Episode 35: How to Build Impulse Control and Why It Matters

In this episode,

Lizzie digs into the skill of impulse control, how to know if there is an impulse you need to control and how to learn to build your impulse control muscles.

Listen now

Listen on Spotify

Post-pod questions to consider

Have you ever kept a mood journal? What did you learn about yourself?

Episode Transcript

Hey, you're listening to Midnight Philosopher with Lizzie. Thanks for tuning in. 

Today I'm going to talk about impulse control. Impulse control is so important. It's the process of stopping and thinking before acting. Oftentimes, controlling your impulses is helpful in relationships, in work, and in school. When someone says something that makes you angry, you might have the impulse to lash out at them with a mean and personal remark. But stopping yourself from making the remark preserves the longevity of the relationship. 

Impulses are for the short-term benefit and gain and a short-term relief, but controlling those impulses is often better for longer term benefits and results. For example, saying a mean remark to someone might feel instantly good, but long-term it would impact the relationship with that person and having a worse relationship with that person in the long term might not feel so great. 

Impulse control has been a necessary skill for people ever since humans existed, and it's a skill to preserve relationships. Even if you wanted to punch someone in the face in the time of caveman, if you didn't do that, the other person was more likely to help you hunt later. Impulse control helps with survival, and it helps with keeping relationships. 

I greatly struggle with impulse control on a personal level and have also worked with clients as a therapist who struggle with impulse control. First, I'll talk a little bit about my clients and then I'll talk about myself. 

There was an 8-year-old boy that I worked with years ago who was always getting up out of his class, out of his seat. During class, he often threw objects when he was angry, and he sometimes yelled at his teacher and friends. These are all examples that this child had difficulty controlling his impulses. 

In therapy, we worked a lot on impulse control. We played a variety of games to help with learning to control impulses. We played hide-and-seek, which is an essential game for learning to control impulse. Children have to hide and practice impulse control until they're found. This child would hide and practice holding his impulses to speak or to move around, and this skill was directly linked to the skills he needed to learn in the classroom. Of course, I tried to make hide-and-seek fun. Kids are much more likely to learn skills, or really anyone, if they're enjoying the process or seeing the benefit of it. 

We also played an obstacle course game where we each had to take turns completing the obstacle course. Again, this helped him with his impulse control and learning to wait his turn. He had to patiently wait for me to complete the obstacle course before he could go again, and I did struggle with the obstacle course, so he had to be very patient. 

These might just seem like fun games, but after a couple of months, his mom and teacher reported that he was "doing much better in school" at paying attention and sitting in a seat. Games are not just games, they're a way of life, a way to learn and a way to control impulses. To check out more on this topic, check out Episode 7 on the Importance of Play. 

In addition to working with clients who struggle with impulse control, I too have had a lot of trouble with impulse control. I have a couple mental health conditions that impact impulse control, as well as my brain is just wired to have difficulty with it. 

One time in my early twenties, I was working on becoming friends with people. I used to send text after text after text, and to be honest, sometimes I still struggle with this, but it is rightfully so very annoying to some people, and especially people I was starting to be friends with. My long-term friends at the time understood that I did this when I was excited, worried, or interested about something, but my new friends found my texting annoying and intrusive. 

It was very difficult for me to break this habit, but I started to tackle the habit by stopping myself and practicing impulse control in several ways. First, I used a harm-reduction strategy. Instead of texting one person many texts, I resorted to texting many people one text. While this was not entirely better, my new friends did become less frustrated with me because they only received one text. 
I started journaling every day, which helped me with texting as well. I needed to get my thoughts out, but I realized I could do that on my own time. While I was still seeking connection, at least journaling helped me with getting my thoughts out there. 

Finally, for a time, I started limiting texting to asking friends to hang out or for logistical reasons. I've slipped on and off with this throughout the years, but especially with new friends, this seems to have better results. I'm a much better friend in person than text, so when we meet up, we strengthened our relationship in the way that I was hoping text would do. 

Another time I struggle with impulse control, and I'd like to insert a trigger warning here for self-harm is when I had the urge to harm myself. I never cut although I wanted to, but I did let my dog when she was a puppy chew on my arm to the point that when I showed my therapist, she was very concerned and alarmed. 

I did also go through a period of drinking too much than was good for me and slightly banging my head on the wall or the back of a car seat when I was frustrated. These impulses were not only unhelpful, but actually pretty dangerous for me. These impulses also took a lot more work to get under control. I felt self-loathing or the need to release feelings and didn't have other coping skills at the time to do so. 

I started by keeping a mood diary by the recommendation of my therapist, which I absolutely hated at the time, but it was very helpful for gaining insight into my patterns and behaviors. Three times a day, I would check in with myself. I would write down how my body was feeling, and rate the ten common emotions. On a scale of one to ten. The ten emotions being joy, love, anger, sadness, fear, jealousy, envy, shame, guilt, and disgust. I noticed that when I was feeling especially sad or full of shame, that I had the urge to self-harm even more, and shame led to a cycle of self-harm, which led to more shame. Noticing and bringing self-awareness to my emotions was the first step. 

So what can you do to help yourself with impulse control? How can you begin to notice if you struggle with impulse control in the first place? Usually, you'll know you struggle with impulse control if you regret your actions soon after doing them. For example, if you regret buying that expensive coat or saying a mean thing to a friend and you immediately regret doing it, it might be helpful to work on your impulse control. 

If you can, make working on impulse control fun. Just like hide-and-seek is fun for a kid, think of something that might be fun for you to practice impulse control. This can be anything from, if I accomplish this errand or task, I can watch my favorite YouTube video, or I can get a coffee from my favorite coffee shop. Or it could be pausing a TV show you really like in the middle and writing an email you need to write, knowing you can come back to the show. 

If your impulse control is causing harm in your life or you're worried about it. I highly recommend seeking the help of a professional therapist. My therapist helped me with the mood journal and helped me learn healthy coping skills to regulate my emotions instead of impulsively self-harming. You can start with keeping a mood journal of your emotions too. Write down the ten emotions and then three times a day, I used to do meal times, write down on a scale of one to ten how you're feeling with each emotion. Again, the ten emotions are joy, love, anger, sadness, fear, jealousy, envy, shame, guilt, and disgust. 

Also rate how you feel in your body. Over time, you can start to notice patterns. For example, you might feel more sad at night, and that's when it's harder to control your impulses, or you might feel your heart racing in the morning, and that is when you have harmful urges. 

In this episode, I talked about impulse control. I talked about learning to control your impulses through fun and games. I also talked about using harm-reduction techniques and healthy coping skills such as journaling and seeking connection in appropriate way to control impulses. And if you want to look more into how to help have healthy relationships, you can check out Episode 21, which is all about Setting Boundaries. 

Finally, I talked about how seeking the help of a professional therapist can be really beneficial, especially if your impulses are dangerous to yourself or causing yourself harm. And I would like to insert a suicide warning trigger. If you have suicidal impulses, please go to your nearest emergency room, call 911, or contact the suicide hotline at 988, either through text or calling. Again, the suicide hotline is 988. 

Well, thanks so much for listening tonight. I'm going to go clean my kitchen and then listen to my favorite song, follow me on Instagram @TheMidnightPhilosopher. Have a good night.