Mindful Attention Is the Key to Mastering Self-Control

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As many of us start the year with the goal of adopting a healthier lifestyle, we face not only creating new habits, but also overcoming temptations.

Over the past decade, a wave of research into the psychological and physiological benefits of ancient Eastern mindfulness meditation has surfaced in scholarly publications. Recent research now shows that various forms of mindfulness practice — sitting and walking meditation, scanning and relaxing tension through the body, and conscious breathing — can significantly reduce stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression, as well as improve self-regulating behavior and help with self-control.

Intrigued by the possibility that mindfulness regulates appetitive behavior, Esther K. Papies, Ph.D., professor of social psychology and expert in dieting and goal-related behavior at Utrecht University, led a three-part study on the initial effects of mindful attention on behavioral responses to two common appetite stimuli: food and sex appeal.

When we decide to change our behaviors around food and sex, much of the battle takes place in the mind before the tasty dish is even in our hands. Among a number of mechanisms, simply looking at food or even reading appetizing words can stimulate taste and pleasure centers in the brain, suggesting that the viewer is processing a food cue as if they were actually eating it. Such mental “reward simulations” are also observed in the processing of visual sexual stimuli. Among many functions, the amygdala is believed to process appetizing and aversive stimuli, as well as emotional arousal and trigger a sexual response in the hypothalamus. Viewing sexually attractive photos has been shown to stimulate activity in the amygdala and hypothalamus in the limbic region of the brain in both sexes and even more so in men. If just looking and imagining gives us the joy of consumption, how can we develop self-control and cope with responding to temptation?

In a 2015 publication in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Papies' research team hypothesized that by learning to see one's thoughts as mere passing events through a practice known as "mindful attention," the mental Reward simulation by viewing appealing food and can reduce sexually attractive people, a simulation that typically triggers conscious and unconscious appetite behaviors.

In the first of three experiments, Papies' team hypothesized that learning to make pleasure-related thoughts fleeting—through mindful attention—would lead to lower perceived attractiveness in other people, and thus affect mate choice. Given previous findings that people who are more interested in casual sex tend to have vividly rewarding simulations of sex and increased attraction to potential partners, participants' sexual motivation was taken into account using the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory.

In this first experiment, a group of heterosexual participants received previously developed mindful attention training: In 12 minutes, participants were instructed to simply observe their thoughts as passing mental events during computer presentations of photographs of people. In a control group training session, participants looked at the same photos but were asked to delve deeply into the images. After the training phase, both groups were shown 40 novel photos of the opposite sex and asked to indicate whether they would be preferred partners using a yes or no button (a one-second response window encouraged intuitive responses). Both groups were shown the 40 photos again, this time asked to rate their attractiveness on a scale from one to 100.

The results showed that, unlike the control group, the level of sexual motivation of the mindful attention group no longer predicted the perceived attractiveness of others. In the control condition, sexual motivation increased perceived attractiveness and partner judgment. These results suggest that mindful attention may mediate how we perceive the sexual attractiveness of others and therefore possibly regulate how we choose mates.

The second experiment almost repeated the first, this time assessing the effects of mindful attention on food attractiveness and choice. Typically, a state of hunger increases the attractiveness of food, especially unhealthy food. Papies' team therefore predicted that practicing mindful attention would be associated with reduced attraction to unhealthy food choices, explaining the magnitude of hunger. Unlike the first experiment, participants in the control group were no longer asked to immerse themselves in the images, but were instead encouraged to look at the photos closely but in a natural, relaxed manner.

Both the mindful attention group and the control group were randomly presented with luscious food images high in sugar and fat and healthier food images, and asked whether they would like to eat the food at that moment. The results showed that the level of hunger strongly predicted unhealthy food choices in the control condition but not in the mindful attention condition, suggesting that mindful attention may not curb appetite but may lead to healthier food impulses even during a starvation state .

In a third follow-up experiment, Papies' team extended beyond a laboratory setting into the real world. At University College Utrecht in the Netherlands, over 100 student volunteers entering the campus cafeteria were randomly assigned to mindfulness training, control training, and a no-interference group. After appearing to complete their participation in the study before entering the cafeteria, the researchers reviewed the participants' subsequent food choices in the cafeteria. While hunger was associated with higher caloric intake in all groups, 76 percent of participants with mindful attention chose salads compared to 49 percent of participants without intervention and 56 percent of control participants. The participants with mindful attention consumed fewer calories than the control group and consumed fewer unhealthy foods overall.

Papies' initial results in all three experiments suggest that 12 minutes of mindful attention can modulate the effects of sexual motivation and hunger state on perceived food and human attractiveness and response to temptation. More research is needed to address gaps in the modus operandi and isolate neurological changes that may underlie observed behavioral changes, but these findings suggest that mindfulness can be a useful tool for anyone trying to resist temptation and be positive implement changes in life.

How can you practice mindful attention?

Mindful attention is simply the awareness of thoughts and feelings in response to a stimulus. The following practice is derived from the mindfulness tradition and research of Papies and can be done in just a few minutes.

1. Bring an attractive picture to look at or think about. This can be a type of food, person or activity. As an example, we use the activity of social media engagement.

2. Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings. Remember that mindful attention is the act of accepting all thoughts and feelings as normal and impermanent. Start by simply acknowledging what is arising. You may experience reactionary thoughts like "I like social media" or "I really wish I could check my social media page right now." You may experience feelings or non-verbal sensations, such as B. a tingling in the stomach or pain in the body. You may not notice a specific feeling or thought at all.

3. Drop your thoughts and feelings. Allow your emotions and thoughts to move through you. To add a dash of humor to the experience, imagine waving them goodbye as your thoughts wander across your mind's screen. You could say to yourself, "I'm letting this thought/feeling go."

Similar to any type of practice, your experience of mindful awareness is likely to produce transformation over time.

Mindful attention may only seem like a way to detach, when it might offer just the opposite; Practicing mindful attention can help us actively choose when to engage and when not to engage, shaping our lives to suit our desires. By simply observing and allowing the appetizing puff, we have more self-control on our hands than we might think.

This piece was originally written by Rina Deshpande for Sonima.

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