Tip: weak green tea with sugar (or white or black tea if it's more to your taste) - the added low dose theanine and caffeine amplify the benefits of low dose sugar (assuming you're not already ODing on coffee or other caffeinated thing) ...sipping it slowly while slogging through some "hard to swallow" but attention demanding task does wonders.

Don't do this if you value your teeth (or maybe rinse out after).

Sounds like a plug for sugared chewing gum.

I guess that explains all the soda cans around my room after a long coding session.

I wonder what effect this will have on your teeth over time. Any insight?

Does it need to be gargled? If I'm following the reasoning of the article correctly, simply consuming sugary food should have the same effect. Am I misunderstanding?

Excerpt:

"Researchers used to think you had to drink the glucose and get it into your body to give you the energy to [have] self control," says coauthor Leonard Martin, professor of psychology. "After this trial, it seems that glucose stimulates the simple carbohydrate sensors on the tongue." He adds: "This, in turn, signals the motivational centers of the brain where our self-related goals are represented." And it's these signals, he adds, that wake your body up and tell it to start paying attention.

That consuming small amounts of sugar regularly boosts motivation and willpower has been known for a long time, but as the article says the assumption has been that this is due to the actual intake of sugar. What they are saying is that they think their results may show that simply tasting the sugar is sufficient.

(But I wonder if they controlled for whatever amounts of sugar subjects might inadvertently get in them anyway while gargling)

"Because participants did not ingest the glucose, they could not have absorbed a significant amount of it into their bloodstream. Moreover, it takes glucose 10 to 15 min to enter the brain after ingestion (Zourek, Jankovec, & Hykova, 2011)."

How is performing faster on a tedious task related to self-control? Shouldn't that be "improve focus" or "improve concentration"?

Elective control of concentration is self control.

(Possibly naive question) Is that considered strictly elective control? I mean, I suppose I can assume I will always have access to sugar water so I'm electing to trick my body.

Isn't gargling sugar still consuming sugar? Digestion of simple carbohydrates begins in the mouth with saliva.

No, they get broken down, but do not enter the bloodstream. The sugar molecules bind to receptors to give you the sweet taste.

If gargling XYZ is too fussy, An apple works.

Self-control need a stall? Gargle artificially-sweetened water, researchers say.

Sorry, the article is behind a pay wall. The summary does nothing to impress me.