Have You Lost Control of Your Life?

"Once you start making the effort to ‘wake yourself up’ — that is, be more mindful in your activities — you suddenly start appreciating life a lot more." - Robert Biswas-Diener

How to tell if you have lost control of your mind

Have you ever had that moment in your head where you are about to order some grease-fuelled takeaway but a part of your brain perks up reminding you that you have a tastier and healthier option already in?

Of course, we have all had that, but do you then dismiss it with some justifiable excuse as to why you deserve the takeaway, even though it will cost you more money, probably be damaging for your health, and not even taste as good?

You are not in the minority if you have. Like a lot of the population, you have lost control over your mental self.

This is a very common example and is one of the thousands that highlight issues with your mental control. Another common one revolves around social media. Think back to a time where you have been scrolling idly through only to come across something happening in someone’s life that you do not agree with.

A part of you thinks about just scrolling on, it is nothing to do with you, you even criticize other people for getting involved in matters that are not theirs, and yet, you still find yourself unable to put a cheeky little comment about it. It is ok though as you have taken the time to calculate a more formal response that gets your point across without coming across as aggressive in any way, so that is completely justifying then, isn’t it?

Okay, the last example before moving ahead. You are on this writing platform because you enjoy writing. You want to get your name out there, share your ideas, and even make a little cash in the meantime. That is great. So, you think about what you are going to write, maybe even write a little of it, but then, you remember a Netflix show you have been enjoying or there has been an update on a game you want to play. It’s okay though because you can quickly watch that and come back to your writing. Oh wait, you need to eat now, as you are feeling peckish. Now it is a little late and you are feeling tired but it is okay as you can simply pick it up tomorrow.

No doubt you are seeing the pattern here and when you take the time to sit back and actually think about it, you will do this in almost every part of your life in one way or another.

But why?

Without boring you too much with an in-depth explanation of it, I will go through a brief as to how your thought process functions and then go through ways you can change that to help make drastic improvements to your life.

For this, we will look predominately at two main parts of your brain highlighted in what is now commonly known as The Chimp Model (Highlighted in the Chimp Paradox, citation below). The prefrontal cortex is responsible for the rational thinking (so the part that said hey, we have healthy food in) and the animalistic part of your brain is responsible for irrational and emotional responses (hey, you will enjoy watching that Netflix show more than writing so you might as well do that first).

A study by the University of Maryland School of Medicine and University of Vermont (citation link below), shows how the blood vessels in your brain will relax and contract to control blood flow to certain parts of your brain depending on which parts of your brain are most active. This was taken further to look at how that coincides with your thought process.

When you are in a situation and are thinking rationally, the blood flows more into the prefrontal cortex, however, when you are angry, the blood goes more into the animal part of your brain causing a greater emotional response with irrational outcomes such as saying things you did not mean, etc.

For most people, the animalistic part of the brain is the more dominant part and has the strongest control over your every decision. How you deal with your children, how you manage your workload, how much you write, what you eat, how quickly you learn, how anxious you get when in a certain situation and so much more. This leads to one of the biggest questions in that field of psychology. How can you control that part of your brain so that each decision you make is rational and not just what would feel good at the time?

Controlling your animal

Yes, I am aware of how that title sounds, but bear with me for a moment. There are things you can do to help train your brain to make more rational and better decisions and bring both parts of the brain into more of an alignment.

As soon as you go to make a decision or react to something, both parts of your brain will essentially clash to provide an outcome. What you need to do is take a step back and think about the conflict of thoughts in your head instead of just steaming forward. To use the takeaway as an example, you will have the urge for something greasy and unhealthy and you know this will make you feel good (animal part), but then you remember you need to eat healthier or you already have something in (rational part).

What you do is think about those and realize which one is the rational thought and then focus on it and follow through. Easier said than done in some cases, but your brain works off thought training so it will become easier the more you do it.

Next, is you need to reinforce the rational thought after you have done it. You made that healthy tea, that is great. Now, throughout the day, praise yourself for it. Keep reminding yourself that eating the healthier meal felt GOOD and made you HAPPY, maybe even write it down and smile and tell people about it who you know will give a positive response.

What you are doing is creating a positive emotional response to that rational thought so that when you next go to make that same decision, your animal part of your brain which is controlled by emotional thinking will recall the positive and great feeling response of the healthier option and therefore will be more aligned with your rational part of your brain making them better decisions much easier.

This can be applied to everything. Did you put off exercising? Next time, just take a minute and think of why you were just contemplating putting it off and focus on how GOOD you will feel afterward. Then reinforce that and make exercise a positive experience which your animal part will then begin to crave.

Doing this across all aspects of your life and making better, more productive decisions naturally will help drastically improve your life and allow you to change things you thought were set in stone.

Summary

Regaining control of your life is not the easiest process, and we are all testament to this. But making small changes and controlling the decisions you make in life will provide you with the strongest platform to help you achieve your desired goals.

So, next time you decide to do something, just take a moment and think about it.

Sources:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210721190113.htm

https://chimpmanagement.com/books-by-professor-steve-peters/the-chimp-paradox/