How willpower works

[Antalpur]

Research indicates that willpower can be strengthened like a muscle — and is a key predictor of success in life

David Blaine — the 38-year-old self-described “endurance artist’’ who once encased himself for seven days in a plastic coffin with no food and little water — credits willpower training for his amazing feats. “Getting your brain wired into little goals and achieving them helps you achieve the bigger things you shouldn’t be able to do,’’ he told Roy Baumeister in the Florida State University psychologist’s new book, “Willpower.’’ “It’s not just practicing the specific thing.’’

In dozens of studies conducted over the past 25 years, Baumeister has found that taking on specific habits - like brushing your teeth with the opposite hand you’d normally use - can increase levels of self-control. In a phone interview, he likened willpower to a muscle: “If you exercise it, you can make it stronger. There’s nothing magical about it.’’

He and others have also identified a host of things that can drain our willpower, including hunger and fatigue, while neuroscientists are struggling to understand exactly how the brain’s higher reasoning center - the prefrontal cortex - manages conflicting wants and needs to help us make the right decisions. The reason for all this interest? Willpower, it turns out, is one of the most important predictors of success in life.

The researchers took into account differences in childhood socioeconomic class and IQ scores, and determined that 11 percent of those with the highest levels of self-control as children had multiple health problems as adults, such as obesity, gum disease, and sexually transmitted diseases, compared with 27 percent of those with the lowest levels of self-control. Thirteen percent of those with high self-control had been convicted of crimes compared with 43 percent of those with the lowest levels, and just 10 percent in the high self-control group earned less than $17,000 a year compared with 32 percent in the lowest group.

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