What you didn’t know about self-control…

                       

  Have you ever felt that impulse to indulge in an ice cream when you are on diet? How long did you go without that ice cream? And I bet you had that coveted ice cream in the end. The self-control didn’t work for long, did it?

  People who are asked to make tough choices - such as choosing among many job offers, often find it difficult to focus on puzzles immediately after making that tough decision. Quite obvious, you would say, what’s so new about that? We are aware that our sense of equilibrium is at its lowest point just after a stressful event. But that’s not the reason why people fail to solve puzzles after a stressful event - they gave up too quickly, they did not try enough, they just lost their self-control.

  In an experiment^* conducted by researchers, two similar groups were picked as volunteers. Without revealing anything about the experiment, they were starved for five straight hours. The researchers then placed radish and freshly baked chocolate-chip in front of them. One group was asked to eat the radish, and only the radish, let’s call them the Radish group. The other group was not given any specific instructions; they were free to eat the radishes and the chocolate-chips, the Chocolate-chip group.

 A few hours later, all the volunteers were individually asked to solve an unsolvable puzzle, just that they did not know that it was unsolvable at that time. What do you expect to happen? The members of the Radish group lost their cool too quickly, they gave up immediately, and they were clearly agitated and displayed aggressive emotions. On the other hand, the Chocolate-chip group spent a little more time trying to solve the unsolvable puzzle, more importantly, they were found in a much more relaxed mood.

   What can we infer from this very interesting experiment? That human beings lose their cool when deprived of freshly baked chocolate chips? To some extent that is true, the Radish group had exhausted their self-control by using up all the self-control to avoid eating the tempting chocolate-chips. By the time the puzzles were given to them, they were mentally exhausted, and they had no intention of exercising high chemical consuming parts of their brain. The Chocolate-chip group,though starved for five hours, were in a better frame of mind, for they didn’t have to endure the urge to pick up the chocolate-chips.

  Next time you use up too much of self-control, remember that you are possibly entering a stressful zone because Self-control is an exhaustible resource. That doesn’t mean that you should never employ self-control, but do it as you would with spices, in moderation. And remember awareness is the first step to a clear and a calm mind.

 Reference: Chip Heath and Dan Heath: 

                    ISBN 978-0-385-52875-7