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Surprising Science

The Secrets of Self-Control

We all know people who have remarkable self-control. How do they do it? What’s the secret? It’s partly genetic, but to control yourself you must also control your environment.

We all know people who have remarkable self-control. How do they do it? Most of us, in some sense, have remarkable self-control. We aren’t throwing ourselves at one another in the streets, or slapping the boss when we’re pissed off, or otherwise behaving as if we’re guided only by raw instinct. But clearly some people have more success than others do at regulating their appetites. What’s the secret? I’m afraid it’s partly genetic, but fortunately that’s not the whole story. If you want to do a better job in this arena, the short answer is that to control yourself you must control your environment.


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