There is a disconnect in there between the night me and the morning me. Most people encounter something similar when they promise themselves that they will begin exercising the very next day, or they will start that diet at breakfast. How do we explain this disconnect?
Psychology Professor Paul Bloom has this to say:
The alternative view keeps the angel and the devil, but casts aside the person in between. The competing selves are not over your shoulder, but inside your head: the angel and the devil, the self who wants to be slim and the one who wants to eat the cake, all exist within one person. Drawing on the research of the psychiatrist George Ainslie, we can make sense of the interaction of these selves by plotting their relative strengths over time, starting with one (the cake eater) being weaker than the other (the dieter). For most of the day, the dieter hums along at his regular power (a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10, say), motivated by the long-term goal of weight loss, and is stronger than the cake eater (a 2). Your consciousness tracks whichever self is winning, so you are deciding not to eat the cake. But as you get closer and closer to the cake, the power of the cake eater rises (3 … 4 …), the lines cross, the cake eater takes over (6), and that becomes the conscious you; at this point, you decide to eat the cake. It’s as if a baton is passed from one self to another.
Sometimes one self can predict that it will later be dominated by another self, and it can act to block the crossing—an act known as self-binding, which Thomas Schelling and the philosopher Jon Elster have explored in detail. Self-binding means that the dominant self schemes against the person it might potentially become—the 5 acts to keep the 2 from becoming a 6. Ulysses wanted to hear the song of the sirens, but he knew it would compel him to walk off the boat and into the sea. So he had his sailors tie him to the mast. Dieters buy food in small portions so they won’t overeat later on; smokers trying to quit tell their friends never to give them cigarettes, no matter how much they may later beg. In her book on gluttony, Francine Prose tells of women who phone hotels where they are going to stay to demand a room with an empty minibar. An alarm clock now for sale rolls away as it sounds the alarm; to shut it off, you have to get up out of bed and find the damn thing.
I don’t think many of want to admit that to get us out of bed requires an alarm clock that actively tries to escape from us. If I’m really honest with myself though, I think that sounds like a great idea. Mr. Bloom even relates about how he has a program on his computer that turns off all internet connections for a set amount of time so that he wont check email, surf, and google while he should be writing.
On the one hand I look at my heroes and role models and I can’t imagine them having to install programs on their computers that forcibly terminate their internet connection so they can get some damn work done.
On the other hand, I’m weak, I can admit it, and maybe I do need just that. Maybe I need to uninstall the one video game I play and my torrent program which supplies me with an endless stream of cheap, mindless entertainment. I feel like a terrible failure admitting that, but I think the fact that the article by Paul Bloom rings so true for me means I should take heed of his advice. So what about you, do you need an alarm clock that runs away from you too?
First Person Plural by Paul Bloom
I have my alarm clock 12 feet away from the bed so i have to get up out of bed to turn it off…. alas it still doesn’t help! And it’s not like I don’t want to get up. At this time (waking up in the morning) I feel (and maybe others) as if I’m in a different state. A state, maybe from the primitive mind, that allows the body to do things without thinking. I remember thinking to my self that i need to get up. However my body does not want to get up. In fact at this point in time I almost feel like i’m a prisoner in my own body until my mind wakes up and takes control. I think the best way to describe it is “Sluggish Cognitive Tempo” (SCT). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sluggish_cognitive_tempo)
My question that I’ve been wondering is, is this a primitive protection mechanism for the body? Can it be trained to react differently? How would someone go about training their mind to be more ‘awake’ when you get up.
I realize that not everyone is like this. I am more of a night person and not a morning person. I get more done at night then in the morning and prefer working later. When I was in college I didn’t even attempt at doing homework or studying until after 11pm and I still graduated with a 3.4 gpa.
I’ve been increasingly getting more interested in the innner workings of the brain. At any case, I’d be more interested if you find any more info on this subject or other excellent resources.
Good post keep it up!
“…On the one hand I look at my heroes and role models and I can’t imagine them having to install programs on their computers that forcibly terminate their internet connection so they can get some damn work done….”
Maybe you cannot imagine your heroes being distracted by the internet, but I suspect that they did or do arrange their lives in such a way as to produce their best work.
Just a thought as I google ‘rolling alarm clock’
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Keep up the good work!
Hi! Visiting via ProBlogger 140.
My disconnect is between my grocery shopping persona and the one that actually (well sometimes) cooks the meals
…you bought THAT?
They do not communicate, and the ‘one in the middle’ is perfectly happy staying out of the discussion and eating ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Sigh. G.