With the holiday season upon us, family dinners, never-ending temptations, samples at Costco, cookies, turkey, cheesy potatoes, and a glass of wine or two, it is no wonder that most people pack on the pounds at the end of the year.

Most of us blame our “falling off the diet train” as an issue of willpower. I want to discuss the concept of willpower—what it is, and what it’s not—and what it means for gaining muscle. During a time of change, or tackling a new goal, we tend to attribute our successes and setbacks to “willpower.”

This type of mentality can cause some significant problems, however. Since our setbacks are rooted so deeply in our feeling of self-worth, willpower becomes synonymous with “self-esteem” power. The lower we see our willpower, the lower our self-esteem becomes. This type of negative thinking cycle puts us even further away from our goals and has huge repercussions on how we feel about ourselves.

The Relationship Between Willpower and Goals

We have all been there. We make a plan to “lose five pounds.” We get excited and motivated; we start to introduce some profound changes in our lives. Suddenly, life happens—a family event, a party at work, a slip in judgment, an injury—and we hit a temporary setback.

In the grand scheme of things consistency always wins over perfection and that “setback” is meaningless. However we become panged with guilt, we don’t see it as a temporary lapse, oh no, it becomes a profound shift in our sense of self.

Photography By Jeffrey Perez of Oahu, Hawaii

Our inner critic pipes up and says: “you’re not strong enough,” “you don’t have enough motivation,” or “you’re so lazy.” Our brains also are experts at pattern recognition and as a result, these feelings are quickly followed with thoughts of all of our past experiences when we did not stick to a goal or finish a commitment.

Suddenly this temporary setback leads to a negative shift in the sense of self. Our image of the type of person we are goes from a motivated warrior on their quest to success to “you are lazy, you have always been lazy, you will always be lazy, so why bother.” This negative thinking cycle can be very hard to break.

In order to get some clarity and control of the situation, I need you to challenge the traditional definition of willpower and consider what willpower is really about. In my own quest to do this, I turned to a book by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. called the Willpower Instinct and came away with some great insights and tools to add some pump to our willpower muscles.

According to Dr. McGonigal, willpower is not a “virtue or a moral trait,” it is not something that you have or you don’t have. Willpower lives in particular brain structures, most notably the pre-frontal cortex. It is a biological response controlled by the brain and the best part of all is that willpower is a strength that you can train.

Willpower has three parts:

1. “I will-power”: This is the ability to find the energy and motivation to do things that are overwhelming, the things that make us anxious, or things that we may be unmotivated to do. This gives us the power to say yes when a part of us want to say “not today.”
2. “I won’t-power”: This is the ability to resist temptation. This is a big one during the holiday season. This means you are reaching for an apple instead of a donut and is a skill that helps you with self-restraint.
3. “I want-power”: This is all about visualization. You need to know your long-term goals, values, and direction. It can be difficult to articulate but once you have a crystallized idea of your “wants” it gives you the energy to accomplish daily tasks even when you don’t feel like it—this is your why.

Willpower and Your Brain

Our brain shifts back and forth between two modes of operation. One mode is considered the “ideal self or the rational self.” This is where most of us wish we always lived in. In this mode, we are able to be our most wise selves—we make smart choices, we think about our long-term goals, we predict the consequences of our choices, and we think about our values and make decisions consistent with them.

These operations are primarily located in the prefrontal cortex and are also where “willpower” lives. This part of the brain remembers what’s important to you and what you want while it monitors where your attention is relative to your goals.

However, the primal self is a mode we can also shift into. This comes from the more primitive interior parts of the brain and is responsible for quick, emotional responding. Its focus is on the very short-term and the small picture. It is motivated by immediate gratification and the avoidance of pain. From here we make choices that might seem like a good idea at the moment, but they are usually not best for us in the long-term.

Clearly, we want our minds operating from the ideal self whenever possible. So, our objective then is to find ways to do this. It turns out that training our willpower strengthens our ideal self and the more we operate from this standpoint, the easier it is for willpower to guide you.

Training Willpower

One of the best ways to shift into ideal self-mode and enhance willpower is through a regular habit of meditation. You are practicing willpower every time you meditate because meditation engages every system of willpower. You have a goal (to meditate), you are paying attention to what is happening in your mind and body that is moving you away from your goal (noticing when your attention has drifted from your breath), and then choose to act with intention in accordance with your goal (redirecting your attention back to your breath). Ironically, it’s better if you are “bad” at meditation because it gives you lots of opportunities to practice your willpower.

According to an abundance of research on the healthful benefits of meditation, a consistent practice of meditation directly enhances willpower because it strengthens the structures of the prefrontal cortex so that you are able to be more focused, more clear-minded, and operate from the perspective of your ideal self.

Meditation has been shown to increase the density of the white and gray matter in the very structures of the brain that are responsible for noticing what you are doing and whether it is what you want to be doing. This is just like muscle building. You are literally growing your very own inner wise mentor with every meditation.

In addition, meditation indirectly benefits willpower because it rewires the physiology in your autonomic nervous system so that you are overall more calm, less emotionally reactive to stress, (therefore less likely to go looking for quick fixes that sabotage your goals), and more self-aware. You may even sleep better. We all know how vital a good night’s sleep is in order to be our most wise self the next day.

I recommend a daily regimen of 5-10 minutes of focused meditation. You can use an app, or find your favorite song. There are a lot of free resources out there.

Another strategy to practice is called pause and plan. This practice is in direct contrast to the flight or fight response the brain reverts to in an untrained mind. In the midst of a threat to your goals, when temptation is staring you in the face, or when you are trying to persist at a difficult task, you want to be able to hit the pause and plan button. You do not want to be reactive.

To activate pause and plan, deliberately slow your breath down to six breaths a minute. This corresponds to about 7-8 seconds for every inhale and 7-8 seconds for every exhale. When we are breathing this slowly and with focused awareness, your heart rate will slow down, your heart rate variability increases and your brain will be sending energy to the prefrontal cortex, and not the flight or fight system.

Perfect! You are slowed down and feeling alert, connected to your rational mind, and ready to act with intention. I suggest that we practice this form of slower, focused breathing several times throughout the day for two benefits: first, you will feel calmer and more centered again each time, and second, you are strengthening the pause and plan response so that when you need to activate it, you can more do so more readily.

References:

1. McGonigal, K. (2012). The willpower instinct: How self-control works, why it matters, and what you can do to get more of it. New York: Avery.

2. Beech, M. (2018). A talk on willpower. Email exchange with Dr. Maria Beech.

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Can Movement Be Meditation?

It is no secret that meditation is beneficial. A 2014 research review concluded meditation leads to activation in the parts of the brain involved in processing, self-regulation, focused problem solving, adaptive behavior, and interoception.¹ It’s almost as though meditation is the antidote to an over-stimulated, go-go-go mindset. Of course, the always on-the-go, over-stimulated people would much rather do an HIIT workout than remain still. A conundrum.

What if incorporating a mindful movement practice elicited similar responses in the brain as meditation? And what if moving mindfully improved performance?

Jon Kabat-Zimm, developer of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction technique (MBSR), defines mindfulness as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience.”² Paying attention to the task at hand and monitoring your relationship to the task instead of thinking about the next set, the music, or what your boss said to you at work is mindfulness. This can be done anytime, anywhere, and doesn’t require sitting on the floor.

Research also suggests basic meditation techniques may lead to improved motor control, an improved ability to detect subtle environmental changes, and better self-correction to successfully complete a motor task when these changes happen.³ These all sound like good things if our goal is improved physical performance, don’t they?

Increasingly, researchers are saying movement can cultivate mindfulness when attention is directed in a specific manner. This is good news for those of us struggling with the concept of meditation. “Yes! Let me move instead of sit still! And get the same benefits!”

Taking a few minutes to improve your mind’s connection to the body can enhance your performance. [Photo credit: J Perez Imagery]

It Doesn’t Have to Be Tai Chi

Don’t mistake mindful movement for easy movement. To maintain focused attention or to practice open monitoring (a meditation technique that simply means to observe what you are experiencing, without judgement) means reducing distractions and investigating the quality of the movement, rather using force. It becomes less about exercise and more about curiosity and open-mindedness.

Moving slowly and mindfully doesn’t exactly match the goal of a traditional workout. How can mindful movement be incorporated without sacrificing the overall goal of fitness?

The good news is fitness doesn’t have to be sacrificed; if anything, exploring these concepts will likely enhance fitness. The concept of mindful movement can be applied in any fitness setting by using sensing, feeling, and adjusting.

• Sensing refers to the idea of taking a moment before your workout to sense you. What is your physical state? What is your emotional state? What are you experiencing? Can you sense your breath? Can you sense the ground? Taking 2-3 minutes before the start of your workout to ask yourself these questions makes you present. It sets you up to be mentally engaged in the task at hand.

A great way to do this is during joint mobility work. If you actively move your joints through various ranges of motion before your session, use this as an opportunity to check in and see how you are feeling and moving. And if you don’t do joint prep work, adding five minutes of it might be a worthwhile endeavor.

• Feeling is the observation of how you are doing a movement. As you move through your warm-up, for instance, can you feel yourself using unnecessary force? Or maybe if you’re hypermobile, you don’t feel like you’re using enough control. What can you do to make the movement smoother, more fluid? Can the quality of the task be improved without sacrificing ease?

This can also be applied during the workout itself. If you are struggling with a specific skill, significantly decreasing load and moving through the exercise slowly is a way to connect with the movement. One theory behind how this works is through the effect this has on the central nervous system.³ The central nervous system is comprised of two branches: the sensory (afferent) nervous system and the motor (efferent) nervous system. Self-awareness comes from the information we receive from these two system.

• Adjusting means using the information you learn from sensing and feeling to make a skill more efficient. If, for instance, you are moving slowly through a light deadlift and you notice (sense) during the concentric phase of the movement you shift your weight slightly to the right to finish the lift, you can correct this by telling yourself to stay centered as you perform the next few. Your brain sends information to your motor (efferent) system via feedback you received from sensing your weight on the floor using your afferent system.

Obviously, how you do a specific skill or exercise is going to look different when you speed the exercise up to real time and load it enough to provide the appropriate stimulus for strength conditioning, but stepping back occasionally and slowly things down won’t decrease performance. It might even enhance it.

Don’t Discount Movement for Recovery

Another way to implement mindful movement into an exercise is to perform it on recovery days. There are many forms of moving that enhance awareness and encourage open monitoring. This is not to be confused with vinyasa flow or a level 2-3 power yoga class with HIIT thrown in. Rather, things like tai chi, restorative yoga, qigong, and Feldenkrais are all forms of restorative movement that can help you develop focused attention and mindfulness without interfering with recovery. They have the added benefit of being “novel,” or including movements that are likely outside your normal repertoire. Novelty requires focus, which means learning a martial art, parkour, MovNat, or other “fringe” exercise modalities breeds focus, though they definitely don’t fall into the restorative exercise category.

Focused attention has actually been shown to improve selective and executive attention, or the ability to focus on the task at hand.⁴ You know how sometimes you space out during your workouts and find yourself thinking about the meeting you have with your boss later? The better your executive attention, the less your mind will wander and the more present you will be, not just during your workouts, but in life.

“But wait,” you might be thinking. “I don’t have time to devote an entire extra hour on my rest days to slow, tedious modalities designed for old and sick people.” The good news is, with the internet, there are many options available to these forms of mindful movement that don’t require leaving the house. Many of the online options have classes that vary in length, from 10-60 minutes. Additionally, research suggests these types of practices enhance total body coordination.⁵ For those of us aiming to improve athleticism in any hobby or sport, this is probably beneficial.

Focus Inward While You Cool Down

So far, our options for incorporating mindful movement into our existing exercise program include during the warm-up, as part of skill work, and on rest days. The final way to incorporate mindful movement into your current routine is during the cool-down. Instead of taking yourself through a stretching routine, core work, or whatever your standard cool-down consists of, try making small, simple movements that coordinate with your breath. This could be a very easy yoga routine, a gentle flow that takes place on the floor, or (my personal favorite), a handful of somatic movements. Before jumping up to leave, spend 2-3 minutes focusing on your breath. Not trying to change it, just focusing on it. Feel where your inhale goes, feel what happens when you exhale. If your mind wanders, notice that and return to focusing on your breath.

It could probably be argued that every workout should be mindful, but I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. There will always be days we need an external stimulus to get going, whether it’s music, an intense workout, or mindless cardio. However, if every single workout lacks a component of focus and attention, you are doing yourself a disservice. Attention is like a muscle; it must be worked gradually over time for it to ever improve. And, like exercise, by practicing just a little bit of mindfulness in the beginning, over time, you will be able to practice it more and more until it permeates other areas of your life.

More on cultivating the mind to improve the body:

Meditation for Meatheads

References:

1. Boccia, M., Piccardi, L., & Guariglia, P., (2015). The meditative mind: a comprehensive meta-analysis of MRI studies. Biomedical Research Institue, doi: 10.1155/2015/419808.

2. Russell, T.A., & Arcuri, S.M., (2015). A neurophysiological and neuropsychological consideration of mindful movement: clinical and research implications. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00282.

3. Naranjo, J.R., & Schmidt, S., (2012). Is it me or not me? Modulation of perceptual- motor awareness and visuomotor performance by mindful meditation. BMC Neuroscience, 13(88).

4. Chiesa, A., Calati, R., Seretti, A., (2011). Does mindfulness training improve cognitive abilities? A systematic review of neuropsychological findings. Clinical Psychology Review, 31(3), 449-464.

5. Mattes, J., (2016). Attentional focus in motor learning, the Feldenkrais method, and mindful movement. Perceptual Motor Skills, 123(1), 258-276.

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