Nir Eyal

They asked three groups of people to put their hands in very cold water, ice cold water.

And they timed how long they could last in that cold water.

And they also tracked what was happening on their faces.

Were they grimacing and complaining or what happened?

And so they measured how much pain tolerance they had.

And for those three groups, here's how they split them up.

One group, they didn't teach anything.

They said, hey, just put your hand in this very cold water and let's see how you do.

Let's see how long you can last for.

The next group were people who had some kind of faith tradition.

They were Christian or Muslim or Jewish or Buddhist.

They had some kind of faith background and they already knew how to pray.

Then there was a third group of people who they taught how to pray.

who didn't have any kind of faith background.

So they didn't affiliate with any particular religion, and they taught them how to pray, but they said, you can substitute the word God for whatever is meaningful to you.

Back to your questions around meaning.

It's the sum of all forces.

It's mother nature.

It's the universe.

Whatever was meaningful to you, you can substitute that for the word God.