Why Is Impulse Control Important? 8 Techniques To Manage It

“If there are two moral attitudes that our time urgently needs, they are self-control and altruism.”

D. Goleman

The lack of impulse control It happens because the emotional brain takes control (we are not very reflective or we act deviating from the purpose) displacing the rational mind.

We are disturbed by impending negative events but rarely vividly imagine the future. Our psychological immune system calms us and protects us from the effects of stress, from persisting for too long in the attitude that symbolizes the anguish of today’s world, but it also makes it unlikely that we will behave like far-sighted animals. As a consequence, ignoring both the origin and the long-term consequences that take time to arrive and are also uncertain, we act through all kinds of impulsive behaviors such as eating unconsciously, smoking or drinking too much, not playing sports, responding with bad words and a long etc. The problem begins with thinking about our future identity and with the way our brain represents itself there.

The human body changes as we age but we are not so clear if the identity we experience does as well. When we think about ourselves, a specific pattern of brain activity is displayed in the medial frontal area of ​​our cerebral cortex that we call the self pattern. If we see more continuity between our current identity and our future identity, we will probably give more value to delayed rewards and less to immediate ones, thus being more willing to sacrifice present pleasures in favor of the future identity.

When we imagine the future or remember the past we move in a dimension, the psychological distance that can refer to time (now vs past or future), to space (near vs far), to the social being (self vs others) and to certainty ( hypothesis vs evidence). The greater the psychological distance, the easier it is for information processing to take place at a higher level, which is where the cold cognitive system, reason, acts. As this psychological distance shortens, the more concrete, more contextualized, more vivid and detailed the hot cognitive system, governed by emotion, becomes taking the reins. Psychological distance explains the difficulty or ease in resisting temptations and the level of processing how it affects what we feel and our way of evaluating and making decisions.

Why is impulse control important?

If, for example, when faced with a temptation we think coldly and abstractly as if it were very far away in space and time, we will activate the cold system, concentrating attention on future effects, attenuating the hot system by reducing automatic preferences or immediate rewards, reinforcing the intention to exercise self-control.

He self control It is important for our well-being. Many studies show the benefits of promoting this competence that directly affects our health:

• Improves attention span and concentration, clarity of thought and decision making.
• Efficient execution and acceptance of the waiver when we make a decision
• Improves communication and social relationships
• Improves emotional well-being: security and self-esteem

The executive function of psychological control is organized from the prefrontal cortex. This emotional and behavioral management is achieved thanks to the neural increase and connectivity that develops in this region during the stage of adolescence. Thanks to this progressive development, people are able to reflect, evaluate alternatives, make efficient planning and achieve greater impulse control

What can I do to have better impulse control?

When optimal development occurs in critical periods the regulation of behavior It happens easily and we can achieve more complex purposes by improving our skills and our emotional management since we direct attention, intention, efforts and energy on what we propose that usually connects with my future identity.

All is not lost if this has not been the case, we can improve if we become aware of who we are (need to know ourselves) and accept that it is a training that will require motivation and self-discipline. If I explore I will discover how I visualize myself, what my circumstances are and what situations make me weak. May I wonder about:

• Why do I need more self-control? Cause
• Why do I need more control? Purpose
• What is happening to not reach my goal?

We must be realistic and accept that motivation and willpower will decline as soon as we choose a purpose or think about acquiring a new habit. Boredom, tiredness, doubts or even the desire to do other things will appear and that is when we will resort to a routine designed in advance and self-discipline. The most important thing in these cases is to have that plan to which we are firmly committed, and it is healthy to accept the (occasional) exception; That is, without demanding too much but without giving up easily.

Behavioral control strategies: management of hyperarousal

It would be ideal to think that we can have absolute control of our mind but the physiological activation is linked to the emotional imprint and that is why we often lose control. To manage hyperarousal (frequency, intensity and duration) and keep body and mind oriented on a task, we can consider some strategies:

1. Mindfulness or Jacobson’s muscle relaxation techniques
2. Physical exercise or any creative activity
3. Dialectical behavioral therapy that combines cognitive behavioral techniques with acceptance-based approaches
4. The specific work of certain favorable attitudes. I can ask myself, to what extent do I feel that I am developing these attitudes in my daily life? Non-judgment, openness to experience, letting go, patience, trust, non-intervention, generosity and gratitude.

Emotional Management Strategies

The important thing is to know which one best suits me and of course integrate several techniques. Some are:

1. Analysis of thought or “the voices” based on emotional logical reasoning It is about analyzing thoughts and passing them through the filter of rationality. For example: if I say to myself “I better give up on this goal because it’s not going to work out, I’m useless”, I change my perspective: “I better try, I’m going to trust in my skills and see what happens if I dare to do this” .
2. Technique to stop ruminative thinking and impulses proposed by J. Wolpe in the 50s. It consists of detecting the hostile rumor, stopping the thought and relaxing. Later we generate more practical, logical and useful reasoning to discard the unfavorable ones.
3. If-then plans are a good way to make new habits stick Imagine that your purpose is to lose weight. The slogan would be “I will eat less and exercise more.” This is not specific enough, we need to give more details about what we will do in the critical situation. How much less are you going to eat, and of what? What type of exercise will you do and how often? If X happens, then I will do Y. Y is the specific action we will do every time X occurs. So now we have “When the dessert menu arrives, I will ignore it and order coffee”, “I will ride my bike in the mountains on Tuesdays and Fridays before going to work.”“. With this technique it has been shown that we will be between 2 and 3 times more likely to be successful than using the original plan. Success lies in the fact that we generate an internal dialogue connecting with cerebral contingencies, the language of our brain. The human being is very good at encoding information in terms of “if “then”). When we take action through practice below consciousness, the brain begins to scan the environment looking for the situation in the “if” part of the plan. Once it happens, the “then” automatically follows. When detecting situations and direct behavior without conscious effort, if-then plans are much less demanding and require less willpower than decision making, allowing resources to be conserved for other tasks.
4. We must generate a prior commitment Being aware that sometimes we are very creative (self-sabotage) when it comes to making vague commitments and then finding countless ways to avoid them. The idea is to anticipate those signs that usually make us fall by designing an attractive alternative plan. For example, meet to go out on a bike ride on Sunday if what I want is to stop drinking every Saturday night.

It will be essential to accept that the results of these resources require time and practice. It is not easy to achieve psychological self-mastery in a matter of weeks. Changes come if we design our lifestyle realistically and practice hard every day. Patience, firm step and lively legs.