Increasing Your Self-Control

There are always new concepts being explored by psychologists. And one fascinating one that I have just recently been reading about is the concept of willpower. It is the ability to restrain oneself from an activity, whether it is eating a dessert, or shoplifting, or sex that one might regret later.  This blog post is based on an article in the Monitor on Psychology, a publication of the American Psychological Association.  In a recent article, psychologist and researcher Roy F. Baumeister discussed his work regarding will power.  He has written a book entitled Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.

Here are some of the areas which Baumeister lists as being helped by self-control and willpower:
addiction
overeating
domestic violence
sexually transmitted diseases
prejudice
debt
unwanted pregnancy
educational failure
under performance in school and work
lack of savings
failure to exercise

Looking at the above list, it makes one realize just how important willpower is.  With it, there is the capacity to form a civilization.  Without it, there is chaos and no civilization.

Now we may think of willpower as only something we have to use now and then, as when there is chocolate cake on the kitchen counter.  But in fact research has shown that people use willpower many times a day.  It is a capacity worth cultivating because we are going to use it over and over in life.

We all know that at certain times we have more or less will power than at other times. What people may not know, is that willpower can be temporarily "used up."'  Research shows that if people have to resist temptation in one situation, they are likely to have less power to resist in another situation which comes soon afterward.  If you successfully resist temptation for an hour to eat chocolate chip cookies you just baked, and then you try to do homework, you are likely to be less able to resist temptations that would take you away from homework.

One might expect that resisting temptation in hour one would be good exercise to resist temptation in hour two.  However, while it may help to exercise the self-control "muscle" for the future, it does not help immediately afterwards; instead it hurts or depletes one's immediate ability to exert self-control.  In some way, it uses it up for the moment.

So, just as with exercising a muscle, using it helps strengthen it for the long run but may use up its energy and power immediately afterwards.  Baumeister refers to this process as "ego depletion."  Not only does resisting temptation use up this resource, even making decisions depletes it to some degree.  And that makes total sense to me.  There have been times that I had to make so many decisions that I was just tired and didn't want to make another decision.  It also makes sense to me because I would view both activities as involving the prefrontal region of the brain, so what would affect one capacity could also affect the other.

The good news is that we can increase our willpower and self-control. It is not fixed and unchangeable.  Just like a muscle can be strengthened.  Unfortunately, I believe that our society is not training children well in this area today.  Moreover, I suspect that drug use works to undermine this ability in the brain.

Surprisingly, glucose (a form of sugar) aids in impulse control.  A simple glass of lemonade can improve self-control.

The main point that Baumeister makes in the article is that we do not need to fatalistically accept the idea that self-control is a limited resource.  It is not; it can be increased over time.  In the long run, practicing self-control leads to even more self-control.