The biology of willpower

    Hello everyone! My name is Fidel Loverton and as I hope you are aware as of now by using this website, I am a fellow student in the Motivation class headed by Professor Berg. The book I chose to read up on for this class was "the willpower instinct" by Kelly McGonigal and while I'm not finished completely reading through it yet (book report to soon come) I already have learned so much about myself and how I can better apply myself towards the urges and temptations I have been personally battling with in order to be in my own mind a better person wholistically. What I will be focusing on just for this first post is the "biology" of our will which to put it simply is located in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which if you aren't familiar with that is more or less the area of the brain that is responsible for higher decision making and giving yourself "reminders" not to partake in certain activities based on your greater goals overall (EX: maybe you want to lose weight and the instinctive part of your brain tells you to get something sweet while your prefrontal swoops in and helps you stay the course of your weight loss journey). Understanding the prefrontal cortex is a crucial first step to better improving your ability to resist temptations the same way understanding how a car operates is crucial to better maintain it in the long run. Each region of the prefrontal cortex is responsible for a certain aspect of staying true to your goals and aspirations and as the book states, when preforming scans of the brain you can physically see the parts of your prefrontal cortex activate when attempting to resist desires and those who falter more than others have a very descript lack of neurons in the prefrontal cortex firing seemingly causing these issues to crop up. A lack of neuronal activity doesn't immediately disqualify one from reaching their goals however as the book does explain in the proceeding chapters how to better train your brain to better handle the urges and wants to indulge in instant gratification. Sorry in advance for my first post being a little wordy, I'll try to make the next few posts and overall report a bit more interesting, but I wanted to break the ice a little here with what I am reading and what I enjoy about it right out the gate. Hope you guys are all doing well, Ill see you in the next post!