Increase Your Brain's Will Power: Achieve Goals, Stay Focused, Resist Temptation | David Eagleman

Increase Your Brain's Will Power: Achieve Goals, Stay Focused, Resist Temptation

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The only thing between you and your better self is your brain. Programmed to maximize short term reward, we often find ourselves struggling between what we want in the moment and what we'll gain in the long term if we forgo immediate gratification. As neuroscientist David Eagleman reveals, the ancient wisdom of Ulysses remains useful today as a way to contextualize current scientific research. Before temptation strikes, it pays to have a plan for when it arrives. By making a contract with your future self—as Ulysses did with his crew—you can avoid occasions of indulgence. And when you do give into immediate satisfaction, you can build in supports to keep it from wreaking havoc on your life.

This video is part of a collaborative series with the Hope & Optimism initiative, which supports interdisciplinary academic research into significant questions that remain under-explored. The three-year initiative will provide over $2 million for philosophers, philosophers of religion, and social scientists to generate original, high-quality, collaborative research on topics related to optimism and hopefulness. Discover the public components of the Hope & Optimism project, and how you can contribute, at hopeoptimism.com.

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DAVID EAGLEMAN:

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and a New York Times bestselling author. He directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action at the Baylor College of Medicine, where he also directs the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law. He is best known for his work on time perception, brain plasticity, synesthesia, and neurolaw.

He is the writer and presenter of the PBS epic series, The Brain with David Eagleman, and the author of the companion book, The Brain: The Story of You.

Beyond his 100+ academic publications, he has published many popular books. His bestselling book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, explores the neuroscience "under the hood" of the conscious mind: all the aspects of neural function to which we have no awareness or access. His work of fiction, SUM, is an international bestseller published in 28 languages and turned into two operas. Why the Net Matters examines what the advent of the internet means on the timescale of civilizations. The award-winning Wednesday is Indigo Blue explores the neurological condition of synesthesia, in which the senses are blended.

Eagleman is a TED speaker, a Guggenheim Fellow, a winner of the McGovern Award for Excellence in Biomedical Communication, a Next Generation Texas Fellow, Vice-Chair on the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Neuroscience & Behaviour, a research fellow in the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, Chief Scientific Advisor for the Mind Science Foundation, and a board member of The Long Now Foundation. He has served as an academic editor for several scientific journals. He was named Science Educator of the Year by the Society for Neuroscience, and was featured as one of the Brightest Idea Guys by Italy's Style magazine. He is founder of the company BrainCheck and the cofounder of the company NeoSensory. He was the scientific advisor for the television drama Perception, and has been profiled on the Colbert Report, NOVA Science Now, the New Yorker, CNN's Next List, and many other venues. He appears regularly on radio and television to discuss literature and science.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Go back 3,000 years to Ulysses, who fought in the Trojan War and was coming home to his island of Ithaca on his ships with his men, and he realized that he had this amazing opportunity, which is he was going to pass the Island of the Sirens. And he knew that the sirens sang so beautifully and were so seductive that mortal men would crash their ships into the rocks, and they’d all die every time. If you heard the song of the sirens you were going to die.

He wanted to hear the song of the sirens, so what did he do? The Ulysses of present sound mind made a contract with the future Ulysses. He said, “I know that guy is going to behave badly when he hears the siren’s song.” So what did he do? He lashed himself to the mast, exactly, and he filled his men’s ears with beeswax, and he said, "No matter what I do, keep on rowing."

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