Willpower and Self-Control: How Genes and the Brain Prevent Us from Resisting Temptation

11 hrs. 31 min.

Popular Science

Language Russian

Author Irina Yakutenko

Narrator Oleg Tomilin

Description

Why do some people easily give up temptations, while others can’t resist them? The author of the book, gathering the freshest scientific data, proves that people who have difficulty resisting temptations differ physiologically and biochemically from those who don’t. Because of genetic особенities, in such people neurotransmitters are distributed and function differently—substances that regulate brain activity. Disorders can vary: for some people there is constantly a shortage of the feeling of pleasure, while others experience such intense sensations from pleasant things that they cannot resist them. But the outcome is always the same: the “animal” part of the brain—the limbic system that demands pleasure right now—more often takes over than the most “intelligent” zone, the prefrontal cortex, which remembers that momentary pleasure threatens big life plans.

The book contains many tests, and although their results cannot determine whether you have “bad” variants of the “self-control genes” and how their influence combines with environmental factors, by indirect signs it is still possible to assume which systems in your brain are not working quite right. The last part of the book offers recommendations on how you can effectively hold yourself back from temptations and achieve long-term goals, despite problems with self-control.