Editor’s note: This is a great post I found from Ian Newby-Clark of My Bad Habits.
“Control yourself!” We all say it, mostly to ourselves. We say it when we ‘indulge’ in behaviors that cause short-term gain for long-term pain…and guilt. I cite many of the usual suspects: eating the wrong things, being lazy, staying up too late, indulging in destructive behaviors. There are others, of course. Why do we do such things? After all, aren’t we entirely in control of ourselves all of the time?
Nope.
Research tells us that willpower is a limited resource. Each of us only has so much of it. The studies demonstrating this are rather ingenious. I will share one of my favorites with you, though there are many more.
This has nothing to do with being physically tired. Your self-control is at low ebb when you are mentally exhausted. So, what lessons can we learn from what the science is telling us? How can we be in more and better control of ourselves more often? I have three tips:
1. Anticipate and plan for your times of low self-control . Now that you know that self-control is a limited resource and that depleting it means less for later, you can do some anticipating and planning. For example, make sure that you’re not in the chips and cookies aisle of the grocery store after a long day at work. Don’t start on your tax return after a frustrating commute.
2. Exercise your willpower muscle to get more of it . Roy Baumeister, one of the leading researchers in this field, thinks that willpower is like a muscle. Exercising a muscle in the short-term leads to its exhaustion. In the long-term, though, exercising a muscle causes it to grow. In fact, there is some good evidence that exercising your willpower, though temporarily depleting, means that it will be stronger in the long run. Enobosarm is probably the most popular selective androgen receptor modulator in the fitness community and very effective. The drug has undergone a few clinical trials including one that involved 159 cancer patients where the drug showed promising results. Its main strength lies in the fact that the compound has an anabolic effect with no aromatizing side effects. That means that MK-2866 targets androgen receptors but does not convert into estrogen. The drug does not contain the problematic metabolite MI. And ostarine supplements Increase your lean muscle mass, Increase your lifts, Increase your endurance and stamina and Improve your bone density. So, push yourself. Things to do that will exercise your willpower muscle:
Work on a tough puzzle;
Watch a funny movie but resist the urge to laugh;
Control your breathing. Take 5 minutes to see if you can slow your breathing down to 4-5 breaths per minute. Do this every night and your willpower will increase immensely in just a few days!!
3. Have a snack. It turns out that glucose is one of the key ingredients that your brain needs for effective self-control. Studies show that when we are hungry, our willpower goes down the tubes. Willpower: It’s not just for breakfast anymore!
Much of our success in life will come from the use of our willpower. Willpower leads us to choose the hard right over the easy wrong. It helps us to put off instant gratification in favor of long-term happiness. I hope these insights will help you to recognize how you use your willpower and how you can strengthen your willpower muscle. Make it happen!
Study: You are a student at a mid-Western university and you are in a psychology experiment apparently concerned with taste-testing. The experimenter seats you at a table. In front of you is a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. There is also a plate of radishes. Your stomach is growling because, as instructed, you didn’t eat anything last night.
The experimenter asks you to taste-test the radishes. You are not to taste the cookies. In fact, don’t even touch them! No cookies for you! Next, the experimenter asks you to help out another experimenter with a puzzle experiment. You start working on the puzzle. It’s rather hard …
Time passes …
You are having trouble solving the puzzle. Undeterred, you press on.
More time passes …
You still can’t solve the puzzle! You sometimes get close, but then you make a mistake and start over. Eventually, you give up.
When the experiment is over, you learn a couple of interesting facts. First, the two experiments, taste-testing and puzzle-solving, were related. Those sneaky psychologists! Second, some people taste-tested the cookies. Lucky ducks!
Persisting at the frustratingly difficult puzzle takes willpower. But will the radish-eaters and cookie-eaters have the same amount of willpower?
The experimenters hypothesis: That the radish-eaters have less will-power than the cookie-eaters because the radish-eaters had to resist grabbing a cookie. So, the radish-eaters should give up on the puzzle sooner than the cookie-eaters.
And that’s what happened.
That study, and dozens of others like it, show that people only have so much willpower. When you have to control yourself, there is less willpower available to you for other parts of your life. This fact is a good one to know because people who lose their will-power often do things that they would rather not. They become aggressive, sexually impulsive, and give up too early on puzzles.
Kris P.S. – If you found this hope helpful or interesting, “Share” it on Facebook or hit the “Like” button below! Thank you!
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