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Comment by maneesh | Hacker News Reader

This article is from earlier this year, but admin @dang mentioned that I should repost it, with a link to the comment thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13266386

I'm the founder of Pavlok, and we've helped thousands of people quit their bad habits and wake up earlier. Our company has a strict metric of 'habits over money' --- so I'm happy to help anyone with their behavior change goals. Hacker News has been a big part of my life, so I would be honored to help anyone here with their goals in habit change.

What are your goals / New Year's Resolutions?

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Hi. Probably your biggest question, but here goes: does the voluntary nature of it impact results? In other words, don't you need the discipline to self-administer the shocks? And, if you have that discipline, then why can't you just use it to stop the behavior?

I think the answer is in the article:

>“It’s not designed to be painful,” he added. “It’s instantaneous, a surprise sensation, a shock that knocks you out of automatic mode.”

If something is completely a habit, your self-discipline doesn't really have an opportunity to engage.

But how do you form the habit of shocking yourself when you behave in a way your self-discipline doesn't have an opportunity to engage?

We have a 5-day aversion course that you follow. The first three days are about awareness (tracking triggers, mindfulness, etc). The following days, you follow the program for 5 minutes, where you turn on the zap (manually or autozapper) while you do the behavior.

It's the same principle as when you over indulge on tequila, and suddenly the smell of the beverage makes you cringe. For our users, they feel the same way towards foods and candies --- the sight/smell of it becomes an aversion.

Exactly. But it seems our gracious host has disappeared.

On the plus side, if you order now, you'll get a bonus Pavlok free. Just pay shipping and handling.

I would lose a lot of money on each transaction if I offered that deal :p

but maybe I'd make it up in volume

It would be great if you didn't post this with a click bait title. It might be stupid, but on principle I'm not going to read it.

He used the published title and, given the content, it isn't as clickbaity as it appears (electric shock is the mechanism discussed).

Can you help me see how the title is clickbait?

how is this click bait? its not sensationalist in anyway what so ever.

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