Harms of self-discipline
This article by Dr Piotr Wozniak is part of SuperMemo Guru series on memory, learning, creativity, and problem solving.
Dangers of self-coercion
Self-discipline can be extremely harmful to mental and physical health. The power of the rational brain has been driven to incredible levels. The cortex can override natural defense signals that protect the body from harm. The cortex can interfere with healthy homeostasis.
In this text, I would like to focus on harms of self-discipline that is advocated by alleged "experts" in self-help and psychology. Some of self-discipline mythology has set its root deep in the modern culture. Only a systematic uprooting of all individual mythical advice can mitigate the harm.
Reward yourself
Schools excel at rewarding students for pointless learning. In schooling, we replace the innate learn drive that powers coherent learning with a school drive (i.e. system of rewards and penalties based on performance). In the re-education camps of the Soviet Union, food portions would be assigned in proportion to performance (e.g. production quota). At school, accolades are due to those with good grades. Even smiles and frowns from teachers and parents are associated with grades. The old-and-tried approach is to interleave unpleasant learning with rewards. A few minutes of pointless homework followed by something nice (e.g. a YouTube video). A few minutes of cramming, followed by candy, and so on. This type of operant conditioning runs on the same principles as animal training. Even a pigeon can learn simple math. However, a pigeon will have no contribution to human innovation.
Many self-discipline gurus have adopted that strategy to make people push themselves to work harder even if their brains protest. With a bit of self-discipline and reward, a high achiever will push himself into reading 300 boring books on success, economics, and money. That rubbery brain diet is unpalatable for an unreceptive brain. The educational effect is negligible. Very often, in an act of violent disinhibition, the same individual may give up reading for years. If the brain does not provide a reward, the activity is unlikely to be productive. This is particularly visible in learning. See: Fundamental Law of Learning.
Polyphasic sleep
As of 2002, I battled a pernicious myth of polyphasic sleep. Dozens of young men (rarely women), inflicted incredible harm on their sleep control system. The core of the myth was the alleged ability of the brain to adapt to sleeping a mere 2-3 hours per day. The execution of the plan leading to the mythical Edison sleep was based on futile grit. A young man would torture himself to sleep polyphasically for weeks or months awaiting adaptation. The adaptation would never come as it is biologically impossible. Each individual would have to slay the myth for himself along with thousand of brain cells responsible for the control of sleep (see: How do we fall asleep?).
I immodestly claim that I had a strong contribution to slaying the polyphasic sleep myth. This humorous ancient text (2005) belongs to one of my proudest achievements in the service of better sleep, health and learning for the young generation. Polyphasic sleep is probably the best illustration of futile grit that should rather be called stupid grit. For more see: Polyphasic sleep myths.
Dopamine detox
Dopamine detox or dopamine fasting is a period in which an individual gives up trivial pleasurable pursuits such as social media, fast food, Netflix, pornography, alcohol, etc. The purpose of the detox is to give the brain a chance to sense natural pleasures that may be less intense, e.g. beauty of nature, conversation with a friend, good sleep, or making orders at home.
The concept makes sense when making orders in a messy life. However, when the detox is extended to self-discipline in learning, it neglects the quintessential truth that good learning is highly pleasurable. Dopamine detox might then employ futile grit for the sake of unpleasant learning, which is a norm for a typical student in a typical school. This is very harmful! This obscures the need to adhere to the Fundamental Law of Learning. Learning must be pleasurable. We need to cherish the instincts of the learn drive. Otherwise, we will become insensitive to the pleasure of learning as much as a shift-worker loses the ability to sense high quality sleep, or a yo-yo dieter loses the sense of healthy nutrition. Learning is its best reward and it needs no tools akin to drug rehabilitation.
After long year of schooling, it is hard to enjoy learning. Dopamine detox might increase one's responsiveness to the pleasure of learning. It may help one make first baby steps on a new road. However, it won't ever remedy the harm of cramming for exams. In good learning, we need the opposite strategy:
Victorious self-sacrifice
People who seek happiness often end up unhappy. Those who seek comfort tend to mess up their lives. Those observations lead to a self-help suggestion to never take the path of least resistance.
In the world of human optimizations, we often assume linear relationships. If a little bit of self-sacrifice improves the outcomes, more self-sacrifice is supposed to be beneficial. As it often is the case in similar circumstances, the relationships is non-linear. In terms of self-sacrifice, we have to observe two things:
- a tiny bit of pain may improve chances of success in self-coercion. See: optimum push zone
- as we arm the mind with knowledge and re-condition the mind towards productivity, the degree of necessary sacrifice keeps decreasing
Instead of encouraging self-flagellation, we should rather seek high productivity based on high pleasure. People of success often insist they work hard, they sleep little, and their road to the top was a road through hell. They do not appreciate or do not reveal how much pleasure they encountered on the same road. Very often, a degree of pain itself may be pleasurable. When we look at Elon Musk's tired young face, we may suffer an illusion that pain defines genius and high achievement. However, it is the struggle with problems that makes Elon thrive. Problems make Elon happy not because they are hard. They make him happy because his mind is armed with all necessary knowledge and skills to tackle them.
The true formula for high productivity rests in reconditioning the mind to love hard work. That reconditioning requires incremental progress in which minor steps of minor pain lead to significant rewards. In problem solving, we do not seek hardest problems. We look for the goldilocks zone of maximum returns (see: Problem valuation network). This is why schools fail to teach problem solving skills. Problem valuation is individual and cannot be imposed from above. Those who preach self-discipline, goals, obstacles, hard work, never giving up and self-sacrifice, will often send young men into a burnout or depression.
For the incremental reconditioning towards enjoying hard work, we need to retain sensitivity of the brain to signals of pleasure and pain. This is why hard labor and high pain are injurious. They destroy the precious guidance system. Even the hardest workaholic will tell you that you need to love what you do if you want to be successful.
5 am workout
Early morning workout has been glorified for decades. I was also mesmerized by Rocky who could drag his heavy behind from bed before sunrise and do his miles in a thick hoodie. When I tried to replicated the feat, I suffered serious dehydration, first round loss in a boxing fight, and a week of irregular heartbeat.
A decade later I was smarter. When I started studying computer science, I had a well disciplined plan to attend all lectures, soak in knowledge and be a Straight A student. Soon, I discovered that getting up at 7 am is pretty painful. During my morning lectures I was more ready to sleep than to learn. Lectures became a sheer waste of time. However, I found a solution. Instead of going to school by bus, I would run. I would arrive hot and sweaty, take a cold "shower" (in a toilet sink), and be brisk and ready for the first lecture. Fresh air and adrenaline have a miraculous impact on the brain. Unfortunately, by the time of the second lecture, my freshness would be gone and my run would only make me doubly sleepy. It did not take long for me to discover that getting good sleep is more important for brainwork than lectures or jogging.
With each decade, I made minor adjustment to my exercise schedule, and arrived at the day when my ideal time for exercise is the 4th hour of the day (see: circadian phase). There is no other time of day that exercise makes sense (for me).
For those who need to get to work early, there are some benefits to 5 am workout. However, it can only be considered helpful if the sleep cycle is adapted to getting up at 4 am without an alarm clock. Moreover, early workout increases the risk of injury. It also takes away the best creative slot that is best consumed without exercise or while walking.
I have no statistics and can only make a wild guess that for most people engaging in 5 am workout, there is a great deal of harm accompanying the well-know benefits. For the workout to make sense, it must follow natural waking and it must be reasonably enjoyable (incl. the pleasure of pain). It should also result in a net boost to brain power in the hours that follow. Sadly, this rarely seems to be the case. The main indicator of trouble among my colleagues who engage in early workout are injuries and fatigue.
Early rising
Early rising is very popular among high achievers. Early rising may be conducive for high productivity. However, for early rising to be beneficial, it needs to be healthy. If early rising involves an alarm clock, it is a violation of sleep hygiene. Healthy rising must come with a natural termination of sleep, and must be based on a correct circadian alignment. It is true that the stress of alarm clock can whip in some self-discipline. However, if this discipline contributes to accelerated neuronal death, esp. in control systems responsible for the defense against unhealthy behaviors, we may observe an increase in short-term productivity that consumes longevity and lifelong productivity.
For more see: Natural creativity cycle
Avoid the snooze button
People who interrupt their sleep with the alarm clock experience a serious war of the networks in the morning. Their brain screams for sleep, while their self-discipline calls for getting up. From a biological point of view, it is very hard to say if a snooze makes sense. It depends on too many variables. A very short snooze may be harmful as it can result in a further disruption and a battle with the sleep control system. On the other hand, a longer snooze might make it possible to run a full cycle of sleep with some positive effect. A very shallow wake may be less disruptive than getting wide awake for half a minute. All those detailed analysis make little sense, however, in the light of the only healthy strategy:
In the era when the most precious property of the brain is creativity, violations of the natural creativity cycle are undermining personal long-term success. Neither alarm nor a snooze button have place in a healthy lifestyle equation. If they combine with the idea that early rising improves self-discipline and self-discipline is the key to success, we may actually end up with a formula for the accelerated aging of the brain. This is how self-discipline may have a hand in neurodegenerative disorders. See: Bad learning contributes to Alzheimer's
Employ delayed gratification
Productivity gurus will tell you to integrate delayed gratification. However, when it comes to learning, creativity, or problem solving, the opposite rule should be employed: if you feel passionate about working on a problem, do it now. Passions are volatile. Forgetting undermines strategies and productivity. The highest achievement is often a result of an inspirational moment. It can be incredibly rewarding and pleasurable. This is the type of instant gratification we should embrace and cherish. It has nothing to do with gobbling a creamy cake.
Do not nap
Tony Robbins tells you to replace a nap urge with push ups. This advice makes sense only in some contexts, esp. if you are in an environment that makes napping impossible. My contrary rule that should rather take precedence is to replace a nap urge with a fresh mind by … taking a nap (see: Biphasic life). Pushups provide a dose of adrenaline, which can energize the mind for a moment. However, adrenaline does not remedy the Swiss cheese problem. Cortical performance deficits can partly be remedied by rest or change of activity. However, they are best remedied with slow wave sleep. Doing pushups is not different than whipping a tired horse. Even a dying horse can make that one last spurt. However, the brain does not like to be whipped, and all whipping in the Swiss cheese state can have negative consequences for neuronal health. Even if you do not care about long-term brain health, your creative productivity at the moment can also be dramatically improved with a nap.
Napping should be avoided at times when it could affect the circadian cycle. See: Best time for napping. In particular, late evening naps are particularly harmful. When there is a productivity drop due to a dip in alertness at circadian phase 10 or later, the best strategy is to give up important mental work for the day. The right strategy is to survive the rest of the day with intellectually unchallenging activities (e.g. walk, socializing, etc.).
When productivity gurus tell you not to nap, or advise dozens of strategies that will help you survive without napping, you know that they are not to familiar with the mechanics of the creative brain. Instead, see: Power nap.
Keep reiterating goals
The idea of sitting down to re-list one's goals seems like an important component of a self-disciplined ritual. However, it begs the questions: if goals are important, why would they need to be reiterated? Goals are essential in well-directed action as they power the entire knowledge valuation tree. However, if they are consistently worked on, they seem to become so well integrated with one's thoughts and behaviors that they need no self-discipline or reminder. I tend to believe that if one needs to keep reviewing one's goal list, there is an inherent problem with valuations. The mere act of reiteration seems like a form of coercion on oneself. When it comes to goals, the extent of the push zone should probably be just about zero. I would naturally provide an exception to fresh graduates and drop outs who have been lead by the hand for too long. Nothing kills goal valuations more efficiently than the interference from people and institutions who impose goals on an individual.
TV abstinence
For many people, TV is an awful waste of time. Those who throw away a TV set to purify their life may reap a great deal of benefit. However, TV is also a source of great education. When combined with incremental video, it can form a fantastic complement to incremental reading. When I study memory or sleep, I do not bank on TV. However, when it comes to learning history, which is just a hobby, few sources can compete with National Geographic or History Channel. When a self-help guru tells you to stop watching TV, he may violate the rule of employing the optimum push zone in self-discipline. It is far easier to make incremental changes in one's life. A better rule might be to stop watching reality TV, soap operas, or game shows. Or to stop watching TV live so that it did not dictate the schedule. A bit of fun TV before sleep may actually be healthier than self-disciplined reading of a book about "financial success".
Throwing away a TV set is a bit like closing a library just because most of the bookshelves are loaded with trash. Admittedly, I committed a similar radical throw-away act. I threw away the concept of a car from my life. In my eyes, however, the benefits far outweigh costs. After years of abstinence, the costs are really not perceivable. As always, everyone needs to make similar decisions using the best guidance of his knowledge valuation network, colloquially known as "the nose".
Self-discipline at school
Discipline and self-discipline at school are good for grades, accolades, and certificates (see: Dangers of being a Straight A student). On the other hand, self-discipline is awful for the love of learning. As a result, it systematically erodes student's ability to employ the learn drive in efficient learning. In the long-run, compulsory schooling undermines lifelong learning, adaptation to social life, and healthy productivity. Compulsory schooling has a major contribution to addictions, depression, and other mental health disorders. Compulsory schooling must end.
See Alfie Kohn's: Self-discipline at school
Further reading
See: Formula for healthy self-discipline