Yoga and "Willpower"

Or:

"Ego depletion" and "effort."

Anyone who's tried to keep a yoga practice knows that sometimes it takes "willpower." Interestingly, recent studies are validating the yogic perspective that "willpower" is more complicated than just "making yourself do it" and secondly, that it's a muscle that we can strengthen.

"Will power" or "active ego," as psychologists call it, is a limited physical resource that draws on blood sugar or glucose. When you perform a task that requires "will power," it can use up your reserves and leave them empty when the desert menu arrives at the table.

One of the foremost researchers on willpower has been Dr. Roy Baumeister at Case Western University. According to one of his studies, (link to .pdf) participants who used will power to not laugh at a funny video had lower blood glucose levels and had less ability to exert willpower (subjects in a test group were allowed to laugh and their glucose level was unaffected.) When they ate a simple carbohydrate that returned their glucose levels to normal their willpower returned as well.

But at the same time, research by Baumeister and others has found that successful small efforts, such as removing "um" and "like" from your speech, can strengthen your um, ability to exert willpower in, like, other areas, such as diet.

So staying that extra breath in Warrior 2 might help you fend off that delicious, mouth-watering chocolate cake. And keeping a simple daily yoga practice could help you accomplish other goals.

Interestingly, this research seems to validate a yogic, holistic approach to effort such as that found in pantanjali's yoga sutras, the Buddha's "right effort" or Daoisms teachings on "wu wei."

Firstly, in the context of this research, it's not surprising that Pantanjali and the Buddha make a connection between effort and diet. I remembered that this after noon after I ate white bread and jam and tea with honey, making me feel really sluggish. Those simple carbohydrates convert to glucose rapidly (in around 30 minutes--maybe less with our modern ultra-refined sugars.) Too much sugar can cause an insulin spike, keeping your body from using the glucose, willpower food (not to mention brain and muscle food.)

Secondly, the research backs the philosophy of regular, daily small steps. Not only is it a good way to accomplish a goal but it builds willpower in the process.

Finally, this research might suggest a back-door approach to willpower. Research subjects experienced a willpower drain when they needed to exert "active ego" over habitual, automatic activities. That suggests this:

Why not work to make desirable activities habitual and automatic?

Indeed, that's the approach favored by the Daoist classics as well as Buddhist traditions like zen. Again, that takes a daily, small steps and an attitude of working with your intrinsic nature, not exerting willpower over it.


Additional articles:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/how-to-boost-your-willpower/

Glycemic Index Diets:

http://www.annecollins.com/gi-guide.htm

Effort, "wu wei" and nature's problem solving method.

"Wu Wei" is a Daoist term and the translation I like best is: "effortless action." Simply put, if your work feels too hard you probably won't sustain it. A better approach is where your work feels effortless and balanced. I'd like to share some thoughts about "wu wei," because it's an idea that has helped me bring beauty and ease to so many areas of my life, almost wherever I remember to apply it.

The typical metaphor is that of water, which doesn't have to do anything to find it's way to where it's going. It just is. Or you might say wood doesn't have to work to be useful, its inherent properties make it so.

Another metaphor might be evolution: nature doesn't toil to solve it's problems. So those are the two basic metaphors we're going to juggle: water and "nature's problem solving method."

It's no coincidence that water's effort and nature's problem solving method, (evolution) look very much alike and it's no coincidence that the best of human problem solving methods, such as the scientific method look a lot like evolution.

And sages from so many traditions have taught us about this pattern. It may very well be wise to apply it to most of our problems. Here's the attitude as I see it:

1. Go with your natural inclination. Be useful like water, like wood. Follow your curiosity. Our brains are amazing computers: if you're curious about something, there might be a good reason why! Many of us have stopped being curious because we stopped "wasting time" listening to it. So many of our human activities feel like they drain us of our energy. But when you follow your curiosity, it can give you energy Back. Find those things that you jump out of bed in the morning to do. In Buddhism they call that "wind horse." The metaphor is the sun--which, in its burning, creates its own fuel.

2. Reclaim the spirit of playful experimentation and notice how much easier things seem. How?

--Try many solutions. Evolution and water go outward in (seemingly) random directions. That's how they find the best solution. In work, in yoga practice, try new things. Experimentation keeps us from feeling in a rut and you never know when you'll find something new that's a perfect solution.

--Try to make mistakes. Natural evolution explores randomly without labeling its mutations as "good" or "bad." Water fills the low places, not the "good" ones. That natural diversity enriches the whole. One year I set a goal for freelance work to increase the number of rejections I received. Somehow, it removed the stress of the rejection letters and kept me from burning out. I also took more risks in applying for jobs I normally didn't think I could get. And of course, I got more acceptance letters that year too. In Yoga practice, that attitude often gives us the chance to learn new things and remove the critical thoughts that keep us from fully experiencing asana.


3. Permission to be unfocused.
Evolution isn't afraid to pursue multiple solutions to a problem simultaneously.
There's a myth in our culture that a focussed drive in one direction is the best way to be successful.
The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.
Archilochus (7th-century b.c.e.)

But when I examine all of the people I really admire, they followed their curiosity wherever it lead them. People forget that Einstein, for example, was a great musician, organizer and social activist!


4. Let weak branches wither.
There are, however constraints to following whatever whim you may: time and recourses. Allow yourself to relax and trust that these things will work themselves out if you free yourself to follow your genius. When nature finds some branch of life is no longer successful it doesn't persist in a dead-end direction. It lets that branch wither without attachment. We humans, on the other hand, can build irrational attachments to to an empty mine. We build ourselves a comfortable rut that's so deep we can't see outside it. Rather than abandon it, we would follow that path to disaster.

Don't be afraid to jump the rut. Fear the rut instead.

5. Build good habits slowly, not in some Herculean effort.
The metaphor is the grand canyon, right?

Or in nature, we have the saying "life makes good for life." Nature builds up a food chain slowly, first establishing organisms that convert the basic resources available in the ecosystem--it's minerals, it's heat, it's sun-energy. And as it establishes those, it builds complexity on top of them. Soon, there's a complex ecosystem including microorganisms and bugs and plants that can support, for example, elephants. That is a sustainable effort. But too often, we try to start with the elephants!

But if we can take time out of the equation and do what we love--we can take advantage of conditioning (yeah, like Pavlov's dogs) we can cultivate a love for what we do.

If we do work we enjoy, we learn to associate work with joy. If we start with a yoga practice or exercise plan we enjoy (even if it doesn't seem as effective as we'd like) we learn to associate that effort with joy. That's a foundation we can build on and after a while, we've got the elephants.

(Note: though intended to stand alone, this was part 3 of a series on "effort." You can read the others by clicking the effort label bellow.)

Breaking: Earth Hour!

I'm taking a break from herculean task of exploring "effort" to bring you this breaking news on "Earth Hour," which has organized cities around the world to take a symbolic stand in defense of the earth by shutting down all our lights for an hour.

Ok, so I'm a little late on this one. Earth hour was March 31st at 8:00. Anyway, consider this detour a little interlude on "effort."

Earth Hour. I dig.

When life gets really busy, if I'm not careful, I can gradually slip into a bed-time pattern that's about as productive as beating myself to sleep with a hammer.

Because I keep busy, I tend to use my last few hours, minutes, seconds of every day either trying to "be productive" or completely crashing and vegging out on the internet (we don't have TV.)

While forcing myself to "be productive" can give me a strange masochistic satisfaction, there usually isn't anything productive about it. Usually it just means I spend some time worrying about some stuff that I can't really do anything about and end up going to bed with a mind as jumbled as the cartoon network. Then I don't get as much done the next day because I'm still tired from the day before.

Eventually, all that tiredness builds up and I just shut down. Usually, I try to "relax" by doing something entertaining. The problem is this: playing video games, watching TV or movies or surfing the nets doesn't actually help me relax. Not physically or mentally. It doesn't alleviate the nagging feeling (or rather, autonomic nervous response) that there are vicious cavemen chasing me with spears. It only distracts me from them. When I wake up the next day, the cavemen are still there.

So either way, every night, I end up collapsing into bed, exhausted, like a brief period of black-out before those pesky cavemen pick up their spears again. With no feeling that I've even lived between the rounds.

After a while, it gets easy to accept that feeling as "normal" and we're self-hypnotized into a mindset of getting through the week. From that point, the best thing we can hope for out of life is merely to tolerate it.

Earth Hour wake up call.

Earth hour was so powerful for me precisely because it broke this hypnotic trance. Shutting down the toys and lighting the candles broke me out of the pattern of living that had come to feel so natural, just as our oil dependent lifestyles seem so deeply entrenched.

What was I so worried about? the cavemen didn't catch me. And I woke up the next morning with my mind, body and EYES more relaxed than they had been in a while. Earth hour helped break me out of a pattern and reclaim my life back from the objects (work, "meaning," entertainment) that had come to control it.

When I do get back to writing about "effort," I know that this will be part of it: a balanced approach. Studies show that breaks and naps increase productivity.

And I plan to make shutting down the lights and unplugging at night a new habit for me.

Warrior: Right Effort 2

(Although this entry on effort can stand alone, you can read part 1 here)

Anytime you settle into a good, deep "warrior 2" pose, something that becomes pretty apparent is this: staying there for long is going to take effort. Staying with those little moments of effort in our practice provide an opportunity to explore the various textures of effort that we can apply to our yoga and to our daily "to do" lists. The question then, is how to exert that effort.

In the Sona Sutta, the Buddha likened the "right effort" to a stringed instrument that doesn't necessarily play better just because the strings are very tight. Instead, the tension on the strings must be right for the specific needs of the song to be played. This sets up a basic approach to effort as a continuum that puts (what I think of as) a military sort of discipline on one end and my college room-mate's dooby-fueled, couch and hoho binges on the other end.

While it seems obvious that some sort of effort is necessary, to me, a "tight strings" approach to effort, or forcing ourselves to do something is not compatible with yoga's values of non-violence, compassion (for yourself!) or to experiencing yoga's most profound benefits.

The basic problem with a heavy handed self discipline is that, for me, it becomes self-defeating. When you start viewing every asana, (or writing or studying...) as an exercise in "strength" or "mind over matter," you're trying to exert your will over your natural inclination. First of all, this kind of approach has the tendency to kill the chance for any spontaneity or joy. And I guarantee you, your "natural inclination" is going to kick your "will's" ass in the end. From my experience, people who rely on that kind of "effort" rarely succeed in their persistence. The problem is, at least for us Yanks, that's the kind of effort we're taught...

The "American Work Ethic:"

Although my mother is in many ways a very enlightened individual, I can still hear her admonishing me not to be "lazy" and saying: "sometimes you just have to make yourself do it."

And that's the American ethic, right? Industry! Enterprise!

Git.

-R-

Done.


But perhaps this sort of approach of "making yourself do it" is really taking the easy way out.

Maybe, "just make yourself do it"

-IS-

being lazy.

Perhaps if we weren't so lazy, we'd instead commit to the disciplined, relaxed and compassionate approach of working diligently to create conditions where our work feels more effortless.

In other words, rather than try to kick our "natural inclination" in the ass, we can find some ways to work with it. The basic approach there is cultivating joy in what we do. Now, that's the RIGHT EFFORT.

In part 3, I'll write about some specific approaches that have been helpful to me.

Warrior: Right Effort, part 1

Related to the idea of "being grounded" and to "fierceness" is this idea of effort.

There are plenty of stiff days when I'm forced to think of this idea of effort on my first forward bend. Heck, there are days when just getting out of bed takes effort, right?

And the warrior poses, because of their relative simplicity, give us a chance to explore the various textures of effort we can bring to our practice, our everyday lives and even getting out of bed.

"Effort" traditions:

In Ashtanga Yoga, the idea of effort is embodied in the first two limbs of Patanjali's 8 fold path--Yama and Niyama can be roughly understood as: effort and relaxation. This also corresponds to the 6th step in the Buddhist "Noble Eight Fold Path," "right effort." While Pantanjali takes a more restrictive and arguably more ascetic approach than the Buddha's "Noble 8 fold path," the basic idea is the same: do things that create a life conducive to a experiencing fulfillment: a peaceful, non-violent, healthy mind and body.

Or as the great Dorje Dradul of Mukpo described it:

"The sudden flash is a key to all Buddhist meditation, from the level of basic mindfulness to the highest levels of tantra. But it is not enough just to hope that a flash will come to us; there must be a background of discipline."

In other words, you won't find instant enlightenment for sale at the bookstore or at those expensive spiritual retreats. If you want to experience the peace, health, stillness, and special insight of the present moment, available through yoga, you have to make the effort to create the right conditions for it.

But while these paths usually deal with WHAT we should be directing our effort to, in order to create those conditions, I'm interested in HOW we exert that effort. As it turns out, it seems that the "WHAT": and the "HOW" might be the same thing....

I'll explore more on effort in part 2....