“Eat right. Lose weight. Go to bed earlier. Drink more water. Avoid sugar. Exercise regularly…”
Have you heard all of this before?
Do these sound like New Year resolutions?
Is it harder to do all of these things (above) versus eat sweets, drink wine, watch TV all day and stay up all night working or partying?
Unfortunately it is. You are not alone. And I’ve been “guilty” of it too.
According to a 2007 survey of over 3,000 people conducted by British psychologist Richard Wiseman, 88 percent of all New Year’s resolutions end in failure.
Why is this so?
Willpower.
Willpower is defined as the ability to resist our impulses.
It’s about doing what matters most, even when it’s difficult or when you don’t really want to.
It isn’t easy living in a society filled with endless temptations that surround us every day. Temptations spur short bursts of dopamine in the brain, making it difficult to focus on long-term goals.
This all takes place in the mid-brain – a region primarily focused on short-term awareness.
We are often forced to resolve between what we want to do and what we ought to do.
According to Kelly McGonigal, professor at Stanford University, our brains operate at three levels: “I will, I won’t, and I want.” The “I want – part usually wins.
When temptation and desire are present and on the rise, two areas in our brain buzzes with activity:
- The nucleus accumbens – located within the mid-brain which plays a central role in our reward circuitry, to minimize stress, pain and maximize pleasure;
- The prefrontal cortex – located right behind the forehead, responsible for judgment and reasoning.
A battle occurs between these two regions of the brain – when our willpower is tested in the presence of temptation. One battles to dominate the other.
Scientists have found that the prefrontal cortex show greater activity when a person chooses the option which appears to be better for the long run — like choosing to hydrate with water versus soda.
This region becomes active before we even make a decision and exerts an effort to control our impulses.
But does this happen every time we are faced with a tempting impulse?
Unfortunately not. A lot of factors influence and hinder our success — such as alcohol, drugs, level of stress, lack of sleep, etc.
Drugs and alcohol are particularly harmful for instance.
Not only do they activate the brain’s pleasure centers, but they also compromise the prefrontal cortex’s ability to consider the consequences.
Moreover, the lack of sleep and increased stress levels have a huge impact on how efficiently our brain’s judgement functions.
During high stressful situations, the brain has less energy to exert willpower, and in turn, we act instinctively, making short-term decisions with our mid-brain.
Stress also easily triggers cravings and makes the pleasurable dopamine neurons even more excited by any temptation in sight.
For many of us, we have many things to worry about besides things like New Year’s resolutions. Our brains are in charge of keeping us focused, handling short-term memory and solve abstract problems to name a few.
The problem lies when we ask it to lose weight for instance – which is often asking it to do one thing too many – also known as “cognitive overload.”
An experiment by Baba Shiv from Stanford University demonstrates this.
Several dozen undergraduates were divided into two groups that were given numbers to remember. One group was given a two-digit number and the other group was given a seven-digit number. They were presented with two snack options: 1) a slice of chocolate cake or 2) a bowl of fruit salad.
It was found that the students with the seven-digits to remember were twice as likely to choose the cake option over the bowl of fruit.
According to Professor Shiv, the extra numbers to remember took up valuable space in the brain, which they were in “cognitive overload,” making it that much harder to resist a delicious chocolate cake dessert.
In other words, the nucleus accumbens dominated over the overtaxed prefrontal cortex resulting in having weak willpower that gave into temptation.
This explains why after a long day of work that we are more likely to indulge in alcohol or reach for something sweet or eat a bunch of carbs.
A tired brain that is preoccupied with its problems is going to struggle to resist what it wants, even when what it wants isn’t what we need.
So how do we control the temptations that surround us every day?
And is it really about willpower?
If willpower is defined as the ability to resist our impulses, the act of resistance itself connotes a feeling to fight which indicates you are still fighting against something that you may not want to actually do.
Resistance is the refusal to accept or comply with something; the attempt to prevent something by action or argument.
When you resist temptation or impulse, you are refusing to accept the presence of it – which takes a lot more work.
What if it’s really about the decisions we make about how we see and think of ourselves?
According to McGonicgal, it isn’t about how much or how little willpower you have, but how you choose to think about it.
How we choose to think about our future selves has an impact on the decisions we make in the present.
There is a common disconnect between how we think of ourselves in the present moment and how we think of ourselves in the future.
In fact, we tend to view ourselves in the future as someone different altogether – someone who is more patient, organized, and more self-controlled. As a result, we dump the issues that we don’t want to deal with now into this “other” person – which is our future self.
How we think about our future selves has a direct impact on the decisions we make in the present.
Just like a muscle, you can strengthen the impact of your decisions which goes beyond willpower.
7 Things You Can Do To Shift Your Short-Term Impulses Towards Results That Serve You For The Long-Term
1. Start Being Self-Aware Of Your Impulses
To know exactly where you are heading, you must know exactly where you are.
Begin by taking note of the times when you are feeling the impulse to get that chocolate cake or that “high” that can give you that immediate short-term pleasurable response.
Take a moment to note mindfully where is this feeling coming from? When or what part of your day is this occurring? Who are you with? Describe the setting to help you understand the context of where you are coming from. Paint this picture and see if this is a repeating pattern. Just observe with no judgement.
2. Create Time-Off For Your Brain
Just like a tired muscle, especially with our prefrontal cortex of our brains, due to overuse, as our muscles get tired after a tough workout, we must rest to recharge. Taking your mind off of work and focus on play and relaxation activities can dramatically help you get clear.
3. The Key: Shift Your Focus On One Thing
Although you may be living a very FULL life, shifting your focus on The One Thing that can make the biggest difference in everything is best.
You may want to lose weight, learn how to cook healthy meals, make a ton of money and have one to two kids all this year for instance…
When we ask the brain to suddenly do all of those things all at the same time while maintain our day-to-day demands of life, we’re asking our brains for too much. It will reach “cognitive overload” like I mentioned earlier.
Rather than do all of the above, shift your focus on One Key Thing and break it down into something achievable that often encompasses aspects of the above.
4. Allow Your Brain To Have Space
Meditation helps the brain to create space and prevent overload. It is the practice of paying attention – being mindful of the present improves a wide range of skills – such as managing stress and impulse control.
Not only does it change how the brain functions, but how it physically impacts the structure of the brain to support self-control.
Just 15 minutes of daily meditation and deep breathing has been shown to increase gray matter in the prefrontal cortex.
6. Give Your Brain Some Energy
Real energy requires real food and nutrition such as protein. Your brain needs energy in order to optimize the performance of the prefrontal cortex. Likewise, movement, sleep, deep breathing and nourishing exercises like tai chi, chi gong, and yoga also play major roles in increasing your resilience to stress and giving you a mental boost.
When you can lower your stress levels, this leaves extra energy for your brain’s decision center to keep the bigger picture in mind.
7. Accept You Are In The Driver’s Seat: Choose Versus Wait For Change To Happen To You
There is a difference between making the decision to choose versus waiting for change to happen to you. Making the decision to choose strengthens you and your power to make decisions for the long-term.
Conclusion
Acknowledge that we live in a temptation-saturated society. There are so many choices and forces that can often lead us to distraction while living in a fast-paced lifestyle. As a result, it is easy to lose sight of the big picture. It’s easy to lose sight of what really matters.
However, the good news is that we do have a plethora of choices to help us make better and more empowering decisions. What starts out as difficult becomes easier over time the more aware you become.
Imagine yourself being fully in charge and engaged in your daily decisions for the long-term – for you and your life now and in the future.
Awareness is the first step as it will translate into new empowering behaviors that evolve into powerful habits and lead to impulses that will be less intense, and temptations will be less overwhelming.
Take the opportunity to actively transform your impulses into empowering decisions that will serve you for the long-term. Not because you are being sucked into it, but because you want to do it for you, your future self and the people you serve in your community.
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To Your Health,
Janet Co
Resources for Further Reading:
“The Willpower Instinct” by Kelly McGonigal
“The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg
“How We Decide” by John Lehrer
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