Who’s in charge in deciding what your brain thinks about? Many factors are involved, but you have more control than you might think.
Everyone has some degree of self-control that affects their beliefs, desires, thoughts, goals, plans, and feelings. Humans are unique in their capacity for self-control, which is generally assumed to arise from the relatively large frontal cortex in the brain. The neocortex even has a series of linked circuits that constitute an executive control system. Lack of self-control underlies many social and mental health problems. Failing at self-regulation can lead to obesity, addiction, poverty, sexual promiscuity, and other ill-advised behaviors. On the other hand, people with superior self-control are more likely to be "healthy, wealthy, and wise."
How do we learn such control? I
identify five factors:
1. Motivation
We are motivated by the brain's positive reinforcement mechanisms and our mental ability to adjust the set point for the level of reinforcement that satisfies us. Like a heater thermostat, if the setting is low, it doesn't take much heat to meet the demand. If the setting is high, we need more heat and for longer periods. How does one adjust the personal hedonistic set point?
One way to increase self-control is
to have many alternative positive reinforcers that allow one to substitute
"good" reinforcers for bad ones. Another way is to structure goals
consciously so that achievement requires "good" reinforcers. You can
seek the company of fellow beings who wish to share those same values and
guidelines. Incentives matter.
2. Mental Fatigue
Resisting temptation can be hard work. In secular life, we get refreshment from taking a vacation. Taking a vacation from resisting temptation is hardly the righteous choice. What then, do we do to refresh the self-control required for resisting temptation?
Capacity for self-control is apparently a "limited resource" that can be depleted. Replenishment takes time in which there are fewer demands. Maybe this is one advantage of vacations or retreats. Escape from tempting situations is akin to taking a vacation.
Our own negative thoughts wear us out. Distressing thoughts make it all too easy to obsess to the point of emotional exhaustion. Think of all the times you have lost sleep over something that troubles you. When awake, such obsession diminishes our productivity. How do we inhibit such obsessive thought? Mental discipline is required. There are ways to train the brain to be more disciplined at screening out intrusive thoughts. One method, strangely enough, involves working-memory training tasks; these train the brain to focus and screen out distracting thought.[1] Habitual intense prayer or meditation may do the same thing.
3. Age
Young people usually have less self-control that adults. Educators assert that self-control in preschool-aged children is more associated with school success than is IQ.[2] Brain dysfunctions that alter self-control will increase impulsivity and often lead to anti-social and even violent behavior. Brain scans show that impulsive people have an abnormally small hippocampus and prefrontal cortex.[3] We don’t know if they were born that way or got that way by a lifetime of indulging their impulses.
Executive control capability may decline in the elderly, who may become less able to take care of their needs and control their life. A study of seniors (average age of 75) revealed a tendency for elderly to withdraw from social interactions, along with an associated tendency to become depressed.[4] Stress, which may well have a cumulative effect over the years, is compounded by the current stresses of old age. The adrenal-pituitary stress axis may be more active, resulting in a high blood pressure from adrenalin release and shriveling of neural synapses from excessive cortisol release.
Biochemical markers of inflammation
increase with age. The cumulative stresses of a lifetime can cause increased anxiety, confusion, further stress, and
depression. Thus, a vicious cycle of mental deterioration may ensue. In such a
state, executive control fails, and the person may become helpless and
dependent.
4. Religion
"Mind over matter" is a central theme in most religions. The idea is that proper spiritual belief gives you the strength to cope with the vicissitudes of life. Paradoxically, the most religious people, like monks, may not use their strength of faith to cope with life but actually escape worldly stress by living in monasteries or nunneries.
Literature surveys reveal a strong relationship between religiosity and self-control. Self-control in religious people is manifest in that they tend to suffer less from depression, avoid trouble with sex or drugs, do better in school, and even visit the dentist more regularly. It is not clear whether religious experiences promote self-discipline or whether a self-disciplined person is more likely to respond to the self-control requirements of religion. It could be both. Whatever the case, to be mentally and spiritually healthy, we must learn to discipline our thinking, just as we discipline our body to improve our golf game or other physical skills.
An interesting survey of 213 people measured both the degree of self-control and religiosity.[5] People who believed in traditional religions were more likely to have motivational drive and strategic planning for their actions. Perhaps not surprisingly, people who had more superstitious beliefs were less likely to control impulsive behavior.
Prayer seems to be an active way to promote replenishment. A demonstration of this point comes from an experiment where subjects engaged in personal prayer or an equivalent time in free mind-wandering thought. A subsequent self-control test revealed superior scores for those in the prayer group.[6]
Adolescents seem to have less self-control than mature adults. One study involved 1,785 young adults of different religions (Muslims, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox- and Bible-belt Christians) in different countries.[7] Young people with intrinsic religiosity (living one's faith) were less likely to exhibit deviant behaviors, such as theft, substance use, cheating, etc. than those driven by extrinsic religiosity (using one's faith for personal advancement). The religious beneficial effect was greatest in those who had low natural levels of self-control.
Most religions make a positive social impact by teaching and requiring self-control. Just thinking about God can improve our will power. One experiment demonstrated this in a trivial way by priming subjects with a pre-test task of unscrambling sentences that contained religious thoughts. The subsequent task was to drink an unpleasant mixture of orange juice and vinegar, for which they were paid for the amount they drank. Compared to a neutral-primed control group, the religion-primed group drank twice as much of the sour juice. In another part of the experiment, investigators told participants that when the study was over they would receive monetary compensation. If the participants came back the next day, they would receive $5, but if they came back a week later, they would receive $6. Even with the small $1 difference, a greater percentage of the participants in the religious-primed group decided to wait and receive the larger amount of money than those in the neutral-primed group.[8]
Some evidence indicates that people are more motivated toward good behavior if they view God as punishing rather than a God of love. In a study at Brigham Young University, Mormon students were assigned a task to button press when they saw a picture of juice or to inhibit the press when they saw a picture of beer (which their religion forbids). A neural signal over the anterior cingulate cortex that is known to be an error indicator became smaller when subjects were reminded of God's love instead of God's punishment. The interpretation was that focusing on God's love and forgiveness made students less worried about making mistakes in the task.[9]
One of the more obvious and measurable examples of religion effects is how it can reduce pain. A common way that medical service providers assess pain is to ask a patient to rate the intensity of pain on a scale of 0 to 10. In one experiment, 24 patients, half practicing Catholics and the other half avowed atheists, had been screened to have equal baseline pain thresholds. They were then given electrical shocks while staring at different images, some religious and others not. Pain scores dropped when viewing religious images, and non-religious images had no effect. Brain scans showed that when pain was reduced, the activity level was increased in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, a region that other investigators had shown was instrumental in driving top-down circuitry that inhibits pain.[10] A simple explanation is that the pain-relief is like that afforded when a dentist twists your cheek as he inserts a needle to anesthetize a tooth or a veterinarian slaps a horse's hip as he simultaneous slams a needle to inject a medication. In these cases, the signals that ordinarily cause pain are mixed with other dominant signals that limit the brain's ability to feel pain.
5. Yoga/Meditation
Yoga is a practice that most
clearly illustrates the ability of the mind to control the body. The most
obvious effects of yoga meditation are on breathing, which can be dramatically
slowed and made more abdominal, and the cardiovascular system, in which heart
rate slows and blood pressure drops.[11] Yoga masters can alter bodily functions in
even more profound ways, such as forcing extreme sweating or lying on a bed of
nails. Mindfulness meditation, wherein attention is focused on breathing or a
mantra, promotes the development of attentional skills and changes neural
activity related to self-control.[12
[1] Bomyea, J., and Amir, N. (2011). The effect of an executive functioning training program on working memory capacity and intrusive thoughts. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 35(6), 529-535. doi:10.1007/s10608-011-9369-8
[2] Blair, C., & Razza, R. (2007). Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Dev., 7(8), 2nd ser., 647-663. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01019.x.
[3] Penney, S. (2012). Impulse control and criminal responsibility: Lessons from neuroscience. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 35(2), 99-103. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2011.12.004
[4] Boss, L., Branson, S., Cron, S., & Kang, D. (2016). Biobehavioral examination of religious coping, psychosocialfFactors, and executive function in homebound older adults. Religions, 7(5), 42. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel7050042
[5] Wain, O., & Spinella, M. (2007). Executive functions in morality, religion, and paranormal beliefs. International Journal of Neuroscience, 117(1), 135-146. doi:10.1080/00207450500534068
[6] Malte Friese, Michaela Wänke, Personal prayer buffers self-control depletion, In Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 51, 2014, Pages 56-59, ISSN 0022-1031, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.11.006.
[7] KlanjÅ¡ek, R., Vazsonyi, A. T., & Trejos-Castillo, E. (2012). Religious orientation, low self-control, and deviance: Muslims, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox-, and “Bible belt” Christians. Journal of Adolescence, 35(3), 671-682. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.09.003
[8] Rounding, K., Lee, A., Jacobson, J., Ji, L., Religion replenishes self-control. (2012). Psychological Science, 23(6), 635-643.
[9] Good, M., Inzlicht, M., & Larson, M. J. (2014). God will forgive: Reflecting on god's love decreases neurophysiological responses to errors. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, doi:nsu096 [pii]
[10] Wiech, K., Farias, M., Kahane, G., Shackel, N., Tiede, W., & Tracey, I. (2008). An fMRI study measuring analgesia enhanced by religion as a belief system. PAIN, 139(2), 467-476. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2008.07.030
[11] Olex, Stephen, Andrew Newberg, Andrew, and Figueredo, Vincent M., (2013). Meditation: Should a cardiologist care?, International Journal of Cardiology, 168(3),1805-1810,
[12] Moore, A., Gruber, T., Derose, J., & Malinowski, P. (2012). Regular, brief mindfulness meditation practice improves electrophysiological markers of attentional control. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6(18), 1-15.
