Everyone wants to be motivated, but science is piling on the evidence that lifelong fitness requires more than will power and good information, supportive environments and other factors under our conscious influence.
At first blush, it does not seem difficult to properly look after oneself. Just make good food selections, most of the time, get regular exercise and follow common sense behavioral guides that lower risk and promote health. What's so hard about that? Why is that hard to follow? It must be very difficult, since so many Americans are fat, unfit, superstitious and otherwise messed up. Why? Is a puzzlement, as Yul Brynner once famously observed.. Why don't we do what we fully understand is in our best interest?
Thanks to the science-based work of behavioral researchers, a convincing explanation is emerging - we can't. According to investigators at the Stanford Prevention Research Center, most health-behavior researchers have long abandoned the concept that willpower is sufficient for people to change unhealthy behaviors, (See @Stanford - A monthly newsletter of campus news and research, October 26, 2007.) Logic and cognition are simply not the controlling factors that shape health-related decision-making, at least for the vast majority. There are exceptions, of course, but most people do not have enough going for them to sustain good intentions to live well.
One major reason most fail at wellness is because willpower is too weak a force to overcome the constraints on our capacity to do the right things.
Willpower can enable many things. We can do what is required for a period of time with cognitive power, that is, thinking about what must be done and following up in a determined manner with proverbial shoulder to the grindstone. That is what enables us to gain an education, perform important near-term tasks and so on. But, willpower is usually not sufficient to keep most on track for a desired high quality of life based on regular patterns of behavior that involve delaying short term desires (e.g., unhealthy foodstuffs, sedentary pleasures) for longer range payoffs (e.g., lower chances of problems, higher prospects of desirable states such as fitness).
What people often lack in sufficient degree are ingrained habit patterns associated with good feeling states and environments highly supportive of healthy choices. These two forces, emotions and environment, overcome willpower nearly every time.
How do people make choices, and what role do emotions and other unconscious factors (e.g., environment) play vis-à-vis cognition? Much of the scientific consensus about the weak hold of willpower on choices made consistently over time is based on recent findings about human brain dynamics. Most researchers believe that emotions play a greater role on thought processes than our conscious rationality. A determination to do the right things is one thing, but deep-seated impulses will drive a person to act otherwise.
Why are such instincts so powerful? Thank evolution: The part of the human brain known as the affective system has been around much longer than the thinking or cognitive part (the prefrontal cortex). People don't make decisions like computers. They make them like animals, says psychologist Peter Ubel, MD, who directs the Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine at the University of Michigan. (Source: Doing what's right doesn't come naturally, @Stanford - A monthly newsletter of campus news and research, October 26, 2007.)
Scientists describe neural pathways between emotional systems, the amygdale, the nucleus accumbens and the prefrontal cortex. They note that more neurons run from the emotional side to the cognitive side than the other direction and suggest that this explains why emotions overrule willpower. Consider the implications if you are making choices that you know are not beneficial for your health and want to reform but just can't seem to do it. Then give yourself a little slack. It's not your fault. You are programmed to fail at wellness. The reality for you, and nearly everyone else is grim. ICANTDOIT rules. Unless you are forewarned of the difficulties and take appropriate steps to overcome the odds.
Timing seems to be a key variable. In the short term, you can do it. Over the long haul, prospects are dimmer. As one researcher put it, The emotional side often overrides our will when facing a choice that offers long-term health advantages in exchange for some near-term unpleasantness. Some types of healthy behaviors, such as exercise, have an immediate cost for a long-term gain. Our emotional system is not designed to deal with immediate costs.(George Loewenstein, " (Source: In The Pursuit of A Healthy Lifestyle, Sheer Grit Only Takes You So Far, Stanford Medicine Magazine, Fall 2007.)
Space limits require that I end this now. For more, write me at dba@seekwellness.com All the best.