Interesting. So the willpower seems to be in the mind. Who would have guessed that? :D

How can we exploit this information to get more willpower? The first idea is to give youself rewards for using the willpower successfully. Imagine that you keep a notebook with you, and every time you have to resist a temptation, you give yourself a "victory point". For ten victory points, you buy and eat a chocolate (or whatever would be your favorite reward). Perhaps for succumbing to a temptation, you might lose a point or two.

Perhaps this could rewire the brain, so it goes from "I keep resisting and resisting, but there is no reward, so I guess I better give up" to "I keep resisting and I already won for myself a second chocolate; let's do some more resisting".

But how to deal with long-term temptation. Like, I give myself a point at the morning for not going to reddit, but now it's two hours later, I still have to resist the temptation, but I will not get another point for that, so my brain expects no more rewards. Should I perhaps get a new point every hour or two?

Also, it could have the perverse effect of noticing more possible temptations. Because, you know, you only reward yourself a point for the temptation you notice and resist.