If you`ve ever broken a resolution and found yourself backtracking on promises you`ve made this article by Mandy Francis will give you hope that you can learn to resist temptation and increase your will power. Here she describes a brand new book that shows you how to do it.
"Ever caved in and eaten a packet of biscuits on a Monday night, despite managing to stick to your diet all weekend? Or splashed out on that must-have pair of shoes, even though you promised yourself you wouldn’t overspend that month?
Then you’re certainly not alone. Despite our very best intentions, keeping control of our impulses, actions and emotions can sometimes feel impossible and demoralising.
So how on Earth do some people seemingly exercise an impossible amount of willpower, while others fail at sticking to even the most basic of tasks?
In The Marshmallow Test — named after an extraordinary psychological experiment — renowned American psychologist Professor Walter Mischel explains how anyone can learn self-restraint.
This could have incredible benefits: recent research from the University of Chicago shows that people with self-discipline have higher self-esteem, are less likely to binge on alcohol or food and even have better relationships.
In The Marshmallow Test American psychologist Professor Walter Mischel explains how anyone can learn self-restraint
Tests have also shown those with self-control tend to be happier day-to-day and more satisfied with their lives. Here, in this exclusive adaptation, with some additional tips and a quiz, we show how Professor Mischel’s findings can help you be happier and more productive than ever before . . .
TEST THAT PROVES THE VALUE OF WILLPOWER
To try to understand the value of willpower, Professor Mischel set up a beautifully simple experiment in the Sixties to test children’s self-control.
The Marshmallow Test, as it became known, and subsequent studies, led to fascinating observations on how willpower can impact our adult lives.
Over seven years, more than 550 children aged four to six were asked to sit alone in a room empty of distractions, except a table with a single marshmallow for each child on it.
The children were told that, if they could resist eating the treat for 15 minutes, they would be rewarded with two marshmallows. But, if they chose to eat the marshmallow before the time was up, that was all they would get.
Some children couldn’t wait, and ate the marshmallow within seconds of being left alone with it. Those with more willpower, however, used various techniques to stop themselves from eating it — turning their back on the treat, swinging their legs and singing songs in a bid to resist temptation.
Of the 550 children who took part in the experiment, a minority ate the marshmallow immediately. Of those who attempted to delay, a third deferred gratification long enough to get the second treat.
The experiment didn’t stop there, however. Decades later, when the researchers went back to these children, it transpired that those who waited longest for the marshmallows in the original test — the ones who demonstrated the most self-control — went on to have higher exam scores than the children who couldn’t wait.
As the children became adults, those who had exhibited the most self-control were also shown to have a healthier body weight, earned more advanced degrees, used fewer recreational drugs and coped better with stress.
WHY DO SOME HAVE MORE SELF-CONTROL THAN OTHERS?
It’s clear self-control can help you succeed in all areas of your life, but if you are naturally impulsive, does that mean you’re destined to struggle with weight, achieve less and crumble under stress?
Not necessarily, according to Professor Mischel. While some people are lucky enough to be born with innate self-control, it can be learned. Our individual levels of self-control stem from two warring parts of our brains.
We have a so-called ‘hot’ part, also known as the limbic system, which regulates basic drives and emotions essential for survival, from fear and anger to hunger and sex. When we use this part of the brain, we tend to make impulsive decisions — deciding to shout and gesticulate at a motorist who has annoyed us, for example, or drink more than we know we should at a party.
The ‘cool’ part of the brain is found in a part called the prefrontal cortex. It is complex, reflective and slower to activate. This cool, controlled system in the brain is crucial for considering the future.
When we use the ‘cool’ part of our brains to make choices, we weigh up the pros and cons carefully, and feel more in control of our decisions. We employ the cool part when we decide to choose a healthy snack despite having a chocolate craving, or bite our tongue when our best friend starts talking about something we disagree with.
Both sides of the brain have their advantages and disadvantages. The ‘hot’ limbic system can be useful in fight or flight situations, but is not so handy if you’re offered a cigarette when you are trying to give up smoking. The ‘cool’ prefrontal cortex can help us weigh up decisions, but can stop us taking risks and being spontaneous.
To try to understand the value of willpower, Professor Mischel set up a beautifully simple experiment in the Sixties to test children’s self-control
Both hot and cool parts of the brain continuously interact in a reciprocal relationship. As one becomes more active, the other takes a back seat.
Some people — whether by nature or nurture — appear to be ruled by their ‘cool’ prefrontal cortex and sail through life making careful, sensible decisions.
However, for most of us, the ‘hot’ limbic system overrides the ‘cool’ part of our brain, dashing any self-control we thought we might have and driving us to make rash decisions. Stress and tiredness can also make this more likely.
The good news is that with practice and a few simple tricks, Professor Mischel says you can train your brain to cool its responses to temptation and put yourself back in the driving seat of your self-control.
TRICKS TO BEAT TEMPTATION
Distract yourself
In the Marshmallow Test, the children who managed to avoid eating the treat for longest did so by distracting themselves. As adults, to master self-control in everyday life, Professor Mischel says we need to do exactly the same thing. If you struggle to control your bad habits at home, keep your mind busy with replacement activities.
Make a list of small tasks that need doing around the home and consult it every time you feel your willpower weakening.
Clear out your cutlery drawer, ring a friend, file your old photographs, or go for a walk the next time you feel tempted to raid the fridge, bite your nails or open a bottle of wine.
If you struggle to control your bad habits at home, keep your mind busy with replacement activities. Make a list of small tasks that need doing around the home and consult it every time you feel your willpower weakening (stock picture)
Take up a hobby that requires a lot of concentration and that you can pick up whenever you feel willpower waning. Teach yourself to knit, fill in crosswords, Google homemade Christmas gifts, or start a DIY project.
When you’re out and about, keep a short list of the reasons you need to exert self-control in your pocket or on your phone and refer to it every time you’re faced with temptation.
Play I-spy in your head next time the tea trolley goes past, or you’re tempted to waste time on social media. Challenge yourself to find ten things in your environment that start with a certain letter.
Keeping your mind otherwise occupied in the face of a ‘hot’ challenge will switch it to the cool part of your brain and help you to start exerting control over it.
Out of sight, out of mind
Out of sight really is out of mind when it comes to temptation. In 2006, a study at Cornell University found workers ate more sweets when the container was clear, rather than opaque — and on their desk, rather than 6ft away.
No matter how strong you think your resolve is, there will be times when stress, distractions, or even a devil-may-care mood will put your self-control on the back foot. In these situations, you need to remove temptation altogether.
It can be as simple as asking for a bread basket to be taken off the table when you’re on a diet, or putting your credit card in a bowl of water and freezing it if you know you can’t be trusted with it.
If you know that quick, after-work drink always turns into five, work out a graceful escape plan beforehand, and leave before things get messy.
Use your imagination
According to Professor Mischel, if you can change the way you imagine a craving, you can quickly escape its grip. When the children in Professor Mischel’s test groups were told about the marshmallows in downbeat terms, they were far more likely to sit the test out patiently.
Those who had been given mouth-watering, poetic descriptions of the confectionery were desperate to tuck in straight away.
Professor Mischel, a one-time heavy smoker, says a combination of visualising an upsetting image of a man he had seen in hospital suffering from lung cancer and sniffing a tin full of stale cigarette butts every time he wanted a cigarette helped him kick the habit very quickly.
Think about it: the ‘hot’ decision to try the tempting chocolate cake on the dessert trolley loses its allure if you ‘cool’ it down by imagining a cockroach has just crawled over it.
The impulsive, emotional limbic side of the brain is disarmed by the negative image, allowing the more thoughtful prefrontal cortex to come into play. It’s enough to put you off large slices of cake for life. But then, that’s the idea.
Professor Mischel, a one-time heavy smoker, says a combination of visualising an upsetting image of a man he had seen in hospital suffering from lung cancer and sniffing a tin full of stale cigarette butts every time he wanted a cigarette helped him kick the habit very quickly (stock picture)
Think ahead
Another powerful way to resist temptation is to learn to replace the brain’s automatic ‘go!’ response to a temptation with a ‘no!’
It’s a trick you need to be able to pull out of the bag quickly and automatically — even when under stress. The way to do this, Professor Mischel suggests, is to formulate what is known by psychologists as an ‘If-Then’ plan.
This means that before you are actually faced with a hard-to-resist temptation, or an ingrained habit, you need to come up with, and practise, a well-thought-out and controlled response.
The more time you give yourself to come up with a plan and the more times you are able to practise it, the better.
For example, ‘IF my partner does something that irritates me — THEN I will count to ten before I fly off the handle’, or ‘IF my friend offers me a drink, THEN I will tell her I want a lime and soda.’ It sounds simple, and it is.
But the key is to practise and imagine the new response over and over in your head, before you find yourself in temptation’s way. By forming and practising these plans in your head, you can quite quickly make the hot part of your brain reflexively trigger the response you want whenever the cue occurs.
It might not change a bad habit immediately (experts estimate that can take a minimum of two months’ practice) but it will, at least, buy you a few seconds to consider your options more rationally.
With time, a new, positive, controlled association or habit will be formed to replace the old, knee-jerk reaction.
Be a fly on the wall
You can also use willpower to overcome difficult or painful emotions by ending the cycle of replaying upsetting incidents in your head.
Professor Mischel and his team decided to see if the distraction techniques used in the Marshmallow Test could be applied to these feelings.
They enlisted students who had experienced a problem that left them with ‘overwhelming feelings of anger and hostility’, split them into two groups and asked them to reflect on their experiences in one of two ways.
Put your credit card in a bowl of water and freeze it if you know you can’t be trusted with it
Half of the students were asked to relive and visualise the experience through their own eyes — without taking anyone else’s point of view into consideration.
The other half were asked to distance themselves from their situation and take stock of their experience from the perspective of a fly on the wall — and examine their feelings from this more controlled, detached perspective.
The results were striking. The group that appraised their situation from their own perspective recounted the details as if they were reliving the entire episode and reactivated the negative emotions they attached to the experience.
In contrast, the fly-on-the-wall group began to reappraise what had happened, and started to see it in a more thoughtful and less emotional way, allowing them to explain what had happened and gain self-control and closure.
Further research showed that taking the fly-on-the-wall approach to emotional upsets had a positive effect on blood pressure, too."
(Source: Mandy Francis)
