Surfing is not about catching every wave that comes your way. Surfers spend a lot of time in the water, carefully watching and selecting which waves to ride and which to duck under. This decision-making process requires patience, observation, and skill. This is critical for surfers to conserve energy and stay on course.
Remember the chatter we discussed earlier? This often consists of various urges—check the phone, stop exercising, check the score, light up, close the book, go for a walk. These urges, like waves, can either support the task at hand or derail it. Like waves, urges come and go, and any surfer will tell you that when faced with a large wave, they don’t fight it or follow it unless it’s heading in the right direction. Instead, they push the nose of their surfboard into the water and let the wave pass over them. This process is called duck diving. Similarly, when managing our impulses and cravings, we can apply a technique known as duck diving to train our volition networks—crucial for self-control, decision-making, and goal-directed behavior.
Here’s how to apply the concept of duck diving to manage urges and strengthen your volitional networks:
Watch the wave: When an urge arises, observe it. Ask yourself if this is something you want to dive under or surf to the shore. Is the urge helpful or unhelpful toward your current goal? This initial observation engages your prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive functions and volition.
Duck under the unhelpful Waves: If you decide the urge is unhelpful, use the anchoring techniques that we discussed earlier to stay grounded and resist the impulse. This helps create a mental space between the urge and your response, allowing you to maintain self-control and composure.
Continue swimming: Once the wave passes, continue moving in the direction you want to go. Stay focused on your direction and keep swimming. This persistence helps reinforce the neural pathways involved in self-control and decision-making, making your volition networks stronger and more efficient over time.
A surfer who resists the wave or tries to stop it will get washed away. Learning to duck dive is an energy-efficient way to keep pointing in the right direction. Fortunately, we’ve covered the most important aspects of duck diving in the chapters about “the chatter and anchoring.” The duck dive isn’t the end of the surf session; once you’re out the other side, you keep swimming in the direction you want to go until a wave comes that aligns with the task you want to perform.
Waves usually don’t stop coming! Surfers have to be very patient as they carefully watch which waves they want to duck under and which ones they want to ride. By regularly practicing duck diving, you systematically train your brain’s volition networks. This method enhances your ability to manage impulses, make intentional decisions, stay focused on your direction, and supercharge your volitional networks.
This process can span anywhere from a fleeting moment to several weeks. Rather than rigidly opposing it, the key is to duck under and keep swimming.
Example:
Imagine you’re working on an essay for your literature class, and you suddenly feel the urge to check your phone for notifications. Now that’s an unhelpful wave coming; if you fall for it, you are going to end up wiping out. Your brain can be sly; “two minutes” will tell you. Take a deep breath, duck under, and refocus your attention on the next words of the essay, setting a goal to complete the introduction before allowing yourself a short break to check your phone.
Duck diving is another essential skill to maintain the health of your volition networks. Like all other skills, they must be practiced in order to get better at them. Unlike cognitive reappraisal, this does not require a worksheet, only a very watchful eye.
This won’t work all the time, and you will wipe it out over and over again. But just like a surfer, when you wipe out, get back on the board, duck dive to the right wave, and you will be hanging 10 very frequently.
“Hang 10” is surfing slang that refers to a surfer’s ability to have all ten toes hanging off the front of the surfboard while riding a wave. It’s a challenging and stylish maneuver that requires skill and balance. When someone “hangs 10,” it’s a display of mastery and confidence in surfing.
W.A.T.C.H.
- Watch the Wave: Notice the urge and its impact on your goal. Is it helpful or unhelpful?
- Anchor Yourself: Use techniques like deep breathing to stay grounded and resist the impulsive pull.
- Take Control: Make a conscious decision to the urge slide.
- Continue Swimming: Stay focused on your original goal and keep moving forward.
- Hang ten: Celebrate your success in and do a victory dance in the mind.