EXERCISE 12.1
Impulse Control
Putting on the Brakes
Purpose
To learn what causes impulsiveness and learn a strategy for responding constructively under stress.
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20 minutes
This exercise provides a good understanding of why we react impulsively and gives a simple method for putting on the brakes when you feel your fuse is so short that you might boil over!
Outcomes
- Understand what causes impulsiveness
- Learn a practice for defusing impulsiveness
Audience
- Member of an intact team
- Member of an unaffiliated group
- Individual working with a coach
Facilitator Competencies 
Easy
Materials
- Putting on the Brakes Handout
Time Matrix
| Activity | Estimated Time |
| Discuss impulse control | 10 minutes |
| Practice three-step exercise | 10 minutes |
| Total Time | 20 minutes |
Instructions
1. Distribute the Putting on the Brakes Handout and discuss impulse control with your participants. The first part of the handout will provide support.
2. Guide them to practice the three-step process presented in the handout.
About Impulse Control
Impulse Control is sometimes called “the brakes” of emotional intelligence because it is a skill that helps us keep ourselves from doing things that we probably should not do. Understanding what motivates our behavior in the first place, however, is a critical component of being able to control it. At the most basic level of our humanness, the biological level, we operate very much like a computer. The physical body with all its various structures, types of tissues, and organ systems corresponds to the hardware. There are two kinds of software that run this unit. The operating system and boot disk instructions are more or less standardized for every individual, being hardwired in genetic memory as reflexes, instincts, and drives. Our eyes blink, our muscles contract, we gasp or cry out in pain, surprise, or fear, we shiver when we’re cold. These are examples of reflexes. Instincts, or drives to satisfy biological and/or evolutionary needs, include the desire to eat, drink, stay warm, and procreate.
Our bodies are born with these instructions already operating or ready to go with our first breaths; however, then the far more complex and significant part of our programming begins. It’s our own personal software development project called: Learning How to Stay Alive! Of course, this includes basics like learning to walk and talk, will but it also includes learning what to value, what to go after, what to avoid, and the appropriate kinds of behavior to use in our efforts to acquire and avoid. Remember that emotions are all about value, which is what they indicate and communicate. For young children, learning the value of sharing means controlling the impulse to take what you want when you want it so you can enjoy it right now! Some people never learn this.
Your Practice
This brief practice will help you clear your sensory system when you start to feel impulsive. When you notice the tension and stress building up that can cause you to react impulsively, do three things:
- First, take your own emotional pulse! Fill in the blanks with this language pattern: “I feel_____________, because_______________.”
- Second, take a really deep breath of air through your nose and just let it rush out through your mouth. then keep exhaling through your mouth for as long as you possibly can. As you have less and less air in your lungs, it will take more intentional effort from your diaphragm to keep exhaling. That’s okay. Keep on pressing gently until there is absolutely no more air left and you absolutely must inhale. Inhale through your nose and continue breathing freely and easily in whatever manner is comfortable.
- Third, ask yourself: “What is the very best possible outcome that can happen in this situation?” and see what occurs to you.
Taking your emotional pulse gives you some reality testing—you clarify what you’re feeling and why you feel that way. Taking the very deep breath and exhaling it completely interrupts much of the physiological momentum that can build up and lead to an impulsive release. Thinking cognitively again takes your attention out of the emotional circuitry once more and helps you target the optimal outcome. Even though that best solution may not be available, it can help you see new options you are overlooking, and at least you’ll be much less likely to react destructively than you were before.