Is "willpower" something that some people are simply born with more of, or with less? Or could it be something that a person can develop?
Welcome to the continuing diary series "Let's Read a WHEE Book Together!" This week, we're continuing with David Kessler's The End of Overeating, Chapter 37. If you're just discovering this diary series started by Edward Spurlock, you will find links to the previous installments at the bottom of his previous diary, covering Ch. 37.
In Ch. 38, "Rules of Disengagement," Kessler comes down firmly on the side that willpower can be developed, like a muscle. (This isn't the way he puts it, however, as I'll explain.) In the past few chapters, he's been laying a groundwork in principle. Finally, in Ch. 38, it's getting pretty specific. Follow below.
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In Ch. 37, Kessler listed four principles to break the lock of "conditioned hypereating" on the lives of some of us: awareness, competing behavior paths, competing thoughts, and social support. Ch. 38 focuses on the development of competing thoughts and behviors that we can use to divert us from taking paths we do not really want.
The precis: To head off automatic habitual behaviors that we want to change, deliberately engage and train the prefrontal cortex. Set explicit rules for alternate behavior. Make the rules specific. Make them as categorical as possible. Create if-then rules. When a decision point comes up, immediately focus attention squarely on the alternate, preferable behavior and the good reason for choosing it. Practice, practice, practice. Every episode of success in choosing the alternate behavior will weaken the old habit. Repeated success eventually will strengthen the attraction of the new behavior and weaken the attraction of the old. The new behavior becomes as nearly automatic as possible.
Kessler quotes four different research pyschologists whose work backs up this game plan: Walter Mischel and Kevin Ochsner of Columbia University, Matthew State of Yale School of Medicine, and Sylvia Bunge of Cal Berkeley.
He does a job of evoking the sensation of the wrestling match going on between two independent mental functions unfolding simultanously in one brain.
...I'm tempted to stop for fried dumplings. The representation of that behavior is etched in my brain--I can see myself doing it, and I know I'll be rewarded. But an incompatible behavior--...walking on by--is also represented there. Those opposing representations vie with each other for dominance.
In this corner, the hypothalamus (or wherever it is that deeply learned, rewarded habits install themselves, like "grab that donut."). In that corner, the prefrontal cortex, curator of long-term goals and plans, like "stick to healthy foods."
And which wrestler ends up with the golden belt? The stronger one. Normally, that means the side of short-term motivation, the side with a history of juicy immediate rewards, and habit on its side.
To get what it wants, the prefrontal cortex has only a second or two to seize the initiative. As pointed out in Ch. 37, the prefrontal cortex has to sense the environmental cues that it's about to face an attack, recognize the "premonitory urge" that a punch is coming, and act immediately. Once the hypothalamus (or whatever) has the prefrontal cortex in a headlock, it's all over.
In order for the prefrontal cortex, or conscious will, to react immediately and effectively, it's vastly helpful to have a set of tactics available. Kessler's word is "rules." Personally, I'm allergic to "rules," a term that always raise a specter of punishment and therefore a contrarian impulse. Anyone else?
Rather than "rules" I personally prefer to think "strategies" or "tactics" or "moves" that a boxer or wrestler or martial artist or acrobat or expert dodgeball player might practice. For the less pugilistic, "precepts" is also a possibility, a word from a handbook on meditation, or "principles."
There are ways to formulate these rules or tactics or moves or whatever we call them, making them handier for the prefrontal cortex to grab in an emergency (such as being faced with a donut).
"I need to eat less fat" would be an example of not-a-rule, just what Kessler calls a "good idea." More effective is something concrete and catgeorical: "I don't eat fried foods."
An example of an if-then tactic: "When my friends want to eat at the Five Guys, I order a single hamburger with tomato, onion, lettuce and mustard. Water to drink. No peanuts, no fries. I eat that burger as slowly and mindfully as I can."
Kessler draws a distinction between rules and "just using willpower." By "willpower" he seems to mean unorganized, inarticulate, ad hoc resistance to automated behavior, resistance that usually is ineffective.
I'm opinionated, again, but I prefer to construe the situation a little differently. I believe that when people use the word "willpower," usually we're talking about a form of conscious, long-term-oriented will -- probably in or related to the prefrontal cortex. We can have other kinds of will, subconscious and unconscious and short-term impulsive, that conflict with conscious long-term wishes. When our short-term-oriented, habitual behaviors win the wrestling matches most often, we actually complain of "lack of willpower."
If Kessler's take is correct, "willpower" in this sense can be developed, organized and made more effective like an athletic skill, by means of a training plan and steady practice.
Another fine point: I think the process also tends to strengthen one's personal identification with the long-term goal and supporting strageties, and weakens personal identification with the habit. Eventually, taking an apple to work becomes "me," and mindlessly swallowing donuts becomes "so not-me."
However it's described, I think the ideas in this chapter make a lot of sense based on personal experience, good and bad, and on the accounts of other WHEEbles of how they have been achieving their health and fitness goals. And the chapter is a timely reminder for me personally. It's been a while since I reviewed my written-down food tactics. Maybe I've forgotten some of them. Maybe others need revision in light of experience. How about other WHEEbles?
Scheduled WHEE diaries below. Please sign up for any blank space by a message to tip jar!
January 6
Weds AM - ???
Weds PM - Edward Spurlock
January 7
Thurs AM - ???
Thurs PM - Sychotic1
January 8
Fri AM - ???
Fri PM - ???
January 9
Sat AM - kismet (calorie values of everyday food/what a week of "clean eating" looks like)
Sat PM - Edward Spurlock (Kessler, Ch 39)
January 10
Sun AM - ???
Sun PM - ???
January 11
Mon AM- NC Dem- Chest exercises
Mon PM ???
January 12
Tues AM - ???
Tues PM - Clio2 (Kessler, Ch. 38)