Don’t worry, researchers are working on a “brain zapper” for you! 

I recently read a Newsweek article titled “The New Science Behind Your Spending Addiction.” If you watch television or read newspapers and magazines this time of year, you’re bound to stumble across one or two stories trying to educate you about the human weakness that is…..instant gratification.

I appreciated this one for its balance of light humor and scientific research. The researchers quoted in the article have pin-pointed the areas of the brain that fail those of us who spend too much. This probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you. What was really funny however is some of the remedies we might have at our disposal in the future. “The noninvasive “zapping” technology, called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), is currently being studied at Columbia University and NYU, among other places. So far, none of the researchers using TMS to map the brain have wheeled the device to a shopping mall and aimed it at people who buy $300 sunglasses and $150 T-shirts despite having contributed $0 to their savings.” 

Did that just say “zapping” technology? Yes, but they aren’t suggesting we walk around the mall with our shopping buddies armed with “brain zappers.” Not yet anyway. “TMS has been successfully used to treat chronic pain, major depression, tinnitus, and some symptoms of schizophrenia, in each case by revving up or shutting down activity in specific brain circuits that underlie the condition.”

I also chuckled when I learned about a natural hormone that can be used to increase function in the area of the brain that helps our longer-term outlook. “A squirt of the hormone oxytocin—known as the “love hormone” because of the role it plays in pair bonding and maternal behavior—makes people more patient: when people with a shot of the hormone are offered $10 now or $12 later, they are willing to wait 43 percent longer for that “later” to arrive (14 days rather than 10, for instance). “This tells us that people who are happier and have greater social support save more.

But as expected, it turns out the best remedy is still through our own development. “You develop willpower and patience through practice,” he says. “If you defer gratification, the payoff can be greater than with immediate gratification,” says Zak, “but your brain has to learn that. Being unable to delay gratification is not something we’re stuck with for life,”

Alas, no magic zapper or pill for us yet. We’ll keep our eye out and let you know as soon as the remedy presents itself.

If you’d like to read the article, click here http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/30/the-new-science-behind-your-spending-addiction.html

Written by Joe Wride CLU, CFP®