Neuroscience and Willpower
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 6, 2008
I highly recommend this article, “Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind.” It really got me thinking, since I struggle with willpower issues daily and it offers new insight on the subject. (For more, see also, “How to Boost Your Willpower,” in the NYT Health blog.)
The brain has a limited capacity for self-regulation, so exerting willpower in one area often leads to backsliding in others.
Ah, that could explain quite a few things!
The brain’s store of willpower is depleted when people control their thoughts, feelings or impulses, or when they modify their behavior in pursuit of goals. Psychologist Roy Baumeister and others have found that people who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task.
The starting point for the article is that as the economy tanks and people have to cut back on spending, they may gain weight at the same time, since both sticking to a tight budget and maintaining your weight require willpower.
The good news, however, is that practice increases willpower capacity, so that in the long run, buying less now may improve our ability to achieve future goals — like losing those 10 pounds we gained when we weren’t out shopping.
So maybe I need to practice using willpower more, and like a muscle it will grow stronger. That seems to fit with what I have read about the power of forming habits. In order to really change a behavior you should repeat the desired behavior again and again until you develop it into a habit. Of course, what is a habit but a permanent change in behavior, so that advice always seemed a bit tautological. Perhaps this article’s insights explain why forming habits actually do work: practice builds up more willpower, and then we perceive the change as a “habit.”
No one knows why willpower can grow with practice but it must reflect some biological change in the brain. Perhaps neurons in the frontal cortex, which is responsible for planning behavior, or in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is associated with cognitive control, use blood sugar more efficiently after repeated challenges. Or maybe one of the chemical messengers that neurons use to communicate with one another is produced in larger quantities after it has been used up repeatedly, thereby improving the brain’s willpower capacity.
Whatever the explanation, consistently doing any activity that requires self-control seems to increase willpower — and the ability to resist impulses and delay gratification is highly associated with success in life.
Great insights. Maybe I should have studied neuroscience after all.
2 Responses to “Neuroscience and Willpower”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
April 7, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Hey!! This the first time I’ve visted your blog, and I must say… it rocks!! You talk about real world ideas, not just your personal life, which makes your blog all the more interesting (not to say that personal blogs have no purpose…I’d be a hypocrite to say that lol). Keep up the awesomeness!!
April 7, 2008 at 9:51 pm
Why, thank you! I checked your blog out, too, and I wish you luck with your endeavor. I’d love to lose some weight, myself, but I have to admit I have too many other things on my plate right now to focus fully on it. I liked the insights about willpower that I wrote about, above, and I hope to apply them one small step at a time.