Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

Pop quiz:

Acts of self-control reduce subsequent acts of . . .

(a) impulsivity and over-indulgence

(b) poor decision-making

(c) saying or doing things we’ll later regret

(d) sticking with a new activity that began as a New Year’s resolution

(e) all of the above.

Answer: Most people would choose (e) – we have been led to believe that that acts of self-control – willpower, self-discipline – create more acts of self-restraint. Might makes right, just say “No,” and all that.

 

Resist the doughnut tray in the staff lounge at 8:30 am, and you’ll resist it again at 8:42 am. Resist it all morning, and you’ll be able to walk past the last remaining cruller on the otherwise spacious and empty tray at lunch time. Your earlier efforts of heroic self-control build and build and build, and you don’t have even the slightest temptation. You have overcome the tyranny of the sugar-crazed imbeciles who keep bringing treats to work. You have stuck to your guns, and will continue to do so.

 

Yeah, but . . . no.

 

Resist it once, resist it twice . . . eventually we’ll cave. We have nothing left after the earlier struggle. We’ve worn ourselves down to a nub with all that self-control, and our haughty pride in last moment’s self-denial has fled as we nab that last doughnut; we’re crazed, we inhale the doughnut in three bites, slide our finger along the edge of the tray to lick the last bits of powdered sugar, sprinkles, the tiny dab of red jammy ooze left from someone’s first-pick jelly doughnut. We’ve lost the battle. We are defeated, humiliated, and the evidence is stuck to our lips, chin, cheeks, fingertips, dusted on our shirt. How did that happen? We were doing so well up until then.

 

So our initial question needs another option: none of the above. Or maybe, one of the above, occasionally, or for a short time, but not consistently, not so you could count on it, not enough to make a darned bit of difference in changing something we really thought we were trying to change.

 

Here’s the rub – it turns out it’s all that previous self-control that made us weaken. It’s my new favorite finding in all of the “what’s cool about human behavior” realm. It’s not just a theory – there’s evidence that self-control, for whatever good thing it makes us not do the first time, will dissipate, disappear, abandon us totally because we’re too darned worn out by all the effort it took to say “no” the first time. It’s scientific fact. Thank the heavens above, something other than personal failings (mine or yours, dear secret-sweets-loving reader) are to blame for the doughnut debacle.

 

Let me say this again, because it’s so backwards that you might have missed it. An earlier valiant act of self-denial (avoiding the bad thing we weren’t supposed to do, say or have) actually wears down our ability to exert self-control again. The brilliant scientists of human gluttony, over-indulgence, and failure of willpower have found that we each have only a limited “reservoir” of self-control. As we use it, we deplete the reservoir, and once it’s completely depleted, we have less and less capacity to self-regulate again.

 

The gluttony/overindulgence/failure experts would like us to now think of self-control as a “muscle,” not a moral strength or weakness. Well, sign me up for this scientific paradigm shift. It is not a matter of will, but a matter of energy, endurance, and the breakdown of energy over time. Just as a muscle requires strength and energy to exert force over a period of time, acts demanding high levels of self-discipline also require strength and energy to perform. Just as muscles become fatigued after sustained exertion, and therefore have reduced capacity to exert further force, self-control can also become depleted when demands are made of self-control resources over a period of time.

 

But wait – you haven’t heard the best part. What is it that replenishes muscle – real and metaphoric? Rest, relaxation, and, drum roll please, glucose. Yes, glucose. We need to eat a little something with glucose in order to resist eating a big something with glucose. Pasta, bleached flour, bread, rice, table sugar or anything starchy has glucose in it, and that would do the trick. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah – the cruelty of it all.

 

The doughnut at lunch will keep us from eating another doughnut later. Is there a limited amount of pasta I could eat that could keep me from a third bowl of noodles? How much of a croissant will it take to keep me sufficiently building my self-control muscle so I can fit into my favorite jeans?

 

I just Googled foods that are high in glucose. Self.com rank ordered 811 foods, and the top glucose-rich food is dried, sulfured, uncooked apricots.  Where’s the fun in that? How they counted 811 foods of interest, and left off whatever would have been at number 812 and 813, I can’t say. In at last place, ranking 811th: roasted, salted sunflower seed kernels. Although nuts and seeds and such have more protein, and we’re supposed to eat them to keep our brains thinking throughout the day, dried apricots, honey and even catsup will allow us to walk away from the thing that fills our brain with regret and the endless litany of what’s wrong with us that we can’t even go one day without . . . eating a cookie, drinking too much, criticizing our mate, being sarcastic to our in-laws, spouting off, finding an excuse to skip the day’s exercise, limiting our time on the internet, buying something we don’t need . . .

 

Ok, so the doughnut won’t prevent the next doughnut. The croissant I had at breakfast won’t prevent me from wanting dessert later. I may have to stick to apricots and a few nuts thrown in just to keep my mind fueled and productive. An apricot at 4 pm might stave off the potato chips at 4:15. Might.

 

I need a new New Year’s resolution: more rest, more relaxation, more glucose, more forms of motivation to help harness all my newfound bastions of self-control. So I can resist further temptations, regulate my emotions, and break all my bad habits.

 

How much glucose do you think is in a tiny little chocolate truffle, nestled delicately in a plush red Valentine’s Day box? I’m sure I could have just one. There are only five in the box. They’re small. They’re lovely. Really, they’re works of art. They’re from my husband. They came with a card describing deep gratitude that his heart found mine. They’re quite small. He loves me. I’m sure they’re delicious. And I managed not to have one all day.

 

Check out the website of the main scientist-of-the-backslide, Roy Baumeister 

Check out, if you dare, The Self.com rating of glucose-rich food