Hello people of steemopolis.
It has been a while since I joined steemit and yet I haven't made any posts. And that is because of a two main reasons, one of which is poor electricity supply. The other reason is; I just feel lazy these days to do anything productive. So I decided to do some google search about the causes of being lazy and a scientific explanation for laziness. I came across good resources giving the reasons people appear to be lazy.
What is Laziness?
This question always comes to my mind, does laziness really exist? Or it is just some "bullshit" word made up to give excuses for not doing the things we ought to do.
First, let me start by defining what laziness is. According to psychology today, they defined laziness as
A person is being lazy if he is able to carry out some activity that he ought to carry out, but is disinclined to do so because of the effort involved. Instead, he carries out the activity perfunctorily; or engages in some other, less strenuous or less boring activity; or remains idle. In short, he is being lazy if his motivation to spare himself effort trumps his motivation to do the right or expected thing.
We humans are wired to finding activities that are less stressful look attractive. Moreover it feels good to just sit around doing nothing. Whether it's to avoid work or escape physical activity. You might also say that not enough motivation (in terns of rewards) is a primary cause for laziness but live science feels...
Perhaps you could care less, but newly spotted differences in how our brains work could explain why some people are apathetic and lazy. Scientists say motivation could be more about biology than attitude.
Causes of Laziness.
We human beings are inherently lazy as was our ancestors. Our ancestors (cavemen) then usually didn't plan for the future cause they believed there's a chance they'd be dead. Most of their actions were short-term planned mainly to satisfy their immediate gratification. That mentality is still stuck with the humans of nowadays. If we can't picture an instant pay off of an action, we would be discouraged to partake in such activities. Just as we'd prefer to watch TV lying on a couch to doing chores at home.
We all inherit genes from our parents and it plays a key role in the development of our brains and yes laziness could also be inherited genetically!
A gene, SLC35D3, is responsible for regulating activity levels. A mutation of this gene would cause metabolic syndrome by impairing dopamine signalling to produce a gene known as "couch potato" gene.
A study was carried out, in 2005, with mice where they were separated into two groups. One group has mice that chose to run on their own own more often and the other group was mice that Decided not to run as much. After about 10 generations, the first group of mice was found to run 75% more often than the other group (the lazy group. And after about 16 generations, the "agile" group ran about miles per day as opposed to the average of the miles per day. It was concluded that the motivation for physical activity was genetic.
The brains of the first group of mice has a larger regions that deal motivation and reward and larger dopamine systems.
Dopamine is basically an organic chemical that does important functons in the brain and body. It functions as a neurotransmitter released by neurons to send signals to other nerve cells. You could read more on dopamine here
The "couch potato" gene is responsible for a type of dopamine receptor. Without which one would be most likely to sit around and doing less activities compared to others with a properly functioning gene.
Most of the time, our reasons for being lazy is not entirely up to us. That doesn't mean laziness cannot be fought.
How Can One Overcome Laziness?
Normally, one of would think having a strong will power would be a way one could overcome laziness I'm afraid having a strong will power would not go a long way. In fact, some studies have shown that will power is an exhaustible source and could be used up! This concept is known as Ego depletion.
I said earlier that "most of the time, our reasons for being lazy is not entirely up to us", our environment also has an effect on us. It's a good thing cause we know we are not doomed to a life of laziness and we could actually fight our DNA. So go out there and do some activity!
Thanks for reading.
