I know the title might seem a bit intense, so let me put it in simpler terms. Cognitive dissonance is nothing but the exact feeling you experience when you are torn between what you know you should do and what you actually end up doing.
Let me give you a few examples to illustrate this:
Imagine you’re lying in bed at night, scrolling through social media on your phone, while your brain keeps whispering, “You really should be sleeping right now.” Yet, there you are, still scrolling like it’s your job. You know you should be sleeping, but you just can’t seem to put the phone down.
Or picture this: You step on the weighing scale and have a revelation – it’s time to ditch the junk food and hit the gym. Yet, you find yourself unable to resist the temptation of eating that delicious chocolate ice-cream you have in your refrigerator.
Sounds familiar now? That mental discomfort you experience in such situations is the classical drama of cognitive dissonance playing in your mind’s theatre. It’s the epic fight between your inner overachiever and your inner couch potato.
The perpetual conflict
Your brain’s internal conflict we discussed above is like a never-ending reality TV show drama featuring three main characters:
- The Modern Brain: This is the part that plans and plots, aiming for long-term goals and moral decisions. It’s the brain’s version of a strategic mastermind, always looking ahead and planning for the future. It’s the part in your brain that “thinks”. It is this part that keeps whispering “you should sleep now” while you’re religiously digging deep in your social media rabbit hole.
- The Caveman Brain: This is your impulsive friend, who is all about instant gratification and survival. It’s basically a primitive survivalist who gives zero flying ducks about tomorrow – it just wants you to do things that makes it feel good right now! It’s the part in your brain that “feels”. It is this part that wants to see “one more cat video” and feel instant happiness.
- The Reptilian Brain: This is the oldest, most trustworthy part of your brain. It handles all the automatic, survival functions like breathing, heartbeat and making sure you don’t stumble down stairs without realizing it. It’s the part of your brain that keeps your alive on “autopilot”. It is this part that makes you yawn and lowers your breathing rate.
So, while the modern brain is busy crafting a 10-year plan, your caveman brain is plotting how to get you to the nearest ice-cream shop and get that immediate sugar high. The reptilian brain meanwhile is making sure you don’t choke and die when you get that sugar high.
The scientific explanation
Our brains can be divided into 3 parts:
- The prefrontal cortex (the modern brain)
- The limbic system (the caveman brain)
- The brain stem (the reptilian brain)
Each of these parts have evolved over thousands of centuries and have specific functions. Their power over us is directly proportional to the order of their evolution.
First came the reptilian brain, then the caveman brain and lastly the prefrontal cortex. The reptilian brain and caveman brain work automatically on their own while the modern brain requires a lot of energy and cognitive effort to work. Although the modern brain is the smartest of the three, it is the least powerful one since it’s the youngest in the order of evolution.
The brain stem controls all the involuntary survival functions of our bodies – the ones that we never think about, like breathing, body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, etc. It works on it’s own without needing any conscious efforts from us.
The limbic system controls all the emotions and thereby majority part of our behavior. It has control over the most powerful emotion of all – fear. Fear is an emotion that overpowers all other emotions. The limbic system is responsible for the classic fight, flight or freeze response.
The prefrontal cortex controls high-level cognitive functions like self-control, understanding moral right and wrong, planning for future, etc. This part of the brain is what actually makes us human. But it is definitely not necessary for survival and so it is less powerful than the limbic system and the brain stem which are essential for survival.
How can we embrace this conflict?
First and foremost, we need to accept the nature of this internal conflict – it’s eternal. You can never fully get rid of it. It will always exist in your mind until you die.
Once we fully accept this fact, we can then move on to managing this conflict and learning how to empower the modern brain so that we can live a healthy, wealthy and wise life.
Deliberate Practice
Put yourself in situations where you have to face this cognitive dissonance. Your instinctive reaction will be to take immediate action to resolve this feeling of discomfort in your mind. But, now since you’re learning how to embrace the dissonance, you will not act on your first instincts and instead acknowledge the existence of the dissonance in your mind and do nothing about it.
Practical example: Buy a tub of ice-cream and put it in your refrigerator. After your dinner, your mind will automatically remind you of the delicious treat sitting in the fridge and you’ll start craving it.
That’s cognitive dissonance right there! You know you should not be eating that ice-cream so that you don’t load up on those extra calories but at the same time you have this intense craving of eating it and experience the feeling of joy that follows.
Congratulations! You have successfully put yourself in a situation that has created cognitive dissonance in your mind. Next step, you want to learn how to embrace and overcome it. Here’s how.
David v/s Goliath
Sit on your couch and and fully acknowledge the sense of discomfort you’re feeling. Now start visualizing what’s going on inside your brain. There’s a full-fledged war ensuing between your modern brain and your caveman brain.
The caveman brain is mighty and powerful like the Goliath and it wants to experience the sweet pleasure of eating that ice-cream right now. On the other hand, the modern brain is weak but smart like David and it is resisting the temptation to eat that ice-cream.
The conscious choice: You choose to make David win! You consciously choose it with all your mental energy. No matter how difficult it feels but you just want to make David win no matter what. You let the intense fighting in your mind continue for another 25-30 minutes and you keep rooting for David all the while.
After a while, you’ll realize that the intense craving to eat that ice-cream has receded and you feel good about having resisted it.
Each time you do that i.e. each time you make your David win, he’ll get physically stronger and it will be a little easier to defeat Goliath the next time you experience cognitive dissonance.
Embrace the mental discomfort, don’t rush to resolve it.
Each such win empowers your modern brain to be get stronger and exert more control over your instinctive caveman brain. But it only comes with a lot of deliberate practice.
Neuroplasticity at play!
When I said your David gets physically stronger with each win, I literally mean it. There’s a scientific term for it and it’s called – Neuroplasticity!
When your modern brain resists the caveman brain, it actually makes the prefrontal cortex stronger as it builds more neural connections. With enough practice, these new neural connections become your armour in future fights and it helps you embrace cognitive dissonance more easily.
But remember, you cannot get entirely rid of the dissonance! It will stay with you forever. All you can do is to empower your modern brain to better deal with it and the way to do that is – practice, practice and more practice!
More fighting situations
The example I gave above is one of the plenty of other such situations which you can put yourself into to practice the skill of embracing cognitive dissonance.
Look at it as difficulty levels or different maps in a video game. Each time a level gets easier, you move on to the next one which is a bit harder or each time you get too accustomed to a map, you change the map.
Examples of such situations:
- Lying on the couch v/s going to the gym
- Scrolling on your smartphone v/s reading a book
- Eating junk food outside v/s eating healthy at home
- Watching TV at night v/s going to bed early
- Drinking sugary soda v/s drinking water
You can create your own fights and play it at your convenience. Soon, you’ll start to feel the difference in your mindset.