Response Inhibition- What is it and How to Improve it

Our marvelous brains have many great features, one of them being the frontal lobes. Within the frontal lobes comes the amazing set of skills known as executive functioning. Executive functioning is a set of mental skills that help individuals plan, focus attention, manage time, and regulate emotions and behaviors to achieve goals. These skills are crucial for daily life and are often described as the brain's management system. I thought it would be fun to break apart these skills and discuss them one by one. So, this week I will start with response inhibition. This is the cognitive ability to suppress or delay a response, especially when it's inappropriate, impulsive, or interferes with a goal-oriented action.

                The most common ideas around response inhibition tend to be regarding motor and verbal functioning. One who lacks response inhibition then being the person who cannot sit still – doing the leg wiggle or clicking the pen or the person who blurts things out or speaks before thinking. While yes, these are the two most observable elements, there are more that can be happening on an internal level. Lacking response inhibition in the cognitive realm means difficulty in suppressing or controlling where or what is coming up in your mental awareness. It would impact your ability to concentrate on the thing you want or need to concentrate on. In the motivational realm, you would struggle to delay motivation for those things of immediate interest and struggle to develop motivation for those things that are important, yet not of interest. The other area is in emotional expression; this may show up as having an intense emotional reaction that others may find to be disproportionate to the problem. No matter how lacking response inhibition presents, you likely have feeling of regret, of being out of control, or not matching the person you would like to be.

                The good news, there are many ways to help improve your response inhibition. For starters, it is important to have quality self-care, that is enough sleep, proper nutrition, proper hydration, and physical movement each day. These habits alone can make a huge difference in your ability to have more filtered response when needed.

Mindfulness and/or meditation practice can also be very helpful; it provides an opportunity to challenge your ability to focus on attention and self-control.

Playing games, specifically cognitive games that require concentration and attention such as a puzzle or some of the now popular brain training/brain teaser apps.

Creative activities that may require and provide opportunities for flexible thinking and problem-solving.

It is also important to watch your environment and when possible, minimize distractions or elements that may lead to impulsive behaviors and seek environments that are calmer in nature.

There is also a benefit to starting small. If it were your bicep muscles you were trying to increase, you would not start with 50lbs to curl, you may need to start with 10lbs or even 5lbs and work your way up. The same is true here, start small with lower risk and lower temptation to work on how to slow your response.

I will leave you with one other great technique for slowing down. It is the STOP technique.

S – slow down or stop

T – take a breath – or take 3-5 deep breaths

O – observe what is happening both within you and around you

P – plan to proceed

As always, I am here to help, simply reach out.