Research that packs a punch: A clenched fist helps summon willpower

By FIONA MACRAE FOR THE DAILY MAIL
Updated:

It is a gesture associated with losing control: but clenching your fist may actually help you get a grip on your emotions.

Tightening muscles strengthens willpower, a study found.

A clenched fist or bulging bicep, say the researchers, focuses the mind, helping us resist physical and emotional pain and even turn our backs on temptation.

In control? Balling your fists or tensing muscles may actually be a way of remaining focused

In control? Balling your fists or tensing muscles may actually be a way of remaining focused

From saying 'no' to cream cakes to enduring the pain of injections, the answer lies in muscle control, the Journal of Consumer Research reports.

The study's authors said: 'The mind and the body are so closely tied together, merely clenching muscles can also activate willpower.'

The finding could explain why footballers frequently clench their fists by their sides when waiting for a potentially painful free-kick to be struck and perhaps even why we use the phrase 'get a grip' when someone's emotions are running away from them.

Pump it: In sport and in politics a clenched fist has long signaled resolve

Pump it: In sport and in politics a clenched fist has long signaled resolve

To show that a clenched fist can help in painful situations, the US and Singaporean researchers asked a group of volunteers to plunge their hands in buckets of iced water and keep them there as long as they could.

Some clenched a pen in their fist as they did so, other held the pen normally.

Those with the clenched pain endured the pain twice as long.

In another experiment, they listened to distressing information about the fate of children caught up in the Haitian earthquake before deciding whether to donate money to help.

Those who clenched their fists were more likely to give, perhaps because the action strengthened their resolve to help others.

Muscle-tightening also made a watered-down vinegar drink billed as a health tonic more palatable - but only among those with a keen interest in their wellbeing.

And, in perhaps the most interesting of the experiments, student volunteers who tensed their hand muscles en route to the university snack shop bought less junk food when they got there.

Researcher Iris Hung, of the National University of Singapore, said: 'Participants who were instructed to tighten their muscles, regardless of which muscles were tightened - hand, finger, calf or biceps - while trying to exert self-control demonstrated greater ability to withstand pain, consume the unpleasant medicine, attend to immediately disturbing but essential information, or overcome tempting foods.

'Simply engaging in these bodily actions, which often result from an exertion of willpower, can serve as a non-conscious source to recruit willpower, facilitate self-control, and improve consumer wellbeing.'

However, there is little point practising the move.

Not only could a clenched fist be easily misconstrued but the action is only beneficial when carried out at, or immediately before, the moment of temptation.

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