Day 175: On Improving Self-Control by Using Your Other Hand
Using the mouse, stirring your coffee, opening doors. This requires people to practice self-control because their habitual tendency is to use their dominant hands.
One interesting exercise to improve your self-control is to start using your other hand for the things you usually do with your dominant one. For example, use your non-dominant hand for brushing your teeth, pouring drinks into a cup, washing yourself, doing the dishes, opening jars, stirring coffee, or opening doors.
Psychologist Thomas Denson had people use their non-dominant hand for two weeks for any task that was safe to do that way. After two weeks, people in the group using the non-dominant hand controlled their aggression better.
What does it have to do with self-control? It’s because aggression, or virtually any other thing you control by exerting self-discipline, is an impulse. Just like you automatically open doors with your dominant hand, so do you impulsively reply with anger, grab a cookie, or choose the elevator instead of the stairs.
Conscious change in your automatic behaviors, such as intentionally using your non-dominant hand, can then help you improve your ability to control impulses, and by extension, make
you more self-disciplined. I know, it’s a wild theory, but why not try it? Even if it only produces small improvements, it’s still a fun experiment.