The Science behind Discipline
Where does discipline come from and how can you harness it
What if I told you discipline is easy to master, and anyone can apply discipline with minimal effort? Most people think discipline is something non-tangible, and only those with insane mindsets can be disciplined, I mean you hear it all the time with stories on social media about someone running on broken feet or swimming an unfathomable distance, or people completing marathons with minimal training. While these are all examples of discipline they fail to show the behind-the-scenes, science behind the discipline, and all the build-up to achieve their current mindset because truthfully no one is built that way. My aim with this newsletter is to educate you about the science behind the discipline, how it benefits us, and how you can apply it in your life.
“Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but nonetheless doing it like you love it”- Mike Tyson
Firstly, like with any topic I cover, let’s go over the definition of discipline. The literal translation of discipline is the practice of training people (or yourself) to obey rules or codes of behaviour. A more applicable and relevant definition would be discipline is training and regimenting yourself (in our context) to obey and follow certain routines or exhibit certain behaviours through constant action.
The key words there are certain routines or behaviours, and regimenting ourselves. Discipline is shown through the regimentation of ourselves, constantly keeping our minds in check and foregoing initial pleasure for a greater reward. Discipline is the gap as well as the bridge between ideas and results, and works in duality with our daily actions. Without the right actions, we won’t improve in the manner that we want to, but without discipline, we won’t act how we want to. Discipline, or the lack thereof, is blocking you from achieving what you desire. All the success is blocked by the lack of discipline (apart from external factors). Success isn't doing extraordinary things, it’s doing ordinary things extraordinarily well every single day.
Before I explain how you can apply discipline and the strategies to help you implement it into your daily life, we need to first go over the science behind it, what happens in our brain and the benefits of discipline.
Science behind Discipline
Discipline starts in the mind, and is exerted externally through our thoughts and how they control our actions. Looking at the neuroscience behind the discipline, we find that there are two different areas of the brain, the limbic system and the frontal cortex, which is what makes it difficult for us to get out of bed and start studying. The limbic system is an unconscious zone in your brain that is responsible for pleasure. The limbic system is tied to our behavioural and emotional responses, especially survival instincts. The thalamus, hypothalamus (production of important hormones and regulation of thirst, hunger, mood, etc.) and basal ganglia (reward processing, habit formation, movement and learning) are also involved in the actions of the limbic system.
The frontal cortex, more specifically the prefrontal cortex, is often associated with decision-making and planning. This may indicate that this area of our brain is the part that allows us to realise the value of being patient, as we make that conscious decision to wait rather than act impulsively. Furthermore, analytical studies on people who are addicted to drugs such as methamphetamine or heroin found that there is reduced activity in their prefrontal cortex, suggesting that part of their difficulty in quitting might be due to the decreased ability to make better decisions.
When deciding between short and long-term rewards, another part becomes active: the limbic system. As mentioned, The limbic system comprises several structures and is responsible for responses akin to the gut feelings we sometimes get. The limbic system prioritises survival, so when we see a valuable reward, our limbic system pushes for us to get it, in a more primitive approach, by telling us to chase the feel-good things and avoid those that feel bad. This is how our brain chooses the path of least resistance, and makes us avoid tasks or actions that cause pain and discomfort even if they result in a greater reward. Now our limbic system is working against our frontal cortex, in a battle between instant and delayed gratification. Our frontal cortex, which is active when planning and decision-making, perceives the benefits of going through uncomfortable and tedious actions to achieve a greater reward, however, our limbic system is only looking at the short-term rewards, such as the dopamine surge you feel when you scroll through Instagram or play video games. This is what causes the conflict between the two ‘voices’ in our head on whether to relax or study.
The Scientific Benefits of Discipline
Stanford Marshmallow Experiment
Scientist and psychologist Walter Mischel from Stanford conducted an experiment to measure the self-control/discipline of preschoolers. In the experiment, the participants were presented with the choice of eating either one or two marshmallows. The catch here was the experimenter would leave the room, leaving the child with the less appealing choice, the one marshmallow. After a period of around 15 minutes, the child could get two marshmallows.
The experiment was designed to measure not only self-control but also the delay of gratification. The study found around 1/3 of the children waited for the second marshmallow. Mischel then checked in with the participants after 10 years and found that children who showed self-control were, in adolescence, seemingly more verbally fluent, attentive, competent, skilful, academically successful, socially adept and better with dealing with their emotions, such as frustration. Additionally, a correlation was also revealed between the amount of time that the children could restrain themselves and their SAT scores.
Duckworth and Seligman 2005
In a longitudinal study conducted in 2005, psychologists compared the effect of discipline and self-control students had on their academic success. The study initially took 140 middle school students, who were surveyed on their habits, patterns and characteristics. Their parents and teachers were also surveyed to gain reports on the students. This was then used to make a ranking based on discipline and self-control, which was later used to predict the academic rankings of the students. The study found that the higher-ranking students in self-control and disciplinary metrics were also high-ranking in their academics. The psychologists were able to predict effectively the students’ final grades, school attendance and overall academic ranking based on their self-control and discipline.
This experiment was again repeated with a larger sample size of now 164 students. This time the students were put through a behavioral delayed gratification task, a survey on their study habits and an IQ test. Again the students were ranked based on the results of these surveys and tests, which were used to predict final grades, attendance and academic success.
In both studies, results showed that the students with higher academic success were high-ranking in terms of self-control and discipline. Furthermore, the experiment also showed that the self-discipline of the students was more than twice as much relevant as IQ was in final grades, attendance, hours doing homework as well as time when starting homework. In addition to this, self-discipline was also inversely correlated to the time students spent watching TV or engaging in other forms of procrastination.
Solutions
Discipline is quite an abstract topic. It isn’t something you can physically feel or see, nor can you show it off, because true discipline happens when no one else is around. Everyone knows to be disciplined, and to be in complete control of themselves, but seldom do they follow what they say. I can’t tell you or give you an exact mental model or framework on how to build discipline, but I can give a foundation, what has helped me so far, so you can have some advice to take away and put into use.
Find your driving factor
The key difference between discipline and motivation is that motivation is fleeting. It is a momentary solution to a chronic problem. You constantly hear people say not to rely on motivation, because it is not sustainable, it won’t help you follow through when you need to. This is where the drive comes in. Your drive and your purpose are your central reasons for pushing through tough times and doing tasks when you don't want to. It really doesn’t matter what it is, it just matters that it’s important to you.
An example of this could be that you want to be at the top of your class, or get better results in each test you do. It could also be more general, to be better than you were yesterday or to make your parents proud. Whatever it is, it needs to remind you of why you are doing all of this, and what your goal and purpose for doing all of the hard stuff.
A common pitfall people make, and one I made, is basing it on the perspective of other people. Ensure that whatever your drive is, it is unmovable and unchangeable. It is as solid as a rock, and no matter what anyone says, it will still remain true. If you base your drive or purpose on other people, it will be fragile because it’s dependent on the perception and opinions of others, an external factor that you cannot control. I made this same mistake, caring about what other people thought, and in turn, it made me overlook what was important to me.
Create an environment for discipline
Instead of looking at discipline as an internal factor, we can flip the switch and look at it from an external point of view. Having a cleaner room puts you in the mood to work, having an organized bookshelf makes you more likely to read, etc. Studies have shown that environment plays a fundamental role in the way we exhibit self-control, and environment often has a greater impact than pure self-control does.
Take the 1971 case study done on heroin-addicted soldiers by Lee Robins. During 1971, there was concern that a large amount of returning soldiers would come back addicted to narcotics and bring a larger exposure of drug abuse to the general public. Robins decided to conduct a study on the number of soldiers addicted before, during and after returning from the war. What he found contradicted the general notion at the time. Numbers showed that during the war, around 34% of soldiers had used heroin, and around 20% showed signs of heroin dependency. However, once the soldiers came back only 7% still used heroin, and an even lower ~1% were still addicted.
This surprised many scientists and psychologists at the time as it was thought addiction to drugs was irreversible. Rather what this study exposed was that addictions and our actions are a product of the environment we are in. The soldiers were addicted due to the stress-inducing environment of war that they were in. Couple that with the fact that all their friends in the war were also using heroin, which created the ideal grounds for drug usage. Yet when they returned the numbers dropped because they were in a drastically different environment, without the stress factors or drug culture.
What we can take away from this is that to change our habits and actions, instead of trying to brute force our way to mastering self-control, we can make it easier by changing our environment. If you want to be productive, rather than having a cluttered workspace, tidy your desk and organise your drawers, which will help encourage you to work. If you want to read more, instead of having a dusty bookshelf in the corner of your room, clean and organise your bookshelf and place it in a part of your room where you will see it every day. My bookshelf is in front of my bed, so every morning I wake up I see it. This way I know each morning to read a chapter of whatever book I’m reading, ensuring I won’t forget.
Some may recognise this technique from the book Atomic Habits because I took some inspiration from that book. The study I included is also mentioned in the book, and to greater effect, so if you are keen on going further into habit creation and ideation I highly recommend Atomic Habits.
Shift Your Mindset
As much as a discipline can be influenced externally by your environment, it is still influenced internally. A study conducted on a group of people aimed to find the effect of mindset on the body. A group of people were taken and shown videos that promoted the idea of stress being a negative emotion and detrimental to your body, listing out all the effects stress can have on your body. Another group of people were shown the opposite, sets of videos that explained why stress is good for you and how it benefits the mind and body. What they found was that the group that was shown the benefits of stress experienced those benefits, whilst the group that watched the negative videos was shown to experience adverse effects when placed under stress
This study shows how the mind plays a major part in us and the body, and if your mentality or belief isn’t correct then you are going to be working against yourself. Before you start to do a task that you don’t want to do, tell yourself why it is that you need to do it. How it will help you, and list all the benefits of that task. This way your brain automatically associates the task with good emotions and benefits, and naturally you are more inclined to do it. Remember the goal with self-control is to use as little self-control as possible.
If you want to study, but keep procrastinating, list out all the reasons why you need to study and the benefits. Studying will boost your grades, it will help you get higher marks in exams, sharpen your mind, help you enhance your mental capacity etc. By telling yourself all this you trick your mind into working for you instead of against you.
Starting Small
Another big mistake people make when trying to be disciplined is they start big. They list all these things they want to start doing, what they want to achieve, and how they will do it. What ends up happening is that they get overwhelmed, or can’t keep up with the immense amount of tasks they have set up. The mind is a muscle and needs to be slowly built and strengthened. A good way of looking at this is to think of discipline as a personal skill you need to level up. The more you practice it the more it will level up.
You can’t expect yourself to start reading 3 chapters a day when you aren’t already into a habit of reading. Discipline starts small, so instead of reading 3 chapters a day, make it a goal to read 5 pages daily. What you will find, or at least what I found, is that slowly you will build momentum. After a few days, 5 pages a day will become 10, after a few weeks 10 pages will become 20 and so on.
This is even more prevalent in studies. Let’s say your end goal is to study 5 hours a day, but right now you may not even study every day. To build up to your end goal start small to build your focus. Make sure you study 30 minutes each day, then week by week increase it by 30 minutes or an hour. Each week build up your discipline, don’t jump to the end state otherwise you risk burning yourself out completely.
Conclusion
This article is intended to show and hopefully make you guys understand what discipline is, where it comes from and why it is so important for us. Hopefully, you took something away from this article and learnt something new about discipline that you can apply to your own life.
By explaining the neuroscience behind discipline and the scientific benefits of discipline I aim to create a better understanding of discipline and hopefully help push you to be more disciplined. The solutions I listed such as starting small and shifting your mindset are actionable steps you can implement into your life right now, whether it be in studies, sports, finance or other fields.
Discipline is an abstract topic, as discipline is not a physical thing you can see, nor is it something you show off. Discipline is developed when no one else is watching, it’s what you do when you don’t want to do anything when you don’t get any immediate reward. It is difficult to build discipline, and it isn’t a glorified road but in the end, it will benefit you and your life.
If you found this post helpful please consider sharing and subscribing as it helps me grow this account and reach more people, enabling me to help more students and expand my reach of knowledge. As always if you have any feedback please let me know in the comments as it helps me create better and fresher content for you guys.
Thank you for reading,
NotSoTopStudent.
Refrences
Abdaal, A. (2024, April 12). 5 Easy Ways to Become More Self-Disciplined. YouTube.
Author links open overlay panelNicholas Burger a, a, b, c, AbstractSelf-control problems have recently received considerable attention from economic theorists. We conducted two studies involving behavioral interventions expected to affect performance, Fischer, C., Perret, E., Shapiro, J., Ainslie, G., Akerlof, G., Amir, O., Angrist, J., Ariely, D., Ashraf, N., Baumeister, R., Bénabou, R., Burger, N., Charness, G., Cook, T., … Frederick, S. (2010, December 8). Field and online experiments on self-control. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268110002337
By, Navidad, A. E., on, U., 7, S., & Philosophy, A. E. N. P. E. B. A. (2023, September 7). Marshmallow test experiment in psychology. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/marshmallow-test.html
Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits: The life-changing million copy bestseller. Random House.
Duckworth, A. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2017, September). The science and practice of self-control. Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5626575/
M;, H. W. (n.d.). Lee Robins’ studies of heroin use among US Vietnam veterans. Addiction (Abingdon, England). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27650054/#:~:text=Robins’%20studies%20found%20high%20rates,the%20drug%20after%20their%20return.
Williamson, C. (2023, December 4). The Science Of Building Extreme Discipline - Andrew Huberman. YouTube.
Afterwords
This is a new segment, which I haven’t done before but thought it was necessary to explain a few things. Firstly, sorry once again for the extended break I got caught up in life and couldn’t give my full attention to this article. I don’t want to write if I can’t give my full focus, and I wish to provide you, the readers, with my best efforts.
As you guys may be able to tell, I am using a new format for my articles to segment the different pieces of information I am conveying. I hope this makes it more coherent and cohesive, but as always if you have anything you think I could improve on or change please let me know in the comments below so I can give you the best and most tailored content.
I will try and post a bit more regularly and try to be more active on my Instagram, @NotSoTopStudent but again thank you the readers for all the support so far.
-NotSoTopStudent