Our Powerful Word this month is Impulse Control, and learning to control one’s impulses is one of the primary reasons parents bring their children to Scornavacco Martial Arts Academy.
First, what do we mean when we say, impulse control?
Impulse control does NOT mean to stopping impulses from happening.
We can’t.
Our bodies and minds are constantly interacting with our environment, which means that signals are flowing back and forth in an endless stream.
Our brains are always monitoring for survival threats, even while we are actively mentally engaged in a specific task.
Part of us is forever on the lookout for danger and some brains are much more aware of potential attacks than other brains, what we call hyper-vigilance.
A hyper-vigilant person is primed to respond to any odd movement or threat display, such as someone moving toward her or someone making a mean face.
The impulse to act is quite strong in such people.
Other impulses are more geared toward helping a person survive than avoiding threats, one example being hunger.
Hunger impulses literally move us to find something to stop the hunger pains, so we reach for the closest edible thing that’s filled with the most calories.
The closest thing is usually something highly processed and fast, like chips, cookies, chocolate or a Happy Meal from any of the ubiquitous fast-food restaurants.
Then there are social impulses. We need to read and respond to social cues to function in a group so our brains are on the lookout for the latest social information.
Yes, I’m talking about social media and our phones/devices that bombard us with texts, emails, notifications and various dings to remind us to be hyper-aware of what others are doing so we don’t miss out on this vital (this is sarcasm) information.
Aha! you say, so just sit in a quiet room, alone, and with no devices and you won’t have to deal with impulses.
Well, that doesn’t work either.
Note, the example of hunger pains.
In addition, our brains will create their own impulses to move, if not based on external cues, then from their own thoughts.
While sitting quietly with our eyes closed, our brains will bring up a thought or image into our consciousness, provoking us to do something about it, to act; the thought/image creates an impulse.
In the absence of stimuli, commonly known as boredom, our brains will create some. It will do something to get a reaction.
One famous study showed that people sitting in a room with nothing to do would rather shock themselves — with a device on the table — than sit there with no stimulus.
Pain was preferable to nothing.
Yet another powerful impulse is what killed the cat — curiosity.
Our brains love certainty, hate ambiguity, and many times they simply must know the answer to something our brains can’t quite figure out.
In the study about the shocks, in the absence of any other stimuli, and with the shocker on the table, most people touched it JUST TO SEE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN, to allay their curiosity.
This need to create order, to define and to make sense of our surroundings is an almost overwhelmingly powerful impulse.
Stimuli are both external and internal, and they constantly create impulses for us to act upon, so when we feel like we are being pulled every which way like the puppet on strings, this fusillade of input is why.
When we say, impulse control, what we really mean is CONTROLLING OUR RESPONSE TO THESE IMPULSES.
Though we may not be able to eliminate every impulse, we can deliberately take actions to limit the most harmful impulses while we work on resisting others.
So we have a two-pronged approach, first to limit the amount of interruptions, enticements, and other external stimuli, and second, to learn to resist/not reflexively act upon stimuli and the impulses that arise from being exposed to them.
NEXT, we will revisit the famous Marshmallow Experiment and cover the #1 Way to Improve Impulse Control
P.S. If you clicked on this article based on my email, that was impulse in action🙂