How to avoid being impulsive?

[Whitney Edwards]

Just now, integral said:

Practice playing chess. Chess forces you to take your time before making a decision. My playing chess your practicing and reinforcing the neural pathways that pause and allow yourself to dwell on something before moving. So the board of a chess game is essentially a tool for various forms of mental training. There's many ways you could use the board for training patients is certainly one of them.

Thats a good idea. 

[Staples]

Practice awareness. Impulsivity is the reptile mind acting before the conscious mind.

Impulsivity is also not something to demonize, it's a survival tool your mind developed.

[Not me]

Mindfullness helps a lot. Try to notice the subtle sensations that tell you to act in a certain way. Just catching them is often enough.

[integral]

3 hours ago, Kairos said:

Have you done that ? 

From my personal experience playing chess what you're saying is way too simplistic .

Our brains can distinguish when you're playing a game and when you're not .You can't simply carry over the mechanisms you apply on the board to real life . 

Chess trains cognitive skills of brain but  impulsivity is emotionally driven .

To override emotions you have to use willpower (Watch huberman's video about willpower)

The only real solution to impulsiveness is meditation specific for that problem and be more self aware in general .Which is basically training the WILLPOWER .

Emotional regulation is crucial for chess improvement. When you can't control your emotions, your judgment is clouded, leading to disastrous moves. If you want to improve, you must manage your feelings.

This is due to the downward spiral principle. A bad move triggers an emotional response, causing you to make an even worse, impulsive move. This further worsens your position, leading to more bad moves and ultimately, a complete collapse.

Beginners commonly fall into this downward spiral, and learning to overcome it is essential.

Book The Art of Learning: Downward Spiral By Josh Waitzkin, Good Audio Recording of his voice at the link.

Quote

Main Content

"When we cling to the troubling emotions that result from an obstacle or loss, we abandon the present for the past. In short order, we find ourselves using our personal resources to wage an internal war instead of using them to handle what is going on now and move forward. By focusing on a past problem it becomes easy to believe that things have taken a turn for the worse. In not being awake to the present, we magnify the original loss, allowing it to produce a ripple effect of additional problems. These, in turn, take us even further off a course of growth. We must stay cool under fire and fully in the present to glean the most we can from every experience and achieve success."

Josh's Words

"As a competitor, I’ve come to understand that the distance between winning and losing is minute, and, moreover, that there are ways to steal wins from the maw of defeat… Musicians, actors, athletes, philosophers, scientists, writers understand that brilliant creations are often born of small errors. Problems set in if the performer has a brittle dependence on the safety of absolute perfection or duplication. Then an error triggers fear, detachment, uncertainty, or confusion that muddies the decision-making process."

"I have always visualized two lines moving parallel to one another in space. One line is time, the other is our perception of the moment… When we are present to what is, we are right up front with the expansion of time, but when we make a mistake and get frozen in what was, a layer of detachment builds. Time goes on and we stop. Suddenly we are living, playing chess, crossing the street with our eyes closed in memory. And then comes the taxicab."

"In every discipline, the ability to be clearheaded, present, cool under fire is much of what separates the best from the mediocre. In competition, the dynamic is often painfully transparent. If one player is serenely present while the other is being ripped apart by internal issues, the outcome is already clear. The prey is no longer objective, makes compounding mistakes, and the predator moves in for the kill."

Further Reading

"Further reading: Chapter 5: The Power of Presence, Chapter 6: The Downward Spiral"

 

Edited January 2 by integral

[hyruga]

Swami mukundaanada once said if something negatively affects you, try to hold back on your outburst.

If it's positive, you can share it immediately.

Edited January 8 by hyruga