Stress

I’ve been reading an amazing book that my friend Paula gave me for my birthday. It is called “The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why it Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It” by Kelly McGonigal, Ph. D. Truly, this book is like gold. I’ve learned so much and I’m not even halfway through it. Actually, by the time you guys are reading this newsletter, I’m sure I will be done with it. Anyways, she focuses on many different aspects of willpower and why some of us have or don’t have willpower with food, exercise, alcohol, etc. it’s truly incredible. We only have so much willpower during our day. Some of us use all our willpower on keeping our cool at work and then when it comes to making the right food choices our willpower goes out the window because our brain can literally only hold onto so much willpower.

The main focus on today’s newsletter isn’t going to focus so much on willpower specifically, it’s going to focus on what feeling stressed does to us and what we do to feel better (another aspect of willpower).

When you’re feeling down, what do you do to feel better? Is it have a glass of wine at night? Have some chocolate? Go shopping? If you’re like most of us, you turn to a “reward” on making you feel better. It is the most commonly used “strategy” for dealing with stress. It actually activates our brain’s rewards system: eating, drinking, shopping, watching TV, playing video games, scrolling through social media. When we use these “reward” systems it is LITERALLY sending dopamine responses to our brain in order to make us feel good.

More often than not, the things we do to give us some sort of relief end up turning on us. “For example, only 16% of people who eat to reduce stress report that it actually helps them. Another study found that women are most likely to eat chocolate when they are feeling anxious or depressed, but the only reliable change in mood they experience from their drug of choice is an increase in guilt.” (1) I’m sure you weren’t expecting these data points after reaching for that piece of chocolate!!

We need to find other ways to feel better that don’t make us want to turn to temptation. It will only lead us to more willpower failures, thus making us feel more guilty which in turn just makes us feel worse. When we are stressed, our body turns to “fight or flight” and our brain is also motivated to make us feel better in order to protect our mood. That means when you’re under stress any temptations you run into will be EVEN MORE TEMPTING. Obviously, this is something difficult to remember in the moment when you are in a significant amount of stress. It is “easier” to just give in to temptation, especially when temptation seems even more appealing when you are under stress. We need to remember that stress points us in the wrong direction. We often forget the strategies that we have worked on not because they don’t work but because our brain mispredicts what will make us happy.

What do you do when you’re stressed or anxious? I challenge you to identify something that makes you feel good. Maybe it’s exercising for 20 minutes per day, maybe it’s going for a walk around your neighborhood, maybe its meditation or reading a book. Whatever it is I’m challenging you to create a voice memo on your phone after you do one of these strategies and talk about how you feel. When you’re feeling stressed and want to go for that piece of chocolate, a glass of wine, or pour a beer instead play that voice memo you made for yourself. If you find that you lack the motivation to go exercise for the day or to eat a healthy meal, play that voice memo to remind yourself how good it will feel after. The same can go for when you engage in something you didn’t want to do such as binge eat on your favorite treat or spend more money online shopping than you wanted to in the first place.

Is there a way to remind your stressed-out self what actually makes you feel better? Not just what will feel good at the moment and ultimately leads you to more guilt and regret that pushes you away from your goals?

1. McGonigal, Kelly. THE WILLPOWER INSTINCT. Penguin Group LLC, 2012.