WILLPOWER: Interesting WSJ article about willpower and your brain

[damalove]

I first heard about this article on NPR, found it interesting so I found it and thought it would be helpful to share it. It talks about willpower, as relates to dieting, quitting smoking, whatever and why we struggle, especially in the evenings. Its a lengthy article, but the end talks about what we can do to try to improve willpower.

Here's an excerpt:

"The brain area largely responsible for willpower, the prefrontal cortex, is located just behind the forehead. While this bit of tissue has greatly expanded during human evolution, it probably hasn't expanded enough. That's because the prefrontal cortex has many other things to worry about besides New Year's resolutions. For instance, scientists have discovered that this chunk of cortex is also in charge of keeping us focused, handling short-term memory and solving abstract problems. Asking it to lose weight is often asking it to do one thing too many.

In one experiment, led by Baba Shiv at Stanford University, several dozen undergraduates were divided into two groups. One group was given a two-digit number to remember, while the second group was given a seven-digit number. Then they were told to walk down the hall, where they were presented with two different snack options: a slice of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit salad.

Here's where the results get weird. The students with seven digits to remember were nearly twice as likely to choose the cake as students given two digits. The reason, according to Prof. Shiv, is that those extra numbers took up valuable space in the brain—they were a "cognitive load"—making it that much harder to resist a decadent dessert. In other words, willpower is so weak, and the prefrontal cortex is so overtaxed, that all it takes is five extra bits of information before the brain starts to give in to temptation.

This helps explain why, after a long day at the office, we're more likely to indulge in a pint of ice cream, or eat one too many slices of leftover pizza. (In fact, one study by researchers at the University of Michigan found that just walking down a crowded city street was enough to reduce measures of self-control, as all the stimuli stressed out the cortex.) A tired brain, preoccupied with its problems, is going to struggle to resist what it wants, even when what it wants isn't what we need. "

If youre interested in reading more... here's the link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703478704574612052322122442.html?mod=article-outset-box

"Blame it on the Brain" by Jonah Lehrer, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 26, 2009

[becca2]

VERY interesting article. Thanks for sharing - it explains a lot!!!!

[EcMjawad1]

Thanks for posting...hmmm I think a new job is in the future..