stomach

If you’ve ever been guilty of over-buying stuff you don’t need, or irrationally splurging out on anything only to regret it later, you’re about to find out why.

In a recent study (Xu, Schwartz, Wyer, 2015), a group of researchers set out to discover how hunger affects our desire to buy things. Here’s what they discovered.

Hunger increases our desire to buy food, and makes us like those food choices more. Well, no surprise there.

But there’s a twist.

I’m starving… give me more binder clips!

The researchers found that even for non-food items, hunger will still condition us to buy more. And they tested this hypothesis with one of the most boring, unexciting items ever — a binder clip.

In this experiment, volunteers were shown common binder clips and asked:

  1. How many they wanted
  2. How much they liked or disliked the clips
  3. How hungry they were feeling

The result — hungry volunteers didn’t necessarily like the binder clips any more than their peers did, but they wanted more of them.

So, from this point onwards, whether you’re shopping for tacos or tweezers, make sure you do it on a full stomach!

Bibliography

Xu, A. J., Schwarz, N., & Wyer, R. S. (2015). Hunger promotes acquisition of nonfood objects: Table 1. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA Proceedings Of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(9), 2688–2692. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1417712112

Make better decisions by mastering the Solomon Paradox

King Solomon was said to be wiser than all the men of the east and all the sages of Egypt.

What most people don’t know, is that while Solomon was great at dishing out advice to others, he was notoriously bad at dealing with his own life issues, ultimately bringing ruin upon the kingdom.

But let’s not be too hard on old Solomon.

If we’re completely honest with ourselves, we’ll find we’re all guilty of this same flaw. This behavior is so common in human beings, it even has a name — “The Solomon Paradox”.

The Solomon Paradox — Why we’re smart about other people’s problems but not our own

Igor Grossmann, the psychological scientist who coined this term, has been trying to understand why we tend to be smarter about other people’s problems than our own, and what we can do about it.

According to his research (Grossmann, Kross, 2014), when we distance ourselves from the problem at hand, we can judge it more clearly.

To confirm this, he recruited a group of volunteers who had been in a long-term romantic relationship. He asked some of them to imagine a scenario where their partner cheated on them. The others were asked to imagine a scenario where their best friend was being cheated upon.

The volunteers were then asked to fill in a questionnaire to test their wisdom in judging the situation.

As expected, those who “were being cheated upon” demonstrated less wisdom about their situation than their peers in the other group.

Then he tried a second experiment, using the same setup and procedure, with volunteers being split up in the same way.

This time however, those “being cheated upon” were asked to psychologically distance themselves from the situation by taking a third-person perspective. So, instead of asking themselves, “Why do I feel this way?”, they asked themselves, “Why does he/she feel this way?”

What Grossmann and his colleagues found, was that the psychological distancing allowed the participants to assess their relationship conflict with more wisdom. In fact, the two groups were indistinguishable in their judgement.

So, next time you’re in a rough situation, try judging it from an outsider’s perspective. Rather than asking yourself, “Why am I behaving this way?” ask, “Why is he/she behaving this way? What should he/she do?”

You might find it gives you Solomon-esque clarity in judgment, and possibly save you some needless heartache.

Bibliography

Grossmann, I., & Kross, E. (2014). Exploring Solomon’s Paradox: Self-Distancing Eliminates the Self-Other Asymmetry in Wise Reasoning About Close Relationships in Younger and Older Adults. Psychological Science, 25(8), 1571–1580. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614535400

Science busts age-old myth about alcoholism

It is an established belief that those who have suffered from alcoholism can never go back to drinking socially in moderation.

Someone who has broken free of alcoholism knows it takes tremendous effort, will-power and support to do so, and that one drink is all it takes to go spiralling back into the habit.

A study (Lovibond, Caddy, 1970) from the University of New South Wales set out to dispel this belief, and succeeded beyond expectations.

Electric jolts give alcoholics an “inbuilt stop mechanism” allowing them to drink socially in moderation without giving up alcohol completely

In 1970, two researchers designed a program aimed at training alcoholics to drink socially and in moderation.

The purpose of the treatment was to provide alcoholics with “an inbuilt stop mechanism which will assist [their] own efforts at self-control” (Lovibond, Caddy, 1970).

In the first phase, the 31 volunteers were trained to recognize their own blood alcohol level (BAC) according to their state and symptoms. This skill would help them determine a “limit” beyond which it would not be acceptable to continue drinking.

In the second phase, the participants were instructed to drink their favorite alcoholic beverage. Once their BAC passed the “limit” determined in phase 1, they would randomly start to receive unpleasant electric jolts every time they drank.

75% of patients lose their desire to drink past 3 glasses in as little as 6 sessions — Results maintained up to 50 weeks later

Shock vs Alcoholism
Within 6 – 12 sessions, 75% of the patients gained the ability to drink in a controlled fashion and only rarely exceeding their “limit”.

Additionally, 11% experienced considerable improvement in their control of alcohol consumption, while another 10% improved moderately.

Some of the participants were contacted up to 50 weeks after treatment and were found to have maintained their control on moderate drinking.

Most importantly, the successful participants experienced a “dramatic improvement in [their] general health, well-being and self-respect” (Lovibond, Caddy, 1970) and lost their desire to continue drinking beyond three or four glasses.

80+ years of data show how electric jolts can help break alcoholism and other persistent habits

Media and society constantly bombard us with messages about how drinking is a social norm. This social conditioning, together with the instant gratification of alcohol and its withdrawal symptoms, makes Alcoholism one of the hardest addictions to break.

Considering all this, a 75% success rate is staggering. However, this figure is neither surprising nor unheard of in the field of “aversion therapy” — the method used in the research quoted earlier.

Over the past 80+ years, many other studies have found electric jolts effective against alcoholism.

These electric jolts have also helped chronic marijuana users, heroin addicts as well as many people with habits such as smoking, alcoholism, overeating, and gambling.

 

Bibliography

Lovibond, S., & Caddy, G. (1970). Discriminated aversive control in the moderation of alcoholics’ drinking behavior. Behavior Therapy, 1(4), 437–444. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7894(70)80069-7

Quit any habit by leveraging your brain’s desire for self-preservation

Would you touch a hot stove? Not willingly. The moment your fingers got close, your mind would be screaming hysterically, “STOP! DON’T DO IT! IT’S GONNA HURT!”

Your mind reacts that way because at some point in your life, you probably touched something that was a little too hot for your tastes. Being geared towards self-preservation, your mind decided to associate the idea of “hot”, with the feeling of “pain” that it delivered. That pain served as “aversive conditioning” to teach you that you shouldn’t touch hot things without adequate protection.

Around 80 years ago, scientists started experimenting with using aversive conditioning to break habits, addictions, and compulsive behavior. One such study focused on nail biting.

Habitual nail biters quit habit using “aversion”

A study from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Vargas, Adesso, 1976) compared the effectiveness of three alternative approaches on treating chronic nail biting: electric jolt, negative practice, and bitter substance.

A number of volunteers who had been biting their nails for an average of 12 years, were randomly and evenly distributed into 4 groups.

The first group received “electric jolt conditioning”. During the sessions, these participants were to bite their nails on command, upon which they would receive an unpleasant jolt from a device connected to their fingers using electrodes.

The second group received “negative practice”. Negative practice involves repeatedly practicing the wrong behavior (in this case nail biting) with the full knowledge of it being wrong. This is done with the premise that “repetition of a wrong response knowingly, may increase the probability of occurrence of the right response” (Peak, 1941).

The third group received “bitter substance conditioning”, which involved applying a bitter-tasting substance to their nails and then biting them.

The 4th group was given no treatment whatsoever. In scientific research, this is called a “control group”. It helps researchers understand whether the changes happening in the test groups are due to the experiment, or to external factors.

The members of every group had their nails measured before treatment and at the end of the treatment. Additionally, half of the participants in each group were asked to regularly measure their own nail growth.

Participants in “bitter taste” and “electric jolt” groups register much higher nail growth at the end of the treatment

After six sessions of treatment, participants in the groups receiving electric jolts and bitter taste treatment experienced a much greater nail growth than those within the “control” group. The negative practice group also achieved good results.

shock vs nailbiting

Interestingly, those participants who were regularly monitoring their own nail growth were even more successful than those who weren’t.

Awareness + Aversion = Habit Breaking Bomb

The study above shows that when an aversive stimulus (such as an electric jolts or bitter taste) is linked in some way to a behavior, the mind starts to reprogram itself to stop that behavior. This is similar to the example of the hot stove mentioned earlier in the article.

More importantly, awareness of the behavior considerably enhances the effectiveness of this approach.

Strictly speaking, awareness rarely is enough. Most of us are very aware of our bad habits, but it doesn’t help us quit.

That’s why we need both awareness and an “aversive stimulus” to succeed.

 

Bibliography

Coleman, James C., and Jean Elizabeth Mccalley. “Nail-Biting among College Students.” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 43.4 (1948): 517–525. Web.

Vargas, John M., and Vincent J. Adesso. “A Comparison of Aversion Therapies for Nailbiting Behavior.” Behavior Therapy 7.3 (1976): 322–329. Web.

 

The “One Weird Trick” Your Grandmother Used To Break Bad Habits

There is a very old and telling practice in certain communities — when a child tells a lie or speaks something foul, the parent or guardian will force-wash the child’s mouth with soap. The practice is meant to show the child that such filthy words should be cleansed from one’s mouth.

However, the unpleasant taste of the soap (which in olden days was particularly disgusting), serves as an added repulsive element.

Interestingly, for the past 80+ years, science has been using different variations of this method to break habits, and the results have been formidable.

The method is called “Aversion Therapy”.

Disclaimer: Pavlok does not recommend you wash your mouth or anyone else’s mouth with soap.

An approach that can effectively break a wide range of habits and addictions

Various forms of aversion therapy have been used to break all sorts of habits, addictions and compulsive behavior.

A study from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (Vargas, Adesso, 1976) compared the effectiveness of three alternative types of aversion therapy on chronic nail biters: electric jolt, negative practice, and bitter substance. All groups experienced an increase in nail growth.

Another study (Hallam, Rachman, Falkowski, 1972) focused on curing chronic alcoholism by using small electric jolts. As a result, a staggering 60% of the participants had quit drinking by the end of the treatment, and reported repugnance towards the sight and smell of alcohol even after 4-8 weeks.

Clinical studies have also found this approach effective against chronic marijuana addiction (Smith, Schmeling, Knowles, 1988) and heroin use (Lubetkin, Fishman, 1974).

Breaking your own habits — Which method to use?

There is research (Lazarus, 1968) that indicates certain habits might be easier to break when using a specific type of aversion. So, a bitter taste might be more effective in breaking habits that deal with taste, such as overeating or alcoholism. On the other hand, electric jolts might work better on “tactile” activities such as compulsive hand washing.

However, certain methods are more practical than others.

Let’s say you wanted to stop biting your nails. There are quite a few products out there that you could apply to your nails to give them a foul taste.

Unfortunately, these come with quite a few mixed reviews and a fair share of horror stories — people breaking into rashes, suffering from bouts of vomiting, or getting blisters in their mouths.

Additionally, some of these products contain allergens such as Benzophenone, which was named Contact Allergen of the Year by the American Contact Dermatitis Society’s 2014.

 

Bibliography

Retrieved May 24, 2015, from https://www.edermatologynews.com/single-view/benzophenones-named-2014-contact-allergen-of-the-year/cb086f7e351cccbcfd9dbf5fa806762b.html

Hallam, R., Rachman, S., & Falkowski, W. (1972). Subjective, attitudinal and physiological effects of electrical aversion therapy. Behaviour Research And Therapy, 10(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(72)90002-2

Lazarus, A. A. (1968). Aversion Therapy And Sensory Modalities-Clinical Impressions. Perceptual And Motor Skills, 27(1), 178–178. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1968.27.1.178

Lubetkin, B. S., & Fishman, S. T. (1974). Electrical aversion therapy with a chronic heroin user. Journal Of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 5(2), 193–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7916(74)90113-x

Mcguire, R. J., & Vallance, M. (1964). Aversion Therapy by Electric Shock: a Simple Technique. Bmj, 1(5376), 151–153. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.1.5376.151

Smith, J. W., Schmeling, G., & Knowles, P. L. (1988). A marijuana smoking cessation clinical trial utilizing THC-free marijuana, aversion therapy, and self-management counselling. Journal Of Substance Abuse Treatment, 5(2), 89–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/0740-5472(88)90018-9

Vargas, J. M., & Adesso, V. J. (1976). A comparison of aversion therapies for nailbiting behavior. Behavior Therapy, 7(3), 322–329. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7894(76)80058-5