Impulses

“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; the hardest victory is the victory over self.”

- Aristotle

Some people have a little voice in their head guiding them and helping them thinking things out; some people have images and concepts in their mind; some people… I really don’t know how the other people do it to take any decisions if they never argue with themselves. But one thing we all have are an intuition (more or less reliable), instincts(gut feelings and primary defensive mechanisms) and impulses. Three fairly close words for three inter-twined concepts… no wonder we keep mixing them up! Listening to your instincts can help you survive or stay clear from an awkward social situation; following your intuition can help you think outside the box and come up with a brand-new idea; acting on impulses is not a viable long-term option.

So, what’s the difference? Using someone else’s words, the line between intuition and impulse is as fine as the line between genius and madness (Tommy Weir). It is not only a matter of perspectives and opinions; it is a subtle difference between understanding something without conscious thoughts (intuition) and acting without thinking (impulse). Freud and Kraepelin (another psychiatry pioneer) were the first to conceptualise a type of people that act out of impulses, on the spur of the moment, without thinking about consequences or long-term effects. They called them risk-takers, dauntless, or headstrong. In the 1960s, impulsivity became a personality trait and researchers started looking into it, trying to understand that continuum present in all, from the most dauntless to the most well-reasoned of us. Impulsivity, however, is not limited to acting without thinking. Well, it is, and it isn’t.

There are 2 main (but not unique) sides to impulsivity: the motor impulsivity and the decisional impulsivity.

The motor impulsivity could be associated to a Pavlovian response to external stimuli. For instance, your phone right or the screen lights up while you are reading (an actual physical book or journal, so not interacting or holding the phone at that specific moment). What do you do? If you reach for it “instinctively”, you are under your motor impulsivity’s influence. Neuroscientists have been able to link the brain regions responsible to control your motor impulsivity (yes! You can learn to control it) with the region controlling for your attention. That the region of your brain controlling for your distractibility, or your susceptibility to distraction. Are you able to do one thing at once, and only one thing? Nowadays, I feel that multi-tasking is becoming the norm but being able to focus all your cognitive power towards one goal is becoming an oddity only few can accomplish. More and more actions do require multi-tasking in our modern world, such as driving or walking in the streets and we do need to be able to pay attention to many things at once. The attention centre in your brain will for instance register that you are approaching a traffic light and that suddenly it goes from green to orange. What do you do? Do you accelerate (impulse) or do you break (moderate)? That is up to two other areas of the brain: the one that controls movements, i.e., the motor cortex that prepare for any movement; and the one that inhibits movements. Your inhibition centre is more or less active depending on whether you ever trained yourself to suppress an action and what state of mind you are. Because the more emotional you are, the less rational you are (duh!), the more susceptible to impulses you are. Strong emotions tend to inhibit the inhibition centre. Same goes for alcohol.

A second type of impulsivity is the decisional impulsivity. This one does not fight motor inhibition but self-control. Have you ever heard about the marshmallow test? I’m still not sure whether it is actual science (which it is! Definitely, 100% good science) or mild child abuse (no harm was actually done to any of the children). The point of the study is to investigate self-control in kids under 6 by presenting them with a marshmallow and telling them they could either eat the marshmallow now or wait several minutes and have 2. The look on the kids’ face is just priceless! Some of them are really good at distracting themselves, not looking at the marshmallow right in front of them, while others keep looking at it, touching it, licking it (but not taking any piece!), wooing it. If you think as adults you could totally rock that test it is probably because researchers use other ways to measure self-control in adults… such as your ability to stick to a diet or whether you chose to go running as you said you would or find many excuses to justify staying in watching series. Decisional impulsivity plays on instant gratification and does not care about long-term gains or benefits: watching a series is good right now, exercising will be great one day. That kind of impulsivity stimulates the reward system in our brain and stimulate dopamine releases, you know the feel-good hormone released when you feel happy and euphoric.

Neuroscientists have found out that because impulsivity (motor and decisional) is controlled by the brain and hormone-dependent, someone’s impulsivity is partially shaped by genetics and the susceptibility of your brain to said hormones (which varies between individuals). As mentioned before, strong emotions can impair your inhibitions centres and make you more impulsive than you would normally be. Being able to regulate your emotions and identify how you feel allows you to rationalise those feelings and prevent them from overwhelming you. That’s why taking long-term decision based on short-term emotion is not always great. Or taking decision under the influence of alcohol or other substances. I’ve heard many stories of people ending up with an extra tattoo or piercing after a boozy night out and I know from experience that I need to stay clear from shopping centres when feeling sad or very happy. Or bookshops, on any given days. Never ends well for my bank account… Even though I obviously needed all those things I just bought!

Impulsivity is but another voice in our head (or whatever it is you have up there), alongside intuition, reason… and motivation. Impulsivity tends to be a lot louder than reason and motivation but remember, it has only the influence you let it have. You can tame your impulsivity, it’s a rocky road but it is possible. Now, don’t snuff it out completely because it will always find a way to come out; compromise with your impulsivity or give more space to motivation. But that’s a story for another day.