How to Boost Your Willpower to Help Make Healthy Choices Easy

在饮食或锻炼计划上作弊? 挣扎于自我控制或冲动的选择? 科学表明，意志力会逐渐枯竭! Learn how you can strengthen it and increase your ability to resist temptation.

意志力可能是一种有限的资源

Willpower is the epic battle in your prefrontal cortex between the WILL of your logic and the POWER of your emotions.

你太了解这场战斗了. Do you choose the chili cheese fries or have a side of grilled asparagus? After a hard day, do you hit the gym or have margaritas with your crew? Our lives are a constant game of “this or that” that often ends up feeling like “would you rather.”

发挥你的意志力会让你筋疲力尽. Sometimes you feel like you can’t make the best choice and you just can’t resist any longer. 这是有原因的.

Your willpower may be an exhaustible, finite resource. It may be used up over the course of a day in lots of tiny ways. 这就是所谓的自我损耗.

Research by social psychologist Roy Baumeister and others suggests that if someone initially resists a temptation like warm chocolate chip cookies, the person is then less capable of resisting another willpower challenge or making a difficult decision.^1,2

翻译: Doing something tough may use up some willpower, which makes resisting temptation super hard.

好的，那么你能做些什么呢? Don’t fret, here are some simple strategies to level up 你的意志力.

Arrange things and make decisions when 你的意志力 is sky high.

• Clean. 摆脱所有的诱惑. If all the junk food is gone you won’t have to resist later.
• Commit. If you have a plan with a friend for spin class, you won’t have to wonder what you’re doing later.
• 优化. Change your timing for tasks, like grocery shopping right after a meal when 你的意志力 is strong. If you don’t use 你的意志力 to battle the cookie aisle in the store, you’ll have reserves for resisting dessert later tonight.

Boost 你的意志力 in the moment it is being challenged.

• 推迟. “现在不行，以后再说吧.” Saying a simple phrase like this can reduce your impulse to listen to that devil on your shoulder.
• 分散. Try distracting yourself to see if your impulse chills out. Giving yourself something else to focus on can calm the brewing willpower battle.  
• Hide. Remove the temptation from your view or remove yourself from the situation. 在经典的“棉花糖实验”中,” even little kids trying to use willpower to wait for a delicious, squishy marshmallow had more luck if they simply hid it from their view. 一个孩子坐在上面，想把它弄走! 如果一个孩子能做到，你也能.

学习如何增强你的意志力.

• 冥想. 是的，又是这个. Even brief, 10-minute mindfulness meditations, done over time, can improve your self-control. The deal with mindfulness is you learn to bring your thoughts back to the present moment as they start to wander. And every time you do this, you’re flexing 你的意志力 muscle.³
• Sleep. It always come back to getting enough sleep, we know! Studies indicate that getting enough sleep matters for 你的意志力, too.⁴ 健康的睡眠可以降低心理压力, 给你更好的自制力, 补充自我调节能量. 这不过是"上床睡觉"的一种说法罢了!”
• 停止咒骂. 这不是开玩笑. Baumeister suggests that challenging yourself to change a speech pattern, like using “hello” instead of “hey” or dropping that expletive and replacing it with something else, 可以帮助你学习扩展你的意志力吗.

原谅你的挫折，继续努力! 

• 原谅你自己 for an oops moment frees up 你的意志力, so you can resist next time. It’s ok, you’re human, and you’re going to make mistakes.

In other words, using the first letter of each of these strategies, A-B-L-E, be able! 运用你的意志力并不一定会耗尽 all 你的意志力.

Which willpower boost are you going to try next time you’re in a logic vs. 情感的围墙?

上次审查:2018年1月

来源:
¹Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: A limited-resource account of decision making, 自律, 积极主动，《沙巴足球体育平台》，2014
²Ego Depletion and the Strength Model of Self-Control: A Meta-Analysis，心理学通报，2010
³Mindfulness meditation counteracts self-control depletion，《沙巴足球体育平台》，2012
⁴睡眠习惯和自我控制之间的相互作用《沙巴体育平台点击进入》，2015