How to boost your willpower - and why it matters.

By Cathy Johnson.

Are you a self-disciplined person? It’s not a trivial question.

Having good willpower or self control is linked to life success in just about every way you can measure it: being liked by others, better educational outcomes, having less chance of being arrested, a higher income and improved mental and physical health.

Some research suggests it even helps you live longer, psychology professor and willpower expert Dr Roy Baumeister said.

Perhaps that is not surprising when you consider so many aspects of good health stem from behavioural choices and sticking to healthy habits.

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“Eating properly, exercising, quitting smoking, not drinking too much alcohol … all those things depend a lot on self control and they all contribute to health in the short and long term,” said Dr Baumeister, who is Francis Epps Scholar in the psychology department at Florida State University in the United States.

That is all very well, unless you are someone whose resolve to lose weight melts the second you see a dessert menu, or you are hopeless at, say, sticking to a budget.

Are such traits signs your willpower is pretty much non-existent and you are doomed to a less-than-optimal life?

Dr Baumeister says “no”.

“It certainly can be improved. It’s not something locked in,” he said.

A willpower workout?

In truth, the idea that anyone is consistently good or bad at resisting temptation is false, research has shown.

"It's not a constant feature of your character that you have good or bad willpower," Dr Baumeister said. "It fluctuates."

Some key findings about why willpower waxes and wanes have led to suggestions for how we can better manage and boost it.

Here are some important points Dr Baumeister makes:

1) Willpower is limited and uses energy.

Exerting self-control for any kind of desire uses energy and this can get depleted.

So after you have resisted a desire a few times, you are more likely to fail — even on a different desire.

This has been shown repeatedly in laboratory studies and also in real life, which explains why a dieter might find it easy to avoid eating a doughnut at breakfast, but have a harder time opting for fruit after dinner.

2) Willpower is like a muscle; you can train it.

As with a muscle, willpower gets stronger with regular use interspersed with rests. You don't want to overdo things and deplete vital energy.

So engaging in some extra self-control activities of any kind is a good way to train willpower generally.

What is important is "overriding habitual ways of doing things" and "exerting deliberate control over your actions".

So if you are right handed, using your left hand for things like opening doors and brushing teeth has been shown to help, as has trying to maintaining good posture throughout the day.

But exactly which tasks work best, how often they need to be done, and for how long a period of time before you benefit is not known. Nor is there much hard data on how big a difference these training exercises can make.

Although one study of 122 smokers found two weeks practising self-control tasks increased the odds of having successfully quit smoking during the following four weeks by 50 per cent. But there was no longer-term follow-up.

Other studies at Sydney's Macquarie University showed doing self-control exercises that matter to you — such as monitoring your spending so you save more money — are also effective at boosting willpower and because you experience a benefit, you may be more willing to stick at the exercises for longer.

3) When willpower is depleted, sugar helps

The energy that fuels willpower is glucose, a type of sugar that is produced in our bodies from food and is carried in the blood to the brain, muscles and other organs.

Dr Baumeister's research has shown when levels of glucose in the blood drop, people perform poorly on self-control tasks and tests.

But when their glucose is replenished with a glass of soft drink, their performance picks up for a short time.

However, no-one is suggesting constantly eating lollies or sipping soft drink is a good idea for either your willpower or your waistline.

To manage willpower energy, resist resisting.

"While we're still a long way from a detailed step-by-step action plan to boost willpower, it's known that people with good self control spend less time resisting desires," Dr Baumeister said.

This is because they "stay out of trouble in the first place".

So rather than relying on self control to bail you out — which is risky as it might be depleted — you are probably better off using self control to manage your habits effectively.

"If you're on a diet, don't go into bakeries. If you're quitting drinking, don't go into bars," Dr Baumeister said.

"Our image of self control is struggling with temptation in the heat of the moment, but that's perhaps not the best way to go about it."

This post originally appeared on the ABC and was republished here with full permission. 

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