1. Feature Article: "The Habit That Builds Willpower"
Today's article comes from the Renewed Man Boot Camp. Renewed Man is a systematic teaching and coaching series designed to help men grow emotionally, relationally, and spiritually ... developing the essential character quality of "self-mastery." Even though this community is created for men, the principles are universal --
women will benefit from these insights as well.
We build this teaching around 12 Keys, and this week, we're focusing on Key 2:
ENVIRONMENT. Here's how we put it:
2. ENVIRONMENT - We take
deliberate steps to design a personal environment that supports our commitment to self-mastery and vitality. Knowing what gets us in trouble, we establish boundaries and support to deal with it.
Here's one of the daily messages from this week's teaching series. It focuses more narrowly on a particular
habit that I recommend people add to their environment. I hope this will help you:
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If there was one habit you could build into your life -- assuming you already have some practice of Bible reading and prayer -- hands down I would recommend MEDITATION. Meditation will help your life in so many ways, it's hard to know where to start.
Today let's focus on some of the latest research about the benefits of meditation -- shared by Stanford Professor Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., in her book “The Willpower Instinct.”
In the book, McGonagil talks about the things
we can do to increase our willpower. Can you guess the number one strategy? MEDITATION.
“There is growing scientific evidence that you can train your brain to get better at self-control. What does willpower training for your brain
look like? MEDITATION.”
“Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management,
impulse control, and self-awareness. People who meditate regularly aren’t just better at these things. Over time, their brains become finely tuned willpower machines. Regular meditators have more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, as well as regions of the brain that support self-awareness.”
Later she writes:
“One study found that just three hours of meditation practice led to improved attention and self-control.
After eleven hours, researchers could see those changes in the brain. The new meditators had increased neural connections between regions of the brain important for staying focused, ignoring distractions, and controlling impulses.
"Another study found that eight weeks of daily meditation practice led to increased self-awareness in everyday life, as well as increased gray matter in corresponding areas of the brain.
"It may seem incredible that our brains can reshape themselves so quickly, but meditation increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, in much the same way that lifting weights increases blood flow to your muscles. The brain appears to adapt to exercise in the same way that muscles do, getting both bigger and faster in order to get better at what you ask of it.”
OKAY, BUT HOW DO YOU MEDITATE?
Questions about how you meditate are not within the scope of this article, but I will share a two video resources. I find that many Christians today are confused about, and skeptical of, meditation practices. Why? Because (to them) "meditation" seems wedded to Eastern religions. This is unfortunate, and represents
both a misunderstanding of meditation, and a misreading of history.
If you want to explore more about meditation, you can check out a couple videos I made about meditation, where I seek to help Christians to think about and
practice meditation -- especially those who are concerned that it's more of "an Eastern thing":
HOW DOES MEDITATION HELP US BUILD SELF-CONTROL?
The short answer: by helping us deal with stress, both mentally --
through teaching us to calm our thoughts and avoid incessant "castrophizing" -- but also physiologiclly, through helping us deal with our "fight, flight, or freeze" stress response. Herbert Benson talks a lot about the fight-or-flight response in his great book "The Relaxation
Revolution."
The basic
idea is simple: When you feel stressed, your body launches into an ancient “fight-or-flight” response that was helpful when your life was threatened by a saber tooth tiger -- but not so helpful when you’re stressed about your day at work.
“Suzanne Segerstrom, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky, studies how states of mind like stress and hope influence the body. She has found that, just like stress, self-control has a biological signature. The need for self-control sets into motion a coordinated set of changes in the brain and body that help you resist temptation and override self-destructive urges. Segerstrom calls those changes
the pause-and-plan response, which couldn’t look more different from the fight-or-flight response.”
Put simply, the stress response destroys our willpower. To cultivate our self-control, we want to choose the
“pause-and-plan” response — noticing our habitual responses and consciously choosing a more empowered one!
Some more McGonigal wisdom on that process:
“Your brain needs to bring the body on board with your goals and put the brakes on your impulses. To do this, your prefrontal cortex will communicate the need for self-control to lower brain regions that regulate your heart rate, blood pressure,
breathing, and other automatic functions. The pause-and-plan response drives you in the opposite direction of the fight-or-flight response. Instead of speeding up, your heart slows down, and your blood pressure stays normal. Instead of hyperventilating like a madman, you take a deep breath. Instead of tensing muscles to prime them for action, your body relaxes a little.”
NEXT ACTION
Today's next action is to take some time to meditate. If you don't know how -- if you need some more guidance -- I encourage you to watch the video about using the Jesus Prayer (Christian Meditation: Using the Jesus
Prayer). This is an easy method for Christians to transition from prayer to meditation. If you have another method that you feel comfortable with, feel free to use that.
Keep in mind that it's okay if you struggle with your mind not shutting up. That doesn't mean you are "bad" at meditation. The point of meditation is to sit with the mind, and when it (inevitably) start spitting out random, unrelated thoughts, you gently turn those over to God and go back to the focus of
your meditation.
Don't worry about it. Don't push yourself to set a record of "your longest time" meditating. It doesn't need to be super-long. Just do it. Just
meditate.
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Would you like to go "all in" and join the Renewed Man Boot Camp? It's a 12 Week Immersion in these principles. You'll get these daily teachings, a weekly video on one of the 12 Keys of Being a Renewed Man, and access to a support group and/or a coaching group that I lead.
Find out more about the
Renewed Man Program here.
