Initially found via Instapundit:
…one of the most effective ways to distract ourselves from a tempting pleasure we don't want to indulge is by focusing on another pleasure. So the next time you find yourself confronted with a temptation--whether a piece of cake, a drink of alcohol, or a psychoactive drug--don't employ willpower to resist it.
Send your attention somewhere else by imagining a different pleasure not immediately available to you. For if you can successfully turn your attention elsewhere until the temptation is removed from your environment or you remove yourself, the odds that you'll give in to your impulse will decrease more than with almost any other intervention you can try.
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/10/26/the_power_of_de.html#.UIqo31BwwlM.twitter
I read of another experiment where how long children refrained from eating some marshmallows correlated to their level of success later in life. The more successful children were in refraining from eating the marshmallows, the more likely there were to be successful later in life.
