Humans are not naturally wired to delay gratification. When a person is on a diet and exercise program to lose fat the temptations are everywhere. The fat comes off slowly, but the pleasure of eating your favorite dessert is immediate–which is what humans are naturally wired for.
The key word being ‘naturally’ because the brain can be rewired to accept delayed gratification if properly prompted to think about the long-term rewards.
Researchers from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany found “that episodic future thinking reduces the rate of delay discounting through a modulation of neural decision-making and episodic future thinking networks.”
“Humans normally prefer larger over smaller rewards, but this situation can change when the larger rewards are associated with delays,” said Dr. Jan Peters the lead author of the study. But when presented with cues about the long term payoff, test subjects delayed gratification.
“…vividly imagining the future reduced impulsive choice,” Peters said.
In the study, subjects had to make choices between an immediate reward and a larger delayed reward. As expected, subjects took the immediate reward. But when promted with cues about the larger delayed reward, more people would opt for the delay in gratification. The more cues, the more a person was willing to delay gratification. The increased cues also caused the subjects to visualize the delayed payoff.
That visualization is a key component to delaying gratification because it provides a virtual ownership of the long-term result.
“To fully appreciate a long-term option, you have to choose it repeatedly and begin to feel the benefits,” said Bradley Love, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas who recently conducted an experiment in delayed gratification.
The experiment found that when the test subjects were given information about what they would have to give up in the short term to get the long-term benefits, they chose the short term.
According to Love, people pick the immediate reward because they know what they are getting.
For a person trying to shed a few pounds of fat before summer, it is hard to say ‘no’ to the cupcake because they know how good the cupcake tastes but do not know how good it will feel to look good at the beach.
In the Hamburg-Eppendorf study, the cues and visualzation were strong enough to overcome the pull of the short term gratification.
Nita Marquez, an IFBB professional fitness competitor and personal trainer says frequent visualization of the payoff is the key to saying no to the cupcake.
“You have to see it and believe it to achieve it,” Marquez said. “You have to see yourself fitting into your favorite jeans, you have to see and feel the confidence of looking better in a swimsuit to take ownership of it.”
And when confronted with the cupcake, “think about how great it will feel to wear your favorite dress or for the guys, to take your t-shirt off at the lake.”
Marquez said if your diet is about self-discipline and deprivation, you will likely fail. “Focus on the satisfaction and pleasure of when you fit into the summer shorts, not the cupcake….unless you are one of those people who really likes showing off their self-control, then do whatever works.”
We all may be initially wired to seek the short term gratification, but with some timely visualization, the cupcake can be defeated.
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