Self-Control

Today I was listening to a talk in the car on my way to work (yes I do this most days to help center myself) and the speaker started talking about self-control. He mentioned that we all need to learn to have more self-control in all aspects of our lives to be happier. Self-control gives us a sense of power, a sense of accomplishment and can drive us to be better and happier. It made me start to think about diabetes (yes I know, everything makes me think about diabetes, LOL). I was thinking about all of the times my sugars do what they want and how at times they seem totally unmanageable. But then, as I listened and thought about self-control, I wondered if and how having more self-control could help my diabetes to be better managed.

Think about all the times you have had a low sugar and how hard it is to control your eating as you try to treat this low sugar. To me it is like I am possessed by the cookie monster and I want to eat everything I can get my hands on. I keep eating until I feel sick at times. That panicky feeling of a low makes me feel like I could never get self-control. There are times however that I am able to get control and to eat the required amount of food, then walk away, and go about my day. So why can I control it some days and others it seems impossible?

Now let’s talk about my sugars, some days I am on point, my sensor tracing is flat lined and I am like yes!! BEST DAY EVER!!! While other days I am like a giant yo-yo with a line that looks like it was drawn by a slinky that can go both up and down the stairs. Again, I wonder, could I have more self-control here and would it make my sugars better from day to day? What could I better control to get my lines flatter more consistently. Could I eat better or be more strict with the timing of all of my boluses? Will this help my diabetes to improve and to be easier to manage?

Then there is exercise. I know for sure I could have more self-control, or I guess rather discipline in this case to be more active and to make better choices on how to spend my free time. I lecture patients all of the time about how important exercise is. I know how great I feel when I do exercise, yet I don’t seem to have the self-control to make myself do it every day or every other day. Why is that? It is actually one other factor that can affect my sugars often with varying outcomes. I know how important exercise is for overall health and I want to be healthy. So why can’t I make myself do better in this area?

So what is self-control? Well according to Merriam Webster, self-control is “restraint exercised over one’s own impulses, emotions, or desires”. I googled self-control and found an article in Psychology Today which further states that “self-control is primarily rooted in the pre-frontal cortex, which is significantly larger in humans then it is in other mammals with similar brains. Thanks to this pre-frontal cortex, we as humans can chose to respond, to plan, evaluate alternative actions and avoid doing things we will later regret. Animals on the other hand respond immediately to every impulse as it arises.” Humans can develop willpower. One of the most famous studies of self-control is known as “the marshmallow test”. This study was when children were given a marshmallow and told if they were able to wait to eat their marshmallow for a certain amount of time, they would be rewarded with 2 marshmallows. The study showed that those who were able to wait, later showed higher academic achievement then those who ate it immediately. Is our willpower and self-control something we are born with and stuck with or is it a behavior that can be learned? Can we teach ourselves to have more willpower and therefore better self-control?

Ok so back to self-control and diabetes, I am almost positive that self-control can be learned and practiced and improved upon. I have been reading up on this idea of self-control and I would like to challenge everyone to see if you can find one way this week to try to have a little more self-control in regards to your diabetes. Can you be more diligent in timing your shots or boluses? Monitor your sugars more? Can you exercise more? Can you eat healthier and limit the amount of carbs in your diet? What can you do to try to have more-self control and to make your diabetes control better? Can self-control help you be a better diabetic? Try it and tell me how it went for you. I am going to take this week to exercise more regularly.