The Science Of Self Control
Summary
TLDRThis video delves into the science of self-control, debunking common misconceptions and revealing that self-control isn't a fixed trait but a resource that can be depleted. It highlights emotional regulation and stress as key depletors of self-control, and contrary to popular belief, suggests that awareness is the core of self-control. The video advocates for techniques like meditation to improve self-awareness and, by extension, self-control, offering a new perspective on how to manage internal conflicts and make healthier choices.
Takeaways
- 🧠 Self-control is not a fixed personality trait but a diminishing resource that can be depleted over time.
- 💪 The belief that self-control can be enhanced by doing difficult tasks like cold showers is not supported by scientific evidence.
- 🧘♂️ Recent studies suggest that self-control is actually the brain's capacity to monitor internal conflict, not a separate control mechanism.
- 🌡 Emotional regulation and stress are two major factors that deplete self-control, as they both involve suppressing internal awareness.
- 🤯 The anterior singulate cortex, a part of the brain, is responsible for monitoring internal conflict and is key to self-control.
- 🔍 The act of paying attention to internal conflict is the same as exerting self-control, as awareness and conflict monitoring are one and the same.
- 💆♀️ Emotional turbulence negatively impacts self-control, so addressing emotional regulation can improve self-control.
- 🏋️♂️ Stress management is crucial for self-control, as stress often leads to externalizing attention away from internal states.
- 🌱 Meditative practices can improve self-control not by controlling thoughts but by increasing awareness of internal states.
- 🤹♂️ The concept of 'just doing it' is actually preceded by a heightened awareness of internal conflict, which is the core of self-control.
- 📚 Understanding the science of self-control can lead to more effective strategies for improving it, rather than trying unproven methods.
Q & A
What is the basic problem discussed in the video regarding self-control?
-The basic problem discussed is that people want to do things like eat healthier, exercise more, and manage their time better, but they struggle to listen to themselves and follow through on these intentions.
Why does the video mention Babel as a sponsor?
-Babel is mentioned as a sponsor because it is a top language learning app that uses evidence-based techniques to optimize learning, which the speaker appreciates and recommends.
What is the speaker's opinion on the effectiveness of cold showers in boosting self-control?
-The speaker suggests that cold showers do not effectively boost self-control. Instead, they make you good at tolerating cold showers, but this does not translate into improved self-control in other areas of life.
What did researchers discover about self-control being a fixed aspect of personality?
-Researchers discovered that self-control is not a fixed aspect of personality. Instead, it is a diminishing resource that can be depleted over time.
What are the two main factors that severely drain self-control, according to the video?
-The two main factors that severely drain self-control are emotional regulation and stress.
How does emotional regulation affect self-control?
-Emotional regulation affects self-control by suppressing internal emotions, which in turn shuts off the internal awareness necessary for monitoring conflict and thus diminishes self-control.
What role does the anterior singulate cortex play in self-control?
-The anterior singulate cortex is responsible for monitoring internal conflict. When this monitoring stops, our capacity for self-control is diminished.
How does stress impact self-control?
-Stress impacts self-control by externalizing our attention, causing us to focus on external problems rather than internal conflicts, which reduces our ability to monitor conflicts and thus our self-control.
What is the relationship between awareness and self-control as discussed in the video?
-The relationship between awareness and self-control is that they are essentially the same thing. Increasing awareness of internal states, specifically conflicts, boosts self-control because the brain circuits for both are one and the same.
What is the speaker's recommendation for improving self-control?
-The speaker recommends increasing internal awareness, particularly of internal conflicts, as this directly boosts self-control. Techniques such as meditation and checking in with oneself can help achieve this.
Outlines
🎯 Understanding Self-Control Challenges
The video addresses the common struggle of wanting to improve various aspects of life, such as healthier eating and timely sleep, but failing due to a lack of self-control. It highlights the common practice of seeking solutions online, such as through Google searches or YouTube videos, and introduces the sponsor, Babel, a language learning app. The host shares a personal endorsement of Babel, emphasizing its design by language teachers and its effectiveness in quick learning, particularly for medical professionals.
🧠 The Myth of Self-Control as a Fixed Trait
Researchers have discovered that self-control is not a fixed personality trait but a diminishing resource, akin to a Mana bar that depletes over time. The video explains that emotional regulation and stress are the primary factors that drain self-control. Emotional regulation involves suppressing feelings, which exhausts self-control, while stress shifts focus from internal to external problems, further reducing self-control reserves.
🔍 The Role of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex
Recent research using EEGs has revealed that self-control is linked to the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which monitors internal conflict. The video explains that self-control is essentially the ability to monitor this conflict. When monitoring stops, self-control is lost. The discussion includes how this understanding aligns with earlier findings on emotional regulation and stress, suggesting that the key to self-control lies in maintaining internal awareness.
🧘 Boosting Self-Control Through Awareness
The video emphasizes the importance of internal awareness for improving self-control. Emotional turbulence and stress undermine self-control by diverting attention from internal conflicts. Effective strategies to enhance self-control include therapy, journaling, and mindfulness practices. The video also explains that meditation helps because it involves paying attention to the present moment, thereby strengthening the conflict-monitoring system in the brain.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Self-control
💡Evidence-based techniques
💡Babel
💡Emotional regulation
💡Stress
💡Anterior singulate cortex
💡Conflict monitoring
💡Meditation
💡Awareness
💡Addiction Psychiatry
Highlights
The science of self-control and evidence-based techniques are discussed to help individuals improve their self-discipline.
Common issues like unhealthy eating, lack of exercise, and excessive phone use are addressed, highlighting the struggle with self-control.
The importance of awareness before control is emphasized, drawing on the wisdom of ancient yogis.
A revolutionary study suggests that self-control may not exist as previously thought, challenging traditional views.
Self-control is likened to a 'Mana bar' that can be depleted, indicating it's a diminishing resource, not a fixed trait.
Emotional regulation and stress are identified as major factors that deplete self-control.
Meditation is suggested as a method to boost self-control, but its practicality is questioned.
The anterior singulate cortex's role in monitoring internal conflict is linked to self-control.
The act of monitoring internal conflict is revealed to be the essence of self-control, not a separate control mechanism.
Emotional regulation's impact on self-control is explained through the suppression of internal emotions.
Stress is shown to externalize attention, reducing the ability to monitor internal conflict and thus self-control.
The solution to improving self-control involves increasing awareness of internal states and conflicts.
The concept that awareness and self-control are one and the same is introduced, contradicting the idea that awareness precedes control.
Meditation's effectiveness in improving self-control is attributed to its focus on internal awareness.
The transcript concludes with the advice to pay attention to internal conflict as a means to develop self-control.
The idea that 'just doing it' is preceded by high awareness of internal conflict is presented as a key to self-control.
Transcripts
today we're going to talk about the
science of self-control and
evidence-based techniques to boost your
self-control so the basic problem here
is that you want to do stuff right you
want to eat healthier you want to
exercise more you want to wake up on
time you want to go to bed on time you
want to spend less time on your phone
but the problem is that you don't really
listen to you right and so what we end
up doing is we try to find Solutions for
our problems and you'll maybe do a
Google search or watch a YouTube video
about how to eat healthy or how to
actually go to bed on time hey y'all I
want to take a moment to thank the
sponsor of today's video Babel Babel is
the top language learning app worldwide
and I can't advocate for it enough part
of what I love about Babel is that it's
designed by real language teachers so
they know exactly what a student needs
to learn a language and they also use
evidence-based techniques to optimize
learning in a short amount of time I
really wish that I had access to this
when I was actually in med school
because they make learning so easy I'm
learning a lot of very common phrases
that doctors would actually need to use
to communicate with their patients I for
example am learning medical Spanish
which I wish I had access to when I was
actually in med school so I'm learning
how to say B AA e which means drink
water and rest the last thing that I
really love about Babel is that it's
very accessible in all of the in between
spaces in my life so part of the problem
is that learning a new language takes a
lot of time but I love that I can
replace the boring wasteful stuff that I
do on my phone with actually learning
medical Spanish so I can't thank Babel
enough for sponsoring today's video and
strongly recommend that youall check out
the awesome offer which is 60% off your
subscription in the link below thank you
once again to Babel for sponsoring
today's video and making mental health
content on the internet free and so we
end up trying to fix these problems
individually but in the back of your
mind you probably know that if you could
just be better at controlling yourself
all of these things would get better if
you were better at self-control you'd be
able to eat healthy you'd be able to be
more motivated at work you'd be able to
suppress and control your burnout and so
then we end up doing things to try to
boost our self-control like sometimes
we'll even take supplements that are
supposed to be cognitive enhancers or
we'll do really hard things like take
cold showers because taking a cold
shower is hard and if I can force myself
to do it then I should be able to force
myself to do all of the other stuff and
it turns out though that that doesn't
really work because if cold showers
increased everybody's self-control then
we'd have a lot of data supporting that
and everyone would be taking cold
showers it turns out that if you look at
it scientifically what cold showers make
you good at is tolerating cold showers
and that's what's so elusive about
self-control that we can get good at a
particular task but that doesn't
actually translate over into the other
parts of our lives and the reason for
that is because we have haven't really
understood the science of self-control
until now and there have been a couple
of in my opinion revolutionary studies
that have completely changed our
perspective on self-control in fact
they've shown us that self-control
doesn't really exist and paradoxically
it's through understanding this that we
will learn the best scientifically
validated methods to improve our
self-control and if this is so
revolutionary why haven't you heard
about it and why aren't people talking
about it there are a couple reasons for
that the first is really simple it's
actually really really hard to
understand because it completely changes
our perspective on self-control and the
second thing is that the discovery isn't
sexy at all in fact it is quite
disappointing and at the same time now
that we know this now that we literally
understand where self-control originates
in the brain we can actually do things
to significantly boost our self-control
so let's start by understanding what we
do know about self-control so a couple
thousand years ago a group of yogis
sitting in India basically discovered
something that awareness precedes
control and when I teach this principle
either as a psychiatrist or a meditation
instructor I kind of point out that okay
if you kind of go to the dentist and you
get something numbed up you can't feel
your mouth anymore and if you can't feel
your mouth anymore you can't control
your mouth water will spill out talk
like this you can't really like
understand what people are saying people
can understand you right so I sort of
use this kind of analogy that okay if
you get something numbed up you can't
control it anymore and it turns out that
while that analogy seemed really good
it's actually wrong and it goes way
deeper than that in the 9s and 2000s
there were a group of psychologists who
tried to figure out what is going on
with self-control what is it really
because the basic idea that we had at
the time was that self-control is
essentially like a personality
characteristic it's a part of who you
are and if you've got the right genes
and if you've got the right upbringing
that if you're 20 years old and you've
been raised with discipline then you
will continue to be disciplined we
thought it was a fixed aspect ECT of who
you are as a person and this group of
researchers basically discovered that
it's not a fixed aspect of who you are
as a person but a diminishing resource
it's not something that's on your
character sheet as a trait it's actually
like a Mana bar that can be depleted
over time and this sort of makes sense
right because we kind of know that on
some days we're able to control
ourselves but on days where there's a
lot of stuff going on and we have to
exert a lot of self-control when I've
had a really rough day at work and I
want to yell at my boss and I strain
myself all day at the end of the day I
can't bring myself to eat a salad and I
just order a pizza and I sit down and
like I'm just done with the day so they
basically discovered that the more
self-control you exert the more it
depletes and once researchers had
figured out that it is a diminishing
resource naturally the next thing that
they looked at is what diminishes
self-control the most and what we
basically figured out is there are two
things that severely severely drain your
self-control the first is emotional Reg
regulation so if you spend a lot lot of
time suppressing or regulating your
emotions if you want to tell someone to
go screw themselves and you have to hold
that in then you will diminish your
reserve of self-control that's number
one the second thing which reduces
self-control is stress because let's be
honest stress is bad at everything
stress is bad stress is bad stress is
going to reduce your self-control but
they literally found that they found
that people who were in more stressful
situations had a lower reserve of
self-control and could not exert that to
do healthy behaviors and that kind of
makes sense right because stress makes
everything worse and then there were a
group of researchers that showed up and
said okay what can we do to boost
self-control and no surprise meditation
helps us boost self-control because you
should meditate more if you meditate you
will be more in control more in control
but then like I said earlier this gets
us back to the original problem where if
I had the self-control to meditate every
day I wouldn't need to meditate every
day if I could force myself to sit down
then I wouldn't be in this problem in
the first place and this is where we
come to the truly revolutionary research
so a group of scientists sat down and
they sort of figured out okay so we know
that emotional regulation and stress
reduce our capacity for self-control
then they ask the question what's going
on in the brain when emotional
regulation and stress actually drain our
self-control which part of the brain is
actually being drained and they used
something called an EEG which is
measures the electrical activity of the
brain and they discovered something
really fascinating that there's this
part of our brain called the anterior
singulate cortex and the anterior
singulate cortex is responsible for
monitoring internal conflict and what
they essentially discovered is when we
stop monitoring our internal conflict
our capacity for self-control goes out
the window so this was kind of a weird
finding because it sort of suggested
that self-control isn't really a thing
but simply that what self-control really
is is our capacity to monit monitor
internal conflict and if you sort of
stop and think about it you'll notice
this right because when do we exert
self-control we only exert self-control
when there is an internal conflict so
generally speaking in human be Behavior
I have an automatic impulse I want to
eat a slice of pizza and then there is
another part of my brain that says
actually we should eat a salad and in
that moment when you exert self-control
there is actually a conflict because
between one part of you and the other
part of you that's literally why we call
it self-control because you are trying
to control yourself and the self
actually wants to do something else now
we've assumed based on our subjective
experience that there's actually a
control aspect going on but it turns out
that that's actually not the case it
turns out that what these researchers
discovered is as long as the conflict is
being monitored we will be in control
but the moment we stop monitoring the
conflict we lose all control and you may
may have actually noticed this because
it sounds kind of weird right but just
like pay attention to your particular
circumstance where you fight a battle in
your mind and then as long as you're
fighting that battle you're still sort
of in control but the moment that you
stop paying attention and the moment the
battle disappears is the moment that we
lose control now this is where we think
that the reason we stop monitoring the
battle is because we've lost or we've
won right that's what we sort of assume
the battle is over that's why I sto
paying attention and this is completely
natural because the two happen really
closely together we stop thinking about
it after we lose right and then we kind
of give into the behavior but it turns
out that it's actually the other way
around it is that when we stop
monitoring it that's when we lose the
battle and you may have kind of noticed
this that in the back of your mind
you're kind of arguing with yourself but
you sort of like eh and then you stop
thinking about it and before you realize
it your phone is in your hand and you're
kind of waving it around and you're
scrolling in bed before you realize that
you've turned on the light or opened up
your tablet and You' started to watch
watch something and even working as an
addiction psychiatrist when I talk to
patients about their relapse they don't
relapse after a long and drawn out
Battle of like resisting resisting
resisting resisting resisting you kind
of give up in your mind and you kind of
stop thinking about it and then you're
engaging in the behavior before you even
realize it and so this is exactly what
the researchers discovered that conflict
monitoring is self-control but hold on a
second okay what about all this stuff
around emotional regulation and stress
because we know that those two things
deplete self-control the most but you're
telling me that simply monitoring
conflict is self-control how does that
relate and it turns out that it fits
perfectly so if we look at emotional
regulation what are we literally doing
in emotional regulation we are
suppressing our internal emotions I want
to tell my boss to go screw himself but
instead of paying attention to that I'm
I'm going to shut off that part of my
mind and shockingly when I shut off my
internal awareness I shut off my ability
to monitor conflict and as I shut off
the part that is responsible for
self-control shockingly my self-control
worsens so emotional regulation fits
perfectly because literally what you're
doing is shutting off that conflict
monitoring part intentionally so that it
getting pissed off doesn't take control
and actually cause you problem right so
that sort of makes sense that as we
suppress our internal awareness we will
lose the capacity for self-control what
about stress though so stress is also
something that fits perfectly because
when we are stressed out literally what
our brain is doing is externalizing our
attention when you are stressed out you
are not thinking or paying attention to
this you are paying attention to the
problems outside that are going to screw
you right so when I'm stressed out about
a test I'm not paying attention to the
internal environment I'm thinking about
the test when I'm stressed out about my
boyfriend or girlfriend breaking up with
me I'm not thinking about how I feel I'm
thinking about how do I prevent This
Disaster so now we see another really
interesting point of evidence which is
that when we are stressed out literally
what our brain does is externalizes our
attention to solve the problems that
cause us stress and shockingly when I
externalize my attention what do I stop
paying attention to my internal conflict
so we actually see that this old
research about emotional regulation and
stress causing reductions in
self-control fits perfectly with this
model that conflict monitoring is
literally self-control and so what does
that mean for you a couple of really
simple things the first is that the more
of your emotions that you have to
suppress the worse your self-control
will get and this kind of makes sense
because if we look at addiction
Psychiatry the more emotionally
turbulent someone is the more more
likely they are to use and relapse and
not control their behavior the crappier
your life is emotionally the more likely
you are to give into bad behaviors binge
eat comfort food when do you need
comfort food when you need comfort when
do you need comfort when there's Badness
in here so the first thing that we've
got to do is learn how to alternately
regulate our emotions so this can be
everything from going to therapy to
journaling to taking walks but what you
need to understand is that you cannot
improve your self-control if you are
emotionally turbulent that fixing the
emotional turbulence is the same thing
as improving your self-control that's
number one number two what about stress
because this is where we could say but
okay Dr qu are you saying that as long
as I'm stressed out that I won't be able
to control myself and that's where the
science really comes in and says not
quite because I'm not saying that you
have to solve all of your problems but
instead what you need to do is re
internalize your awareness and this is
the mistake that we make when I'm
focused on solving problems let's say I
have a a final coming out up and I'm
afraid to fail it what I start doing is
stop paying attention to myself I stop
paying attention to my Hunger signals I
stop paying attention to my fatigue
signals I stop paying attention to
everything in here because I'm so
focused out there so it's not that you
need to fix all of the problems in your
life to gain self-control it's that you
need to re internalize your awareness so
anytime you're feeling stressed out try
to take 15 minutes 20 minutes 30 minutes
to just check in with yourself sit down
or go for a walk and just ask yourself
how am I feeling right now just take
take a moment to literally re
internalize your awareness just pay
attention to what's going on and then
you may say but Dr K that won't be
enough even if I pay attention how do I
start doing healthy things and this is
the Revolutionary and confusing thing is
that the two are actually the same
literally all you need to do is increase
awareness of the internal self as you
increase that awareness you will be
boosting that conflict monitoring system
in the anterior singulate cortex it's
not that self-control is separate from
awareness it's that the two are actually
exactly the same thing so as long as you
can pay attention to your internal
signals literally your self-control will
improve because the circuits are one and
the same what we subjectively experience
as self-control is different from what
is actually going on in the brain so a
good example of this is if I'm nervous I
will say I have butterflies in my
stomach but I don't literally have
butterflies in my stomach it is just the
way that I subjectively experience
nausea or anxiety or whatever and
instead there's an actually discreete
neuroscientific mechanism and so if you
kind of stop and think about it the
solution to getting rid of butterflies
in your stomach is not to remove the
butterflies in your stomach it's to
address what's actually going on in the
brain and so even if you accept that you
may be saying okay so I need to
internalize my awareness when I'm
stressed out but then what how do I
exert self-control and this is exactly
why this is so hard to understand you
don't actually need to do anything else
that self-control and awareness of your
internal State specifically awareness of
conflicts within you is literally the
same thing as self-control and that
sounds really confusing because
subjectively that's not really what it
feels like right and this is exactly
what the problem is is
as we try to figure out how do I control
myself we don't find any good
evidence-based answers because one none
of them exist and now we actually come
full circle to meditation because why is
meditation so good at improving
self-control because when I'm doing
meditation all I'm doing is paying
attention to my breath that's not
controlling my breath it's not resisting
my breath it's just paying attention and
that's literally because these two
functions are the same in the brain so
it turns out that the yogis actually had
it right all along and even what I was
saying earlier about awareness precedes
control is actually incorrect it's not
that awareness precedes control it's
that awareness is control and so the
last thing that you can do which I know
sounds crazy is actually meditate but
even in this way you don't have to do a
formal meditation practice literally the
muscle of self-control is the muscle of
conflict monitoring so all you need to
do is pay attention to your internal
conflict and the more that you s with
that conflict the more you will be able
to exert control and the last thing that
I'll leave youall with is if you even
kind of think about the times in your
life where you exert self-control you
kind of are aware of that conflict and
then you kind of have this idea of just
do it right you kind of make up your
mind and you just do it and so if we
sort of stop and think about it then it
becomes easy you're like yeah I just
woke up one day and I just did it and so
everyone on the Internet is telling you
to just do it but that's hard because
you don't know how to just do it and
that's the beautiful thing think if you
look at every person who has decided to
just do it all of that just doing it was
preceded by a very high awareness of
internal conflict and if we're talking
about someone who overcomes an addiction
what we literally do in Psychotherapy is
become aware of that conflict over and
over and over again and then one day an
addict wakes up and becomes sober they
just wake up and they just do it and so
if you want to do that for your life and
develop self-control what you really
need to do is actually not just do it
you're trying to solve the wrong problem
which is exactly why it doesn't work
instead all you need to do is pay
attention to your internal conflict and
the longer you can be aware of it the
more in control you will
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