Losing your temper may
be due to lack of glucose.

Losing your willpower may be more than just a loss of discipline.

Have you ever had just too much of someone’s attitude and then finally ‘bit their head off’ after losing ‘your cool’? Or you ‘were’ on a diet until the cheesecake was just screaming your name too loud? Well, there may be more to controlling your urges than just loss of self-control. In an article in Scientific American Mind, July 2007, willpower was put to the test by researchers studying the physiology behind what makes us lose control. What they found out is people don’t necessarily lose willpower, they just run out of it.

What the scientists discovered is that exercising self-control actually consumes more energy than not. When people are having to exercise their willpower for a lengthened amount of time, the body actually runs out of energy to control their emotions and/or urges. This may be a rationale for why people on diets may seem more irritable than when they are not on the no-carb diet. And, this may be a reason why people find it so hard to stay on diets in the first place. Theoretically, it could be due to the brain just running out of fuel to support the expensive self-discipline that is needed for a strict diet of meat and veggies or, if you are a woman, putting up with your male coworker’s misogynistic jokes.

Here is what researches at Florida State University said about their findings:

[FSU researchers] asked volunteers to perform tasks such as ignoring a distracting stimulus while watching a video clip or suppressing racial stereotypes during a five minute social interaction. These seemingly trivial efforts depleted glucose [, the main source of fuel for the brain,] in the bloodstream and hindered volunteers’ ability to maintain mental discipline during subsequent tasks. When the study participants were given a sugar drink to boost their blood glucose levels, their performance returned to normal. Volunteers who drank an artificially sweetened drink remained impaired.

A small glass of orange juice may be the
extra boost needed to stay calm and focused.

What this tells us is sugar may be a way around the supposed weak self-control that may impair people’s ability to stay focused on tasks, keep quiet about the visiting mother-in-law or stay on that strict diet of salmon and broccoli. The key is not over doing it though. This is not a license to drink 6 Cokes a day. The key is feeding your brain just enough to stay in control, but not too much to where you are bouncing off the walls with a sugar high or preventing the weight loss that you are desiring.

Also, this could be a major breakthrough for people who are unable to properly metabolize sugar, e.g. insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and diabetics. Since people with these types of conditions do not allow an efficient use of sugar for fuel because their body’s cells are resistant to insulin which is the hormone responsible for metabolizing sugar, they may end up ‘losing control’ faster than people who can properly metabolize sugar. This could be an added reason for their struggle with weight loss.

Florida University is not the only institution researching willpower. Kathleen Vohs, a psychologist at the University of Minnesota, discovered similar results during her research on another type of loss of willpower — “Self-Regulation and Impulse Buying.” What she discovered was remarkably similar to the willpower study of Florida State.

The current research investigated impulse purchasing using a model that posits that self-regulation is governed by a common — but limited — pool of resources that becomes depleted with use. In four experiments, participants in depleted resource condition, relative to participants whose resources were not depleted, felt stronger impulsive buying urges, and actually spent more money and bought more items in unanticipated buying situations. This research indicates that self-regulartory resources are crucial in resisting impulse buying temptations.

So what can we do to curb this weakness to urges we may feel throughout the day? Well, keep your blood sugar levels stable — not high, but stable. This will give your brain the energy it needs to control your potential shopping urges or keep you from falling off the diet wagon. In other words, eat small and frequent. And, if you need an emergency boost of willpower, have a small glass of 100% juice (4-6 oz). Other than that, think long term and don’t give up the fight! Good luck on your journey ahead.