How to Increase Your Willpower & Tenacity | Huberman Lab Podcast

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday

[Music]

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford school of

medicine today we are discussing how to

build tenacity and willpower previous

episodes of The hman Lab podcast have

focused on the topic of motivation and

while motivation and willpower are

linked thematically and mechanistically

today we are going to discuss tenac

that is the willingness to persist under

pressure and resistance of different

kinds and willpower which has to do with

both the motivation to do things and the

motivation to resist certain things

today you will learn about the

Psychology and Neuroscience of tenacity

and willpower and I must tell you this

is a fascinating literature in fact you

will learn about a brain structure that

at least to my knowledge most

neuroscientists are not even aware of

and yet in researching this episode I

absolutely fell in love with this brain

structure because of its incredible

ability to integrate the very sorts of

information from within and from outside

of you to harness and build tenacity and

willpower and indeed today you will

learn research supported tools for how

to enhance your level of tenacity and

willpower in any circumstance before we

begin I'd like to emphasize that this

podcast is separate from my teaching and

research roles at Stanford it is however

part of my desire and effort to bring

zero cost to Consumer information about

science and science related tools to the

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about tenacity and willpower and how to

enhance your level of tenacity and

willpower I will also mention certain

cases we're having too much tenacity and

willpower can be problematic for mental

health and physical health but for most

people I believe that enhancing one's

level of tenacity and willpower would be

advantageous now you'll be relieved to

know that while there are a near

infinite number of different

circumstances where one would need to

draw on tenacity and willpower in order

to succeed there is one major mechanism

within the brain indeed one major

mechanism by which tenacity and willower

are generated and it arrives through the

activation of a particular brain center

that is a hub but that is it lies at the

interface of many other neural circuits

and has input from all the critical

neural circuits that one would need in

order to generate tenacity and willpower

now we are going to return to that

particular neural circuit a little bit

later after we talk about the psychology

of willpower because in talking about

the psychology of willpower it will

frame up as to why understanding this

one particular brain Center or Hub of

inputs and outputs from different neural

structures in the brain and body will

indeed allow you to get the most out of

the tools that have been shown in

scientific research to enhance your

level of tenacity and willpower in other

words understanding the psychology of

tenacity and willpower while valuable if

it's coupled with an understanding of

the underlying neural mechanism and

notice I use the singular neural

mechanism not mechanisms for generating

tenacity and willpower will allow you to

use and to tailor the specific protocols

for enhancing tenacity and willpower to

your unique circumstan es so this is yet

another case where certainly life

circumstances vary from one person to

the next the need for tenacity and

willpower varies tremendously for

instance some people may need more

tenacity and willpower in order to

engage in certain behaviors others of us

might need more tenacity and willpower

in order to resist certain types of

behaviors today you will learn about the

brain Center that governs all of that

and then you can frame it within the

psychological understanding of tenacity

and willpower so that you can get get

the most out of the protocols that we

will discuss let's start by talking

about what tenacity and willpower

clearly are and separating tenacity and

willpower from some other psychological

constructs that they often get confused

with because this will be important in

understanding exactly what we are trying

to build when we say we want to build

tenacity and willpower so tenacity and

willpower can be distinguished from

habit execution habit execution is what

you do anytime you wake up in the

morning maybe you lie there for a bit

maybe get out of bed immediately

hopefully you get outside and get some

sunlight in your eyes especially on

cloudy days go brush your teeth use the

restroom engage with others in your home

if you live with others Etc all of those

sorts of behaviors while on some days

can be a bit more challenging especially

the get out of bed part maybe you didn't

get a great night's sleep the night

before for instance but all of those

sorts of behaviors are behaviors that

you have the neural circuit to generate

and that typically you can generate

without a lot of willpower

required now willpower sometimes also

referred to as tenacity grit or

persistence is a distinctly different

phenomenon than habit execution because

willpower and tenacity require that we

intervene in our own default neural

processes such as habits or particular

patterns of thinking and essentially

govern ourselves to do or not do some

particular thing and that process

requires effort it requires energy and I

think all of us are familiar with that

feeling of effort or energy that's

required in order to engage in a

behavior that we really don't feel like

engaging in or avoiding a behavior or a

thought that by default we would

naturally just engage in and when I talk

about energy in this context I mainly

talking about neural energy remember

that neurons nerve cells in your brain

and body use chemical and electrical

signaling to communicate with one

another that's what allows you and all

of us to do all the things that we do

think feel move Etc

now of course that chemical and

electrical communication requires fuel

sources that indeed come from things

like glucose ketones the creatine

phosphate system multiple fuel systems

feed the energetics of the brain But

ultimately when I talk about energy in

today's discussion I'm talking about the

energy required to engage in or to

resist in a particular behavior and that

level of energy can be quite High

depending on how much resistance we are

feeling internally or externally right

somebody can be telling us you're not

going to be able to do this you can't do

it and you can say no I have a ton of

resolve I have a ton of tenacity

willpower and I'm going to push past all

the barriers that you are setting up for

me on the outside often times all too

often I should say we experience

resistance from the inside where we are

feeling like we don't want to do

something or we really want to do

something and we are having trouble

either engaging in the thing that we

don't want to do or that we know we

should do but we just don't feel that

level of motivation for or we are having

a hard time resisting the thing that's

pulling us toward it so in that context

it's important for us not to just

distinguish tenacity and willpower from

habit execution but also draw out a

Continuum with tenacity and willpower at

their most extreme on one end of that

Continuum and apathy and yes depression

on the other end of that Continuum and

we will return to the topic of

depression a little bit later but I can

just ceue it up right now by saying that

one of the Hallmark features of major

depression is a lack of positive

anticipation about the future that leads

to this is important there's a verb

tense here that leads to a much lower

tendency to engage in the specific types

of behavior that would allow one to

arrive at a particular new different and

positive future so I'm deliberately

putting apathy and depression next to

one another at one end of the Continuum

and I'm putting grit persistence

tenacity and willpower at the other end

of the Continuum and a little bit later

it will be become very clear to you why

I put those particular items on the

Continuum as opposed to other

psychological constructs such as

motivation because it turns out that

motivation is what allows you to move up

and down that Continuum but motivation

itself as a verb is distinct from what

we call tenacity and willpower and

motivation itself is distinct from what

we call apathy and depression but

motivation is the engine or the motor

the verb that allows you to move up and

down that Continuum and today you will

learn multiple tools that will allow you

to move toward the tenacity and

willpower end of that Continuum by

engaging a very specific neural circuit

before we get into the discussion of

neural circuits I'd like to talk about

the psychology of willpower and this is

something that really has been

considered by psychologist for well over

a hundred years William James wrote

about this the ancient Greeks wrote

about this the topic of willpower is

certainly not a new one and yet the

formal study of willpower power in the

laboratory context that is bringing

human subjects into the laboratory and

examining what sorts of conditions allow

them to engage their willpower and

tenacity what sorts of conditions really

sap or drain their willpower and

tenacity and of course parallel

experiments done in what we call

preclinical models which are animal

Studies have revealed to us a lot about

the sorts of conditions that allow us to

generate willpower and the sorts of

conditions that drain our willpower now

if we are to throw our arms around that

entire literature there is a big batch

of that literature not the whole batch

but there's a big batch of that

literature that believed and still

believes that willpower is a limited

resource much like fuel in the body or

fuel in a car now the idea of willpower

as a limited resource is certainly not a

new idea but again the formal study of

willpower and willpower as a limited

resource really dates back a little over

20 25 years when Roy bister and

colleagues started to explore the idea

that of course had been kicked around

for years that with each additional

decision that we have to engage across

the day and with each additional bout of

willpower that we have to draw on as a

resource that we would drain this

reservoir of willpower that we all have

within us now bow meister and colleagues

refer to that process as ego depletion

now when people hear the word ego some

people think Freud ego super ego id and

so forth most people think ego like

somebody having a big personality where

they think a lot of themselves when Bal

Meister referred to Ego depletion he was

defining ego depletion as a concept of

oneself and a concept of outside

challenges and the degree of effort

required to bridge one's concept of self

and those challenges and so ego

depletion is really a operational

construct within the field of psychology

so we don't want to get too distracted

by that word ego there's a tendency

anytime people hear ego if they hear

narcissism or if they hear gaslighting

to immediately assume that they know

what that means when in fact the formal

definitions of those quite often differ

from the way that they're kicked around

on social media the internet and even in

a lot of popular writing about

psychology okay so let's just note that

ego depletion is the term that Bal

Meister used to describe the ability for

our willpower to be depleted with each

successive attempt to engage willpower

and by extension our ability to

replenish our degree of willpower if we

take a break from making decisions and

engaging our willpower but ego depletion

itself isn't the Focus right now the

Focus right now is whether or not indeed

willpower is a limited resource and

whether or not with each decision that

we make and each effort to either engage

in an activity that we prefer not to at

least in that moment and with each

attempt to resist a behavior thought Etc

that is pulling on us or that we feel

that we want to engage in by default

either you know eating the cookie or

thinking the thought or engaging in a

particular type of behavior of any kind

and we need to resist that that it is

draining that willpower resource now

before I go any further I know that some

of you out there are probably aware that

ego depletion and the bow Meister theory

of willpower as a limited resource has

been very contentious especially in

recent years and so today what I'm going

to do is I'm going to first present

present the Bal meister and colleagues

work about willpower as a limited

resource and then I'm going to present

some of the conflicting evidence that

Carol D my colleague at Stanford school

of medicine and researchers elsewhere

have carried out metaanalyses and

entirely new experiments which indeed in

some cases contradict the findings of

Bal Meister but more often than not

contradict the conclusions that Bal

Meister Drew about willpower so if we

are to understand the psychology of

willpower and tenacity it's important

that we understand and the concepts of

ego depletion and willpower as a limited

resource even if after hearing all the

evidence you decide that willower is not

a limited resource and in fact I'm quite

confident that once you hear about the

bow Meister work and then you hear about

the work of DW and others which in some

ways counters the conclusions of bow

Meister that you'll have a much firmer

and certainly much more complete

understanding about what tenacity and

willpower are and perhaps and here I'm

revealing my own leanings when having

examined the totality of the data that

tenac and willpower in some cases is a

limited resource that can be replenished

by engaging particular processes within

the body that's right within the body

but that willpower and tenacity and most

importantly how to engage tenacity and

willpower especially when you have a lot

of challenges in front of you not just

one challenge but multiple challenges

that need to be carried out throughout

the day over weeks over months Etc that

tenacity and willpower can be drawn upon

repeatedly without them being depleted

if you are clear on your beliefs about

tenacity and willpower so I realized

that what I just brought up was a

controversy about something that I

haven't even discussed yet so it might

seem like a bit of a swirl of

information for which there's really no

context but the reason I bring up the

controversy at this stage of our

conversation is that the moment that the

words ego depletion or willpower is a

limited resource falls out of my mouth I

can hear those voices out there saying

wait a second I thought that was all

debunked and I want to make very clear

willpower is a limited resource and ego

depletion have not been debunked it's

simply a controversial area of

psychological research and more

importantly for today's discussion we

have to understand the theory of

willpower as a limited resource if we

are to understand the controversy that

is the counterargument of what willpower

really is that comes from other groups

so I really want to give you both sides

of the story so that when we get to the

underlying neural mechanisms for

tenacity and willpower and we get to the

tools and protocols for increasing your

level of tenacity and willpower and your

flexibility of willpower in different

contexts that you'll be able to get the

most out of those tools and protocols

okay so let's take a look at the

evidence that willpower is a limited

resource I think most of us are familiar

with what willpower feels like that is

what it feels like to be tenacious and

again there are two sides to this coin

there's willpower and tenacity of the

sort of trying to engage in a behavior

when we really don't want to or when our

impulse is not to engage in that

behavior and I say when our impulse is

not to engage in that behavior because

often times we want to engage in the

behavior we want to study we want to

learn the instrument we want to perform

well we want to exercise we want the

benefits of all those things so it's not

that we don't want the outcomes or the

rewards of those things and in many

cases it's not that we don't enjoy those

activities but that for whatever reason

we are feeling a lack of motivation

we're drifting down that Continuum

toward the more apathetic end of things

hopefully not all the way to deep

depression and apathy but we're drifting

that way or we're not far enough up the

Continuum and we're not engaging enough

motivation to feel like the desire to do

something either for its own sake or for

the rewards and outcomes of that thing

are sufficient to allow us to just do

that thing hence the Nike slogan just do

it which is a wonderful slogan except

that in the absence of any understanding

about the mechanisms of how we can get

ourselves to just do something

oftentimes it falls short and to be

honest anytime I hear about people

saying well just eliminate the thinking

and just do it that is valuable advice

until it doesn't work because when it

doesn't work it simply doesn't work and

then you need to rely on other tools and

mechanisms which are the sort that we

will talk about today so while I have

great respect for the just doit Mantra

when it doesn't work it doesn't offer

any alternative solutions to engage

tenacity and willpower and I do not know

anyone on this planet I don't care if

you're David Goggins or Courtney dwalter

there will be days when telling yourself

just do this or just don't do that is

not going to be sufficient for you to

engage in the behaviors or resist the

behaviors or thoughts that you need to

engage in or resist that's just reality

and we should ask ourselves why is that

reality and this is a very important

point and in fact really illustrates the

first bucket of tools and protocols for

increasing tenacity and willpower and

these are the tools and protocols that I

would categorize under the rubric of

modulators I've talked before on this

podcast about the important distinction

between mediators and modulators

mediators are things either

psychological or biological Etc that are

directly in the mechanisms that generate

some sort of action or emotion this

could be neurochemicals like dopamine or

serotonin and so on modulators are

things that can modulate that is can

change our probability of doing

something or not doing something but

they do so indirectly and in the context

of tools and protocols to increase our

level of tenacity and willpower I would

be completely remiss if one of the sets

of tools that is the protocols for

increasing the probability that we can

access high levels of tenacity and

willpower didn't include at least some

of these modulators so I'm just going to

spend about three minutes on these

modulators because what we know for

certain is that the regions of the brain

that generate tenacity and again there

is literally a brainhub for generating

will power and tenacity gets strong

input from the so-called autonomic

nervous system the autonomic nervous

system has two major components they are

referred to as the sympathetic nervous

system and the parasympathetic nervous

system keep in mind because when most

people hear the word sympathetic they

think sympathy they think emotion it has

nothing to do with that simpa means

together and the sympathetic arm of the

autonomic nervous system I know that's a

mouthful is responsible for generating

states of alertness in our brain and

body everything from Panic to being

alert and calm our tendency to move or

our likelihood of moving under pressure

it is also responsible for our ability

to resist movement when we need to

resist movement and therefore it's an

active process so the sympathetic

nervous system is all the things of

action and when it is involved in

generating

inaction those are cases where inaction

requires energy okay I want to be very

clear about this the sympathetic nervous

system isn't just about moving our body

although it has a lot to do with that it

is also responsible for our ability to

resist movement or thought or emotion

when we need to do that clamp down on

ourselves the parasympathetic aspect of

our autonomic nervous system is the one

that sometimes referred to as the rest

and digest neural circuits and chemicals

and that's true but there's a lot more

to the parasympathetic component of the

autonomic nervous system it's also

responsible for falling asleep it's

responsible for us feeling relaxed

it is responsible for most of the states

of Mind and Body in which we are

quiescent where we don't feel an Impulse

to move or when we have a difficult time

getting into action so the sympathetic

and the parasympathetic aspect of the

autonomic nervous system are always in a

push pull with one another think of them

more less on a teeter totter when one

end goes up the other end goes down

they're really in competition with one

another and it's their balance that

reflects how alert or how sleepy we

happen to be now the reason I'm giving

you this rather geeky nerd nomenclature

filled discussion about the autonomic

nervous system in the context of

willpower is that regardless of whether

or not you believe willpower is a

limited or an unlimited resource we know

one thing for sure and that's that

willpower and tenacity ride on our

current autonomic function we can

translate that to Everyday Language by

saying that when we we are well rested

for instance when we've been getting

great sleep of sufficient duration the

previous night and the night before that

our level of tenacity and willpower to

engage in things that we would not

ordinarily engage in by default and our

ability to resist behaviors and thought

patterns that would otherwise be our

default behaviors and thought patterns

is much higher conversely when we are

not getting enough quality sleep on a

regular basis our ability to call on

tenacity and willpower is diminished now

that series of statements I just made is

clearly going to be a duh for most

people but it is very important to

understand that when we are sleep

deprived when we are in physical pain

when we are in emotional pain and or

when we are

distracted when we are thinking about

something else aside from what we are

trying to engage tenacity and willpower

in order to do or not do tenacity and

willpower will be diminished now all of

those things together are just a bigger

duh we all know this if you got a

splinter in your foot it's really hard

to think about not thinking about

something else if you are extremely

hungry or if you had an argument with

somebody that you really care about and

they said something that was

particularly vexing to you and it's

looping around in your head it's going

to be very hard to engage in something

else that you need to do because you're

going to be distracted likewise if

you're sleep deprived likewise if you

are a bit sick or run down or if you're

in any kind of physical or emotional

pain your ability to draw on tenacity

and willpower will be diminished so it's

an absolute truth that your ability to

generate tenacity and willpower rides on

a reservoir of autonomic function and

today we don't really have a way of

quantifying the level of autonomic

function or dysfunction in a very simple

way it's not like resting heart rate

although resting heart rate is involved

for instance if you haven't slept well

for a few nights or if you're

particularly stressed overtrained you

wake up in the morning with a

significantly elevated heart

rate however there is no simple metric

like heart rate or blood pressure or

even cortisol level that can tell you

whether or not your autonomic function

is imbalance that is the sympathetic and

parasympathetic systems of your

autonomic nervous system are in the best

possible balance to generate tenacity

and willpower we don't yet have such a

metric although there are companies that

are starting to develop devices that

hopefully will give us indices of

autonomic function or dysfunction but it

is important that we acknowledge that if

you're not taking care of the

foundational modulators of tenacity and

willpower none of the subsequent tools

and protocols that we will discuss are

going to help you that much over time

you might get tenacity and willpower to

engage one day when you're very sleep

deprived but it's going to be very

difficult to consistently engage

tenacity and willpower for that reason

if you have any struggles with sleep

that is getting enough quality sleep on

a regular basis please see the zero cost

toolkit for sleep that we've put at

hubman lab.com please also see the

perfecty Sleep Mastery sleep episodes

also at huberman lab.com and please also

see the episode with expert guest Dr

Matthew Walker professor of sleep

neuroscience and psychology at

University of California Berkeley we

just revamped the huberman lab website

so if you go to hubman lab.com and you

put something like sleep into the search

function it will take you not just to

the toolkit for sleep but to the exact

time stamps that will queue up

particular topics and protocols around

sleep so if you were to put sleep and

light it would take you to those

particular protocols if you were to put

sleep and magnesium 3 and8 it would take

you to those particular protocols and so

on and so forth okay I don't want to get

too far off topic here during today's

discussion but if you're not sleeping

well and if you're not managing your

stress levels well it's going to be much

harder for you to engage tenacity and

willpower regardless of the tools you

happen to use and those tools could be

everything from behavioral tools to

supplements to prescription drugs you

need to get those foundational mod ators

in check and there are a lot of zeroc

cost ways to do that that are all

spelled out very clearly at the

resources I just described likewise for

stress if you're experiencing challenges

with stress both short-term medium-term

or long-term stress if you think you

have elevated cortisol levels which by

the way may not be the case there are a

lot of tools for modulating stress in

real time increasing your stress

threshold Etc simply go to the hubon

lab.com website and put in stress

threshold tools or stress realtime tools

and you'll get a bunch of zero cost

tools will allow you to do that it's

also worth mentioning that when we get

to our discussion about the Neuroscience

of tenacity and willpower that you will

understand why autonomic health and

autonomic function is so important for

our ability to engage tenacity and

willpower I'll just tell you right now

it's because the neural circuits of the

autonomic nervous system provide direct

and robust input to this Hub in the

brain this brain location that governs

our ability to allocate our mind and

body toward particular activities or to

resist particular activities as many of

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/ huberman okay so let's think about the

bow Meister data on Willpower as a

limited resource I'm going to briefly

describe one of the first studies that

really said to the field willpower is a

limited resource but I want to be clear

that there are other studies like it and

they all generally follow the same

contour and that General Contour is as

follows bow meister and colleagues and

now many other Laboratories have done

experiments where they bring human

subjects into the laboratory and those

human subjects have to do something that

requires mental effort or energy AKA

willpower the classic example of this is

you bring people into the laboratory

some of them might actually be dieting

or fasted although not always and there

are two platters set out for them one

platter contains radishes just plain

radishes by the way I hate radishes

unless they're pickled radishes I don't

know why that is so these experiments

picked my least favorite vegetable I

love many other vegetables

I disdain the

radish that was just a personal

editorial in any case the radishes are

set out and next to them are freshly

baked cookies and in the room is the

wafting Aromas of freshly baked cookies

so I think it's fair to say that most

people because of a hardwired tendency

to like sugar and fat especially when

they are combined would prefer to eat

the cookies versus the radishes I know

that there are some mutant out there

they're saying I like radishes more than

cookies but look most people like

cookies more than radishes the subjects

in these studies are divided into two

groups one group is told you have to

resist eating the radishes the other

group is told you have to resist eating

the cookies and then the subjects are

observed during this time typically but

this is really not what the experiment

is about per se this stage of the

experiment is really designed to get

people to resist a certain kind of

behavior and the assump assion again

this is an assumption because there's no

brain recordings here no one's in an MRI

machine looking at what brain areas are

activated or not activated there's no

cortisol being measured at least not in

these early

experiments these people are either

resisting something that's pretty easy

to resist radishes or they are being

asked to resist something that for most

people is going to be harder to resist

than resisting radishes which is

resisting freshly baked cookies and that

challenge has been made even more

Difficult by the wafting Aromas of

freshly baked cookies in the room and in

some cases has been made even more

difficult because these people are

dieting and keep in mind that when you

calorie restrict or when you put

yourself on a diet of any kind there is

a wellestablished mechanism in the brain

by which the neurons that engage hunger

especially hunger for fat and sugar and

that respond to things like Aromas and

taste are heightened that is their

activity levels are heightened which

means that things that smell really good

smell really really good when you're

hungry things that ordinarily would

taste really good taste really really

really good when you finally eat them so

the key component of this stage of the

experiment is to engage people's

willpower the second part of the

experiment has all of the subjects

separately engage in another challenging

task and the challenging task that they

are asked to engage in is to solve a

particular puzzle and again different

experiments used different puzzles

different experiments use different

contexts but the original experiments

that b meister and colleagues did had

people try and solve a puzzle that could

not be solved so it's very very

difficult in fact it's impossible but

the subjects weren't aware of that and

then what was measured was how long

subjects persisted in trying to solve

this impossible to solve puzzle

depending on whether or not previously

they had to resist the radishes which is

pretty easy to resist or resist the

cookies which is at least harder to

resist and for some people would be very

very hard to resist now you can probably

already guess what the outcome of this

and similar studies was because it

birthed this entire belief Camp within

the field of psychology that willpower

is a limited resource the outcome was

that if people had to resist the cookies

which is harder to do than resisting the

radishes that they would persist for

less time

when they had to try and solve a puzzle

that unbeknownst to them could not be

solved conversely if people had to

resist something that was pretty easy to

resist such as resisting eating radishes

something that for me would be very very

easy to resist well when they were

subsequently faced with trying to solve

a very difficult indeed impossible to

solve puzzle they persisted much longer

okay so put very simply the study

concluded that if you have to resist one

thing and it's a hard thing to resist

well then you have less air quotes here

resistance in you willpower to engage in

another difficult task subsequently

whereas if you had an easy challenge

just prior or no challenge just prior to

being faced with a challenge such as a

very difficult puzzle well then you had

more resource more willpower to apply to

the solving of that puzzle so the

conclusion that b meister and colleagues

Drew from those results was that

willpower is a limited resource but it

didn't specify nor did they specify

exactly what that limited resource is

and this was quite an attractive Theory

because it jived well with most people's

perception of what willpower and

tenacity was for them this idea that yes

there are things that challenge us both

to do and to resist but that we can do

that but when we are asked to do that

again and again and again while we may

build up some capacity to engage our

willpower and tenacity it and of course

there are those rare individuals that

we've heard about and some of us know

that seem to have just a kind of

bottomless reservoir of willpower and

tenacity most of us have an intuitive

understanding of how hard it is to

constantly be in friction with life to

constantly have to push ourselves to do

things and to resist things and that

while that capacity can expand and grow

and we can get better at it that there

does seem to be something here just

subjectively speaking there does seem to

be something about engaging tenacity and

willpower that yeah it can feel good but

it also requires effort this neural

energy that we were talking about so

that raised the question of okay if

willpower is a limited resource what

exactly is that resource at a

physiological level so balme and

colleagues subsequently went on to

explore what I think is a really

interesting and clever idea frankly I

can't confess that I would have thought

of this but they did they said okay you

know in some cases people are are eating

the cookie and then they're engaging in

this very difficult puzzle in other

cases they're eating the radish and

engaging in this difficult puzzle and of

course other experiments used non-food

challenging choices but they came up

with an idea which was the brain as one

of the most metabolically active organs

in our entire body if not the most

metabolically active organ in our entire

body requires a lot of fuel it requires

a lot of glucose now of course the brain

mainly runs on GL glucose but if you're

following a ketogenic diet your brain

will mainly run on ketones but for most

people who are omnivores or eating

carbohydrates glucose is the main and

preferred fuel source for neurons for

nerve cells in your brain and body for

that matter Bal moister and colleagues

raised the hypothesis that perhaps

glucose availability itself is the

resource that's limiting willpower and

in a whole set of experiments they

really showed that if people are asked

to do a difficult task to engage their

willpower and this could be done by

resisting a particular Behavior or by

engaging in a particular Behavior I'll

just give you an example of engaging in

a particular behavior that requires

willpower or at least focus and mental

energy to contrast it with the resisting

radishes versus resisting cookies

example that I gave earlier one common

practice within experiments like this is

to give people a very long passage of

words so it's a story and then to give

them some sort of rule about how to edit

that passage maybe they have to cross

out every third e or the E that arrive

in the middle of sentences next to

consonants but not other vowels you know

stuff that takes a lot of energy so

these are DOs as opposed to resisting

behaviors like we were talking about

earlier resisting the radish resisting

the cookies although in many of these

experiments there's a command to do

something you know cross out certain

letter E in this passage but also to

resist the reflex to cross out other

ease and of course all this is is under

time pressure and often times it's being

rewarded or scored this is the way that

psychology researchers get people to

engage in particular uh experiments and

behaviors and resist certain things in

the context of a laboratory environment

when those things frankly are kind of

boring and meaningless they'll pay you

more if you do well at the task um

they'll give you money and then subtract

the money that you're going to get at

the end of the experiment if you make

errors and things like that and they'll

do it under time constraint as I

mentioned earlier so there were lots of

different conditions were again here air

quotes draining people's willpower and

tenacity and certainly draining their

mental attention and then they would

have them do another subsequent task so

in many ways this just mirrors the first

cookie radish experiment done by Bal

meister and colleagues but there was an

important intervention put between the

first and the second hard task and that

intervention was to give one group a

glucose beverage of about 150 calories

or so so they would drink a glucose

beverage to increase levels of blood

glucose the preferred fuel source for

the brain versus giving them an

artificially flavored drink or just

water or something that was of course

matched for flavor but that did not

contain any glucose or calories now this

is a clever experimental design if you

think about it because at least at a

first glance the only thing that really

seems to be different is the

availability of glucose for the brain

and you can probably guess what the

outcome of these studies was the outcome

of these studies was that when subjects

are given glucose in between a first

hard task that required willpower and a

second hard task that required willpower

and in some experiments a third hard

task that required willpower that their

levels of willpower were maintained

consistently from one task to the next

and in some cases increased from one

task to the next if they had more

glucose available because they drank

this glucose drink so what's really

interesting and frankly really nice

about these studies is that they attemp

tempted to bridge a psychological

construct like tenacity and willpower

and to test the argument that willpower

is an Expendable resource and yet it's

an Expendable resource that is

replenishable by linking that to a

physiological variable and the

physiological variable they linked it to

was glucose availability in the brain

now this set the field of psychology and

in fact the field of pop psychology that

is the discussion about formal findings

in the field of formal psychological

research Ablaze people were so excited

about this I mean this set of findings

really pointed to the argument that if

you could just keep levels of brain

glucose elevated across your day or at

least stable across the day that you

would have more willpower and tenacity

this thing that humans have been seeking

more of since the beginning of time now

all of that seemed fine and good and in

fact a lot of products and courses were

born out of that literature people were

arguing that you should sip on glucose

drink while doing any kind of hard task

that you should sip on glucose drinks

between tasks that you should be

thinking about literally fuel that you

ingest into your body as fuel for

psychological processes within your

brain that would allow you to perform

better in work in school in athletics

and relationships and all of the domains

of life but of course anytime there is a

prominence or a real excitement about a

particular finding in any field of

science but in particular in Psychology

where it feels so applicable

as did the Bal Meister results you are

going to get other groups that are going

to try and replicate those findings and

that are going to dig into the findings

themselves and look at the statistics

look at how well or poorly powered those

studies were we don't want to get into a

full discussion about powering studies

right now but powering studies has a lot

to do with addressing the question of

whether or not there were enough

subjects in the study to really draw the

conclusion that one Drew or whether or

not the statistics fell out out as yes

there was a significant effect of

glucose ingestion on Willpower and

tenacity but if there weren't enough

subjects well then there are other

variables that could potentially explain

those results so there were a lot of

metaanalyses and other studies trying to

replicate the work of Bal meister and

that's where things got controversial

now we can take a step back from all of

that controversy after all we don't want

to spend too much time on the

controversy itself rather we want to

know what the counter interpretation of

the bow Meister results was and I want

to be very clear there was no real

dispute as to whether or not bow Meister

got the results that he and his

colleagues claimed to have obtained they

did get those results the question

really was about the interpretation is

willpower a limited resource and if it

is is the physiological resource itself

glucose availability to the brain so in

2013 a colleague of mine at Stanford Dr

Carol D and our department of psychology

did a study in which she examined this

idea that willpower is a limited

resource and the idea that the resource

that's limited is glucose availability

for the brain so D and colleagues did an

experiment that in many ways mirrored

the overall organization of the

experiments done by Bow meister and

colleagues there was a difficult task

some cases the difficult task was that

Crossing out of particular ease within a

passage task followed by another

difficult task and the difficult task

that came second was the Stroop task

this is a task I've talked about before

on this podcast although some episodes

ago so those of you that are not

familiar with the STP task the STP task

is where subjects are presented with

words in different colors and they are

instructed to either read the word so to

pay attention to the content of the word

or to the color in which the font of the

word is written this might seem pretty

easy to most of you right if I put up a

card that says apple on it and apple is

written in green you probably wouldn't

have a hard time if you had been

instructed to tell me what color is the

word written in for you to say green

okay but if I I were to hold up a card

that said red but the font is actually

in the color green it's a little bit

harder and if I were to then do that for

a 100 cards or 300 cards and put you

under time pressure where you're losing

money that you're sure to get if you

make mistakes or you will earn money at

the end of the experiment if you get

answers correctly well then you start

making more mistakes that's just the way

these experiments work so they did a

variation on the strep task that isn't

exactly the way I just described it and

the stoop task by the way is one that's

used to probe prefrontal cortex function

this area of our brain right behind our

foreheads that is responsible for many

things but in part is responsible for

context and strategy setting given a

particular set of rules so if you get

onto the bus or get onto the subway

versus walk into a black tie dinner the

context and rules are very very

different as to what you would say or

not say how you would behave how you

would dress your prefrontal cortex is

largely although Al though not entirely

is largely responsible for a lot of the

context setting and Rule setting from

one situation to the next and if you

think about the stre task it's really

just a context dependent strategy task

you either have to pay attention to the

meaning of the words or the colors in

which those words are written and the

number of mistakes that you'll make

depends on how much time pressure you're

under what sorts of neurologic or

psychiatric challenges you might be

facing or not facing so on and so forth

but it's a very robust task that's

existed in the scientific literature for

a long period of time so the D

experiment and by the way there were

actually three experiments in this paper

I won't go through all of them in detail

for sake of time but I will provide a

link to the paper in the show note

captions but the major focus of the

study was to have people engage in one

hard task and then in another hard task

both of which draw on Willpower testing

the idea that willpower is a limited

resource and then providing some of

those subjects with a glucose-rich drink

or other subjects with a drink that was

artificially sweetened so it had no

glucose no calor calories but tasted yes

they match them for taste I know some of

you don't like artificial sweeteners are

saying those don't taste exactly like

real sugar but they managed to match

these drinks for Taste but in one case

the drink would clearly increase blood

glucose in the other case the drink

would not raise blood glucose so the

results of this study are really

spectacular in my mind because what this

study found was that yes indeed

ingesting glucose can improve

performance on these multiple

challenging willpower requiring tasks

however the degree to which the glucose

containing drink could improve

performance depended on whether or not

you believed that willpower was a

limited resource and whether or not you

believed that resource was glucose in

other words if you hear and believe that

willpower is a limited resource well

then indeed with each subsequent task

that you engage in or life event of any

kind that you engage in that requires

willpower and tenacity you will have

less willpower and tenacity to draw on

whereas if you believe that willpower

and tenacity are unlimited and in fact

are divorced from blood glucose as the

physiological source of willpower and

tenacity well then you can engage in one

challenging task and another challenging

task and another challenging task

without any diminishment in performance

now that of course leaves us all in a

very tough position because how are we

to decide what to believe if we know

that willpower can be a limited resource

or willpower cannot be a limited

resource ah well the results of the

direct study and by the way I should

share with you the title of the study

the title of the study not surprisingly

is beliefs about willpower determine the

impact of glucose on self-control and

this was a study published in the

proceedings of the National Academy of

Sciences again I'll provide a link to

this study in the show note captions

there are three major experiments in

this study as I mentioned before I just

gave you the major conclusion of all of

them sort of woven together and if it

wasn't clear already the major

conclusions are that yes ingesting

glucose can improve your ability to

engage tenacity and willpower AKA

self-control from one task to the next

provided that you believe that glucose

is the limiting resource for engaging

tenacity and willpower if you don't

believe that well then you can engage

tenacity and willpower without ingesting

glucose and that's where the

artificially flavored drink comes in

I'll leave it to you to kind of unpack

what that means experimentally but it's

a very clever experimental design that

DW and colleagues came up with because

it argues that yes indeed it's hard to

do a challenging thing right after

another challenging thing but there's no

reason to think that you can't do both

of those things while engaging the

utmost tenacity and willpower if you

believe that tenacity and willpower

exist within you as a single mechanism

that can be harnessed and that it's not

a single mechanism that has a reservoir

that runs down as you engage in one hard

thing thing to the next now this is very

important because we are about to

transition into our discussion of the

physiological that is the neural

underpinnings of tenacity and willpower

which as it turns out is one major set

of brain circuits now there could be

others that are yet to be discovered but

we know that there is one major set of

brain circuits in particular one brain

area believe it or not that an entire

collection of more than two dozen

studies really points to as the seat the

or of what we call tenacity and

willpower but before we transition to

that and the tools and protocols that

that physiological neural understanding

set forth for us to all use and apply

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that

bow Meister wasn't about to hear these

results from dwen colleagues and just

say Okay willpower is not a limited

resource it's not blood glucose it's all

what you believe about willpower it's

all what you believe about blood

glucose rather BME himself went back to

the lab and did subsequent experiments

that in some ways not all counter the d

results so I'm not trying to confuse

anybody but I wouldn't be doing my job

if I didn't give you both sides of the

story now the good news is that the

tools and protocols that we are going to

arrive at work regardless of which

psychological Camp you happen to be in

the bow Meister camp or the D camp now I

don't want to give the impression that

these are Waring camps and I also don't

want to give the impression that these

are the only two camps of thought and

experimentation within the field of

tenacity and willpower there are many

groups working on these subjects indeed

there have been metaanalyses that have

confirmed the major theories of Bal

meister and there are metaanalyses that

have refuted the major findings of Bal

Meister I will provide links in the show

note captions to a couple examples of

each so that you have those to peruse if

you like but let's discuss for a moment

what B Meister found when they went back

and re- researched I think that's a word

re researched the idea that willpower is

a limited resource and that glucose is

the that limiting

resource balme and colleagues looked at

the D data and said okay fine the data

looked great except for the fact that in

real life and in many previous

experiments that they and others had

done it wasn't just two hard challenges

back toback but often two or three or

four and what Bal meister and others

found was that when subjects are

presented not with just two challenges

back to back but three or more

challenges so back to back to back to

back challenge is that have to engage a

lot of neural energy a lot of willpower

tenacity resistance to do certain things

and effort to engage in certain kinds of

behaviors and cognitive processes that

when subjects had glucose available to

them in the brain by way of ingesting

these glucose drinks sipping those in

between the tasks sometimes even during

the tasks that their performance that is

their willpower and tenacity to engage

in challenges was maintained across

those multiple challenges

and they conceded that one's belief

about willpower could indeed dictate

whether or not willpower was or was not

a limited resource and whether glucose

would or would not enhance one's ability

to engage willpower but they argued that

if one confronts multiple challenging

circumstances as is very naturalistic as

we say it's very typical of everyday

real life then the availability of

glucose during and between tasks the

ability for the brain to engage in its

external environment and take reads of

its internal environment how we feel

inside relative to what's expected of us

was very valuable in allowing people to

engage this thing that psychologically

we describe as tenacity and willpower

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huberman let's talk about the physiology

of tenasity and willpower and I assure

you that the conversation we are about

to have is not going to be just a bunch

of nomenclature and mechanistic

understanding of the origins of tenacity

and willpower rather it argues that

tenacity and willpower have a unified

source that is a specific set of brain

areas that when active engage that

feeling of tenacity and willpower

regardless of what we are confronted

with regardless of whether or not we are

trying to engage in something that

reflexively we wouldn't otherwise want

to engage in and regardless of whether

or not we are confronted with something

that we have to resist and to me that's

extremely reassuring because whether or

not you believe that blood glucose is

the limiting resource for willpower

whether or not you believe that your

beliefs about willpower and blood

glucose impact your level of willpower

what we know for sure is that there's a

single set of brain circuits indeed

there's a single brain area that seems

to be able to largely if not entirely

explain this phenomenon that we call

tenacity and willpower and that should

be reassuring because what it means is

that tenacity and willpower is the

reflection of a neural circuit function

that is a skill it's an expression of

something that we all have within us we

all have this particular brain area and

quite excitingly this is the third point

this brain area is highly subject to

plasticity there are specific things

that we can do and there are specific

mindsets that we can adopt that allow us

to increase the activity of this

particular brain area indeed to increase

the size of this particular brain area

so that we can call on tenacity and

willpower not just in one circumstance

like school or musical learning or

athletic Endeavors or relationship

Endeavors but rather that we can call on

this brain area in the context of any

and all circumstan ances where willpower

and tenacity are required now we talk

about Neuroscience a lot on this podcast

but it's not often that I point to a

particular brain area and can

confidently say this particular brain

area has an absolutely integral role in

something as kind of highlevel

psychological as tenacity and willpower

but today we can do that and that's

because there's a collection of more

than two dozen studies that point to one

particular brain area and of course its

connections with other brain areas

because no single brain area operates in

isolation every brain area is operating

in the context of neural circuits other

brain areas that it receives inputs from

and gives inputs to and so on but this

one particular brain area really does

seem to underly what we call tenacity

and willpower and we know that through

several lines of evidence first of all

I'll tell you the name of the brain area

although the name itself isn't going to

tell you much unless you're a

neuroscientist or anatomist so I'll give

a little bit of background about it the

name of the brain area is the anterior

mid singulate cortex the anterior mid

singulate cortex is part of a larger

brain area called the singulate cortex

and in humans versus animals it goes by

slightly different names unfortunately

it's just one of the consequences of

different researchers and different Labs

calling the same thing different things

it could be really frustrating but we'll

make it very simple because today we

were referred to this area as the

anterior mid singulate cortex which is a

sub div vision of a larger brain area

simply called the singulate cortex the

anterior mid singulate cortex resides in

the frontal loes so it's behind your

forehead although that doesn't tell you

anything because all of your brain is

behind your forehead if you think about

it and it's about a third of the way

back toward the back of your head and

you actually have two of these

structures two anterior mid singulate

cortices one on each side of the brain

and they receive a lot of inputs from a

lot of different areas and we'll talk

about what those areas are because this

is extremely important when thinking

about the different psychological and

physiological resources that you can

draw upon to engage tenacity and

willpower but for the time being let me

just go through the evidence in kind of

list format of why we feel so confident

that the anterior mid singulate cortex

is such a vital hub for engaging

tenacity and

willpower for each of these points that

I'm about to make there is indeed at

least one if not several quality

reviewed studies in humans so there's a

lot of data from animals both rodents

and primate models Etc that we're not

talking about today but I should mention

all of which supports the human data and

vice versa the data I'm going to

describe now come from humans and from a

variety of different types of studies so

there are a lot of different ways that

one can consider if a brain area is

implicated in a given psychological or

physiological phenomenon like motivation

or sadness or visual perception

and those include for instance if a

brain area is active during a given

phenomenon so one way to explore this is

to put literally wire electrodes down

below the skull record the electric

activity of neurons and assess whether

or not the electrical activity of those

neurons changes when a person is say

viewing faces or feeling a particular

way like feeling tenacious or feeling

bored or feeling aggressive and so on

another way of assessing a particular

brain area's role in a given

physiological or psychological

phenomenon is in individuals where that

particular brain area is injured you

might expect that a particular

phenomenon like willpower like the

ability to perceive faces is present or

absent whether not it's exacerbated or

whether or not it's diminished other

ways of assessing whether or not a given

brain area is involved in a given

phenomenon is whether or not that brain

area literally changes size whether or

not changes in volume over the course of

some sort of training so for instance if

somebody is not able to play a musical

instrument such as myself and then I or

a subject in one of these experiments

learns a musical instrument and the

volume the size of the particular brain

area is assessed across the learning or

simply before and after that musical

learning and it grows or perhaps even if

it shrinks or changes shape one might

determine that it is somehow somehow

involved in the process of learning a

musical instrument you couldn't

unequivocally conclude that but along

with other types of evidence one could

perhaps conclude that so that's just a

partial list of ways to assess brain

area function other ways include

assessing what other areas a given brain

area gets input from so for instance in

the case of the anterior mid singulate

cortex we will soon discuss the fact

that it gets robust input from the

autonomic nervous system which you

already learned about it gets robust

input from reward systems of the brain

such as the dopamine and serotonin based

reward systems of the brain and it gets

robust input from the context and

strategy setting areas of the brain as

well and many other different brain

areas so there's a structural logic as

to why the anterior mid singulate cortex

would be involved in tenacity and

willpower but no single anatomical or

physiological or lesion-based finding is

as compelling as when we consider all of

the results about the anterior mid

singulate cortex together and side by

side so for

instance recordings by neural Imaging of

the anterior mid singul cortex in an

unbiased way meaning people are put into

a brain scanner and brain activity is

examined and mass all of the brain areas

are looked at and people are presented

with either a hard task or an easy task

revealed that the anterior mid singulate

cortex shows elevated levels of activity

in the hard versus the easy task and

again I want to point out that the

researchers were not looking for that

result they simply observed that result

in addition if people who exhibit high

levels of academic performance

across many different subjects are put

into a brain scanner that evaluates

so-called resting state connectivity so

no task but simply levels of activity in

different brain areas that occur

spontaneously so they're just sitting in

the scanner looking at a blank screen

the resting or spontaneous levels of

activity in the anterior mid singulate

cortex of high achieving individuals is

higher relative to those of lower

achieving individuals in addition people

that have lesions or disruptions of

anterior mid singulate cortical function

show increased apathy and depression and

reduced levels of tenacity and

motivation across the board regardless

of what domain of life one is asking

about whether or not it's athletic or

academic Etc indeed successful dieters

show elevated spontaneous and what's

called evoked levels of activity in the

anterior mid singulate cortex so

spontaneous again just at rest they have

higher levels of activity in the

anterior mid singulate cortex

and for those that are presented with

food and they have to resist that food

and they have to resist the smell of

that food and the potential taste of

that food the activity of the anterior

mid singulate cortex goes up even

further especially in those individuals

who can resist that is who can engage

willpower to not eat the delicious food

item conversely individuals that have

failed to exert sufficient willpower to

lose their desired weight and this was

for medical reasons related to trying to

achieve Medical

Health as well as people who are obese

seem to have diminished levels of

activity in the anterior mid singulate

cortex in addition people who are

depressed who Express a lot of apathy

and here we're talking about clinically

diagnosed major depression show reduced

levels of activity in the anterior mid

singulate cortex humans that Express a

lot of what's called learned

helplessness that is they've adopted the

belief and the actions associated with

the belief that no matter what they do

the outcomes are not going to be what

they desire Express lower levels of

neural activity in the anterior mid

singulate cortex so you can see this

list goes on and on but it in fact gets

even more interesting remember earlier I

mentioned that successful dieters have

elevated levels of neural activity in

the anterior mid singulate cortex now

that might seem like a good thing and

indeed it can be a good thing but

there's a pathologic condition

associated with dieting and one's

ability to engage willpower and resist

food and that's in the case of eating

disord such as anorexia nervosa now I've

done a hubman Lab podcast solo episode

about anorexia nervosa and on that

podcast I made the point that I'll make

again now which is that anorexia nervosa

is the most deadly of all the

psychiatric conditions leading to death

in a very large percentage of people

that have it now fortunately there are

treatments and more emerging all the

time but it's a very serious

psychological and physiological

condition that is extremely deadly

individuals with anorexia nervosa

exhibit heightened levels of activity in

their anterior mid singulate cortex both

at rest and when presented with food and

I don't want to go on a full tangent

about anorexia because we covered

anorexia on the previous podcast episode

about anorexia which by the way you can

find at hubman lab.com simply search

anorexia or eating disorders within the

search function but one of the clear

symptoms of anorexia nervosa is that the

reward Pathways of the brain which we

know feed into that is direct

connections to the anterior mid

singulate cortex seem to be activated

under conditions in which people with

anorexia avoid food as opposed to eat

food and then there's a very interesting

and positive literature about so-called

super aers so what we know for sure is

that as people age in particular between

the ages of 60 and 90 there's a

reduction in the size of many brain

areas but the anterior mid singulate

cortex in particular unless certain

things are done to offset that we are

going to talk about what those

particular things are in just a few

minutes but there's a particular

category of humans that's alive now and

that live a very long time these are the

people that stand the greatest chance of

becoming centenarians and many of them

are centenarians so-called superagers

but also within the category of

superagers are people who are 60 years

old or more because not all of them have

reached 80 90 yet and have the cognition

of 40 olds 30y olds and often even of

people in their mid 20s now there are a

lot of things that are different about

these super agers super aers in the

sense that they are maintaining very

youthful levels of cognition but one of

the things that's become very apparent

from the neuroimaging data is that super

agers maintain a volume a size of the

anterior mid singulate cortex that is

significantly greater than their ag-

matched cohorts so the exciting thing is

that there are many many lines of

evidence pointing to the fact that the

anterior mid singulate cortex at least

has something to do with our ability to

generate tenacity and willpower and that

it when active moves us up that

Continuum away from apathy and

depression toward states of being able

to engage in or resist particular types

of behaviors so what I just described as

a bunch of neuroimaging structural

volume data blood uptake data lesion

studies and so on and so forth but we

can simplify all of that and in fact

address something that perhaps I should

have said earlier which is that when

we're talking about tenacity and

willpower we're really talking about one

of two things we are either talking

about that sense within us that has us

saying I will no matter what you tell me

no matter what you put in front of me no

matter what is rolled my way I will

blank now the other expression of

tenacity and willpower

is that within us within you within me

when tenacity and willpower are active

we have that sense within us that

feeling in our body and that thought

pattern AKA feeling in our brain that no

matter what you say no matter what you

do no matter what you put in front of me

I won't so really willpower is either an

expression of I will or I absolutely

will is perhaps a better way to State it

or I absolutely won't now that might

seem like just a simple subjective

reordering of a bunch of physiological

data and psychology studies but it's not

it's actually far more important for us

to understand this I absolutely will and

I absolutely

won't aspect of willpower because if

indeed there is a single brain area that

can govern willpower and willpower is

not one but is at least two things the

sense of I absolutely will no matter

what you say do Etc or I absolutely

won't no matter what you say do Etc well

then this brain area can't be a simple

switch it can't be willpower on Willow

off willpower on Willow off it can't be

absolute as we say it must be graded it

must have levels so it's more like a

slider on a light switch than an on

versus off light switch in addition to

that if there is truly one brain area

that plays a critical role in generating

tenacity and

willpower and tenacity and willpower is

something that it's required from us in

a lot of different contexts where we

have to say I absolutely will yes this I

absolutely won't know that I absolutely

will also yes this etc etc right because

life is complex even just the simple

thing of say dieting or trying to get a

particular degree or trying to navigate

even a simple illness like I'm going to

get through this weak despite feeling

lousy I'm going to take good care of

myself you know all of these things in

some sense require tenacity and

willpower and the behaviors we need to

engage in and avoid engaging in is very

Dynamic depending not just on who we are

and what we're trying to do or not do

but also where we are that day that

moment well that means that the anterior

mid singulate cortex also needs access

to information about context it needs to

understand what's rewarding or

non-rewarding in the cont of what we're

trying to accomplish not just what feels

good in the

moment now fortunately there have been a

number of studies exploring not just the

activity levels of the anterior mid

singulate cortex or the size of the

anterior mid singulate cortex in the

various conditions we talked about

before depression obesity successful

dieters successful students successful

athletes Etc but a lot of anatomical

tracing studies both from fixed that is

from Dead brain tissue so postmortem

brain tissue in humans but also nowadays

they're certain types of neuroimaging

particular something called diffusion

tensor Imaging that allows one to

examine the flow of information in and

out of different brain areas through

so-called white matter tracks tracks

meaning TR r a CTS track so these are

the wires that connect neurons are

called

axons and those axons are in sheathed

with a fatty substance called myelin and

that enement with milin allows them to

transmit information very quickly you'll

see where I'm going with all this in

just a moment

and what we know is that the anterior

mid singulate cortex again of which you

have one on each side of the brain about

a third of the way back from your

forehead to the back of your brain

approximately right above the so-call

Corpus colossum this very robust

collection of white matter tracks that

connects the two sides of the brain well

it gets input and sends input to a

number of different brain areas

including but not limited to the

following autonomic centers that control

for instance cardiovascular f function

increases or decreases in heart rate

respiration how fast and how deeply you

breathe or how shallowly and slowly you

breathe immune system inputs and outputs

with the

spleen not directly but through a couple

of different stations with the very

organs in your body that can release B

cells and t- cells and immune molecules

that can combat bacterial viral and

fungal infections and that can repair

physical wounds and it communicates with

the endocrine system with the systems of

the brain and body that release for

instance estrogen and testosterone which

by the way are present in both males and

females and on a previous episode of The

hubman Lab podcast with Robert spolski

as my guest we talked about for instance

the role of testosterone and many people

think oh testosterone is all about

aggression testosterone is all about

attack testosterone is all about mating

that is completely false while it can be

involved in those different

processes what Dr spolski and I

discussed is that one of the major

functions of testosterone in the brain

is to make effort feel good and you can

see and we'll talk a little bit more

about how that links up very directly

with this concept of tenacity and

willpower so the first point is that the

anterior mid singulate cortex is in

direct communication with all of the

areas of the brain and through a couple

of other stations the body that modulate

our sense of tenacity and willpower

which we talked about earlier the need

for Sleep the need for pain pain or lack

of pain or emotional Comfort or

discomfort to modulate our level of

tenacity and willpower the interior mid

singulate cortex is also directly linked

up with premotor centers these are the

centers of the brain that organize

particular patterns of behavior and

indeed that can suppress particular

patterns of behavior as I tell you that

you're probably filling in the blanks

this is engaging in a behavior or

resisting a behavior the interior mid

singulate cortex is also directly wired

in with the reward Pathways of the brain

it can trigger the release of dopamine

it can also respond to the release of

dopamine and that dopamine release could

be generated behaviorally it could be

generated through some sort of food

reward it could be pharmacologic there

are a number of different ways that the

dopamine system can communicate with the

anterior mid singulate cortex the point

here is that it is in direct

communication with the anterior mid

singulate cortex and the anterior mid

singulate cortex is in direct

communication with the dopamine system

and what I just gave you was frankly

just a partial list of the different

areas of the brain that are

communicating robustly with the anterior

mid singulate cortex it gets information

about interoception our readout of how

we feel in our body it also has robust

inputs and outputs with the areas of the

brain that are associated with

exteroception our perception of what is

out around us so all of that provides a

logical basis for the neuroimaging data

the lesion data the volumetric data that

we talked about a few minutes ago in the

context of depression anxiety high

performance anorexia and so on

but one of the most important arguments

that's ever been made in favor of the

anterior mid singulate cortex being a

major seat for tenacity and willpower

comes from Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett who

is soon to be a guest on the hubman Lab

podcast we've actually recorded that

episode already and it should be out

very soon Lisa's laboratory is well

known for pioneering research on emotion

and affect I strongly encourage you to

listen to that episode once it comes out

and it was actually Lisa herself that

cued me to the importance of the

anterior mid singulate cortex and Lisa

and colleagues have written several

spectacular reviews about the anterior

mid singulate cortex and its role in

tenacity and motivation I will provide

links to a few of those in the show note

captions the one that I'm particularly

excited about the one that I've spent

now an immense amount of time with is

entitled The tenacious brain how the

enter mid singulate cortex contributes

to achieving goals so if you have a

background in biology even if you don't

I think you'll find that review view to

be very interesting and it further

substantiates a lot of the points that I

made a few moments ago about the

different scenarios and types of

individuals that seem to be able to

engage their anterior mid singulate

cortex under different conditions and to

a greater or lesser extent than others

so hats off to Lisa for queuing me to

this incredibly interesting brain

structure I had known that it existed

after all I teach neur Anatomy to

medical students at Stanford and I

taught neuron Anatomy for many many

years but I don't think enough people

and indeed very few professional

neuroscientists could tell you what the

anterior mid singulate cortex does but

it has this apparently incredible

function in generating tenacity and

motivation along those lines one of the

most incredible and important studies

about the anterior mid singulate cortex

and its capacity to generate feelings of

tenacity and willpower comes from one of

my colleagues at Stanford Joe

parvy who essentially went into human

beings who needed brain surgery for

other reasons and stimulated particular

brain areas with a very high degree of

precision the title of the paper that

I'm referring to was published in 2013

in the journal neuron cell Press Journal

excellent journal and it's entitled the

will to persevere induced by electrical

stimulation of the human singulate gyrus

now you'll notice the title said human

singulate gyrus not anterior mid

singulate gyrus but because they had

electrodes and a stimulation technique

that would allow them to stimulate in

very small regions extending as little

as 5 mm but no more away from the

stimulation site they were able to march

their stimulation around different sub

regions of the singulate gyus of humans

while those people were awake and then

asked those people how do you feel what

are you experiencing In This Moment In

addition to that they were recording

various autonomic parameters from those

people so heart rate breathing in

addition to brain wave activity so what

the subjects report when their anterior

mid singulate cortex was stimulated is

that in their words

something was about to happen they felt

as if there was some sort of pressure

upon them from the outside not physical

pressure but that something was about to

happen in fact one of the subjects

described the sensation as it's as if

there's a storm off in the distance but

I know I need to go into the storm and I

know I can make it through the storm

okay another subject described the

experience of having their anterior mid

singulate cortex stimulated as okay

something not necessarily good as going

to happen but I know that I need to

Marshall resources and resist and I'm

confident that I can push through now

because Parisian colleagues are

excellent scientists they of course did

control experiments where they would

tell the person okay we're stimulating

that same brain area that a moment ago

you told me created this feeling of some

pressure upon you that you have to

resist some sense of fight or urgency to

push back but in reality During certain

control conditions they were not

stimulating those brain areas and the

sub objects then reported I don't feel

like anything's about to happen yeah I

don't feel anything at all in other

words it was the stimulation of the

anterior mid singulate cortex and only

the anterior mid singulate cortex that

created the sensation within people that

there was something to resist that there

was something putting pressure on them

again not physical pressure but

psychological pressure and that they

were going to have to Marshall resources

in order to push back upon in fact they

reported feeling as if their body was

getting ready to do something one

subject said something along the lines

of yeah I feel like I'm about to do

something I'm about to go someplace or

do something to resist this foreoing

sense that's now coming over me so this

is very interesting and of course is in

line with all of the data that we

discussed before about neural activity

patterns both spontaneous and evoked

about brain volume changes in the

anterior mid singulate cortex so on and

so forth and it really points to the

idea that the anterior mid singulate

cortex is a hub a hub Hub that receives

information from A diversity of brain

areas that we talked about a few minutes

ago and that generates a particular

sense within us that we are going to be

forward Center of mass that we are going

to resist something and that perhaps we

are going to move or act in some

particular way or as we've been

discussing all along resist action in

some particular way but that it requires

that we Marshall resources which takes

us back of course to the studies of bow

meister and indeed of dck where they

explored willpower as a limited resource

perhaps glucose perhaps as that limited

resource beliefs about willpower and

glucose probably with a high degree of

certainty are going to be involved there

too but regardless of that controversy

it's clear that there's an energy

required there's an activation state of

Engagement or

resistance to a particular Behavior or

thought pattern that we all associate

with this phenomenon of tenacity and

willpower and in a kind of miraculous

way you know as a neuroscientist we're

generally taught nowadays that

individual brain areas don't really

trigger individual functions and

perceptions of the brain there are a few

exceptions to that you know you have a

fusiform face area that really does seem

to be involved in the perception of

faces and when lesion you can't

recognize faces but outside of just a

few limited contexts it's very rare that

one comes across a literature that

across all of the studies involved

point to a single brain structure and

its networks as giving rise to something

as complex and flexible as tenacity and

willpower but in the case of the

anterior mid singulate cortex it really

does seem to meet those criteria as the

brain Hub responsible for tenasity and

willpower now a key idea that Dr Feldman

Barrett has contributed to studies of

the an mid singulate cortex as a

structure that helps us generate what we

call tenacity and willpower to help us

achieve different types of goals

is this idea of

allostasis most of you have perhaps

heard of homeostasis which is the idea

that all of our cells all of our organs

indeed our entire body and psychology

are always seeking homeostasis the

perfect balance of sleep and activity of

food and burning fuels of oxygen and

carbon dioxide and so on and so forth

and while homeostasis certainly exists

and is a valid phenomenon there's also a

concept that we hear far less about but

that is equally important which is the

concept of allostasis allostasis is the

idea that much of what our brain and

body need to do but especially our brain

is to allocate right allostasis to

allocate resources to particular

functions depending on our motivational

goals and the challenges upon us and in

every way what we understand about the

structure and function of the anterior

mid singulate cortex is that it is doing

just that it is deciding how much

glucose should a given brain area

consume perhaps a brain area that's

involved in visual perception because

you're involved in a motivational task

where in order to succeed you need to

pay careful visual attention to

particular things or you're involved in

a task where you have to listen to

particular things or perhaps you are

involved in a physical foot race where

you don't want to allocate a lot of

energy towards thinking about your

stride or your step unless that's

necessary and you actually want to shut

down your brain activity as much as

possible except for the brain areas that

are required to get you to continue run

in that sense the interior mid singulate

cortex as a sort of a dial on how much

fuel is consumed not by the brain and

body as a whole but by individual brain

and body parts meets all the criteria of

what you would want for a brain area

that controls things like tenacity and

willpower because even for those

individuals who seem to just have an

endless supply of tenacity and willpower

they too have to go into habitual

Behavior they can't simply lean into

every aspect of life with the kind of

resistance from outside and the

resistance against those outside forces

or even resistance to internal forces

voices in their head Etc on a constant

basis they still need to sleep they

still need to be functional in that

expression of tenacity and willpower

they need to be able to strategy switch

and they need to be able to come off the

gas as we say not because tenacity and

willpower are necessarily a limited

resource but because for so many aspects

of Life engaging tenacity and willpower

is not advantageous hence the example I

gave earlier about eating disorders

where an apparently hardwired function

of our brain to be able to generate some

sort of reward for resisting a given

Behavior goes too far and then can

actually threaten one's own health or

even life so the concept of allostatic

load allostatic balance and alistic

function is something that we get into

in a fair amount of detail in the

discussion with Dr Feldman Barrett in

that episode which is coming out soon

but in the meantime if you are to think

about the anterior mid singulate cortex

as having a single function the function

that Dr Feldman Barrett has ascribed to

it as controlling how much energy

different brain and body areas should

get in a given context well that makes a

lot of sense to me and I think it's the

one that best describes all of the

functional data indeed includes or jibes

with all the anatomical data about the

anterior mid singulate cortex as well

one of the really important twists in

all of this is that

the anterior mid singulate cortex is not

just sitting there to allocate and Dole

out different amounts of energy and

activation to different brain areas it

is also receiving input from both the

brain and body and in sort of a

beautiful Twist on the whole story of

what the anterior mid singulate cortex

does we know that when we move our body

we are activating the anterior mid

singulate cortex and we know that when

we move our body because we in some way

forced ourselves or encouraged ourselves

to do it we activate the anterior mid

singulate cortex more similarly and

because the Anor mid singulate cortex is

so flexible in the different context in

which it can be

activated if we are simply reading or we

are listening to something that we're

supposed to learn or trying to learn a

piece of music or trying to do anything

for that matter the anterior mid

singulate cortex yes will be activated

but that its levels of activation are

far greater when we experience a lot of

resistance that we have to overcome

remember the earlier result and by the

way I'll provide a link in the show note

captions to this particular study or set

of studies there are about two one

really spectacular one and a couple of

others that um tangentially point to the

same finding that when people engage in

a hard task not an easy task but a hard

task that the anterior mid singulate

cortex activity is elevated so the way

to think about the anterior mid singul

cortex is that it's not just sitting

there as a hub that you have to reach

into and activate it's also receiving

inputs that can activate it and that's

what allows us to now talk about the

tools and protocols that don't just

allow us to engage our anterior mid

singulate cortex and access more

tenacity and willpower but that allow us

to exercise not in necessarily in the

context of physical exercise although it

could be that too but to exercise our

anterior mid singulate cortices ability

to engage not just in that challenging

context but in other challenging

contexts as well in fact I'll just tell

you right now that studies in non-human

primates and to a limited extent in

humans but here we think there's a

strong analog between the non-human

primate data and the human data the

anterior mid singulate cortex is choa

block full of the expression of

molecules such as cyas 2 receptors to

various

neurotropins particular types of nmda

and methylaspartate receptors all of

which if none of those names mean

anything to you just know that all of

them refer to different aspects of and a

capacity for synaptic plasticity which

is the ability for Connections in the

brain to change they can get stronger

you can actually grow new Connections in

other words the anterior mid singulate

cortex can be built up as a structure to

engage tenacity and willpower by

activating it through one or a limited

number of different types of behaviors

meaning engagement in behaviors that

frankly we would rather not engage in as

as well as not engaging in behaviors

that reflexively we really want to that

we're sort of drawn to engage in both of

those contexts the I absolutely will

even though frankly I don't want to or

you're telling me I can't as well as

that I absolutely won't even though

you're tempting me to do that or that's

tempting me to do that or even I'm

tempted to do that that buildup of the

anterior mid singulate cortex has

extensive carryover into other domains

of life because it's the same structure

that is then used for other types of

behaviors and learning that require

tenacity and willpower so that's

incredibly reassuring in fact it's

downright exciting because as I

mentioned earlier while there are a near

infinite number of different

circumstances where we each and all need

tenacity and willpower it seems that

there's a very generic mechanism for

generating tenacity and willpower and

that means that if we can build up our

capacity for tenacity and willpower by

engaging particular types of behaviors

and resisting particular types of

behaviors will then it's going to carry

over in a very functional way to the

other aspects of life that we find

challenging and that we may find

challenging in the future okay so by now

I like to think that I've convinced you

because frankly the data are very

convincing that the anterior mid

singulate cortex is a vital Hub within

your brain for allocating energy and

resources to generating tenacity and

willpower and perhaps it's taking you a

lot of tenacity and willpower to get

this far through the episode waiting

with baited breath presumably to to

learn how exactly you can improve the

functioning of your anterior mid

singulate cortex now fortunately there

are published peer- rreview data that

explain how to do that in fact there's a

study that was published in 2006 by

colum and colleagues entitled aerobic

exercise training increases brain volume

in aging humans and before you go runoff

literally and engage in cardiovascular

exercise I'm just going to describe to

you the Contour of this study and what

specifically was done so that you can

best implement the best protocols for

your particular

circumstances this was a study

exploring why and how certain brain

areas and brain volume generally

decreases as we age it's well known as I

mentioned earlier that individuals aged

really 50 and older and maybe even as

early as 30 and older experience a

decrease in brain volume with particular

brain areas shrinking faster than others

but of course there are other people

that include include the superagers that

we talked about earlier and many many

other people who are not superagers who

don't experience the same decrease in

brain volume so why is it that they

maintain the same brain size that they

did when they were younger or undergo

less decrease in brain size that's what

the researchers for this study were

initially interested in understanding

and they did come to some really

interesting conclusions about that but

they also came to some interesting

conclusions that relate to today's

discussion on tenacity and

willpower this study involved having

individ ual who were 60 to 79 years old

divided into one of two groups one group

did cardiovascular exercise the other

group did more calisthenics SL

stretching type exercise both groups did

one hour of exercise three times per

week the group that did cardiovascular

training initially started off by doing

and by the way they just simply called

it aerobic training but this could be

rowing on the rower this could be

running this could be cycling I think

for sake of understanding application of

tools and protocols you would want to

pick any kind of activity that you could

do consistently without injuring

yourself that's what's really important

and that gets your heart rate elevated

they started off these

individuals with relatively low

intensity cardiovascular exercise for

that hour getting their heart rate up to

about 50% of their maximum heart rate

but very quickly had those individuals

increase the intensity of those

cardiovascular training sessions so they

were doing again three 1 hour sessions

per week getting their heart rate up to

about

75% of their maximum heart rate

sometimes a little less 60% sometimes a

little bit more but in that General

range so for those of you that think

about different zones of cardio this is

probably in the area of zone three not

quite Zone 2 cardio maybe zone three

cardio so where one can not carry out a

conversation very easily but where one

is not completely gasping for air as one

would if they went to their maximum

heart rate or near maximum heart rate

okay so three 1hour episodes of

cardiovascular training per week at a

moderately high intensity the other

group simply doing calisthenics and

stretching for the equivalent amount of

time and they had another group within

the study that were much younger that

did similar activities or no activity

simply as a control for the brain

Imaging data now I'm summarizing the

study with a fairly broad brush both for

sake of time and of course I'll provide

a link to the study in the show note

caption so you can access it and impres

in more detail if you like but I

wouldn't be talking about this study if

it were simply a study about

cardiovascular training and brain volume

I'm talking about this study because the

specific brain areas that maintained or

in some cases increased in volume as a

consequence of doing these three hours

per week of moderate intensity

cardiovascular training included of

course the anterior mid singulate cortex

that was actually the primary location

in which the maintenance of brain brain

volume was observed and in some cases

increases in brain volume were observed

right this is a group of people who

normally would be

losing volume size of their anterior mid

singulate cortex but for which 3 hours a

week of moderate intensity

cardiovascular training maintained the

volume the size of that anterior mid

singulate cortex and in some cases

increased the volume the size of

anterior mid singulate cortex and they

also observed a maintenance or increase

in the size of the anterior white m

matter tracks remember t r a c TS I

didn't spell that out before just to

spell it out for fun although that is

the sort of thing that I would probably

do those white matter tracks are the

communication routes by which different

brain areas communicate and this

anterior white matter tract that

maintained size in the people that did

cardiovascular training as compared to

those that simply did the calisthenics

training and stretching is the very

white matter tracks that connects the

two sides of the brain the frontal l

that allows the anterior mid singulate

cortex on one side of the brain and the

anterior mid singulate cortex on the

other side of the brain as well as other

brain structures to communicate with one

another so this is really spectacular I

mean the authors of the study didn't

embark on the study to find or even look

for increases or maintenance in the

volume of the anterior mid singulate

cortex and the communication routes in

and out of the anterior M singulate

cortex it just so happened that

cardiovascular training done three times

per week for an hour at a time at modern

intensity increased the size of the

anterior mid singulate cortex and as I

mentioned the white matter tracks which

allow information to go in and out of

the an mid singulate cortex now we

should all be asking ourselves why would

that be the case I mean somebody gets on

a stationary bike and pedals or goes out

on a road bike or runs is there

something inherent to running or cycling

or rowing or swimming or an aerobics

class dancing Etc that gets the heart

rate up that directly feeds into the ENT

mid singulate cortex after all is the

anter mid singul cortex responsible for

generating the activity of running or

cycling or swimming no rather the

interpretation is that in order to

engage in this one hour three times per

week set of sessions of cardiovascular

training they had to allocate resources

they had to get up out of a chair they

had to get off the couch they had to say

no to other potential obligations social

engagements meals Etc and get to these

exercise classes or sessions that they

did with others or alone now an

interesting and in fact important aspect

of the study is that the compliance with

this three hours per week of

cardiovascular training was very high

85% of individuals engaged in these

sessions across the six-month period of

the study I should have mentioned that

earlier the study was carried out over

the course of six months they did not

have the opportunity to do neuroimaging

after say a week or two weeks so they

image these people's brains before and

they image these people's brains after

this six-month period it's anybody's

guess as to whether or not they would

have observed the same or maybe even

greater increases at the one month

interval Etc we simply don't know

there's a great cost both energetic and

financial to doing these kinds of

studies so they looked at a six-month

period but setting all of that aside

this is a very important study in the

context of today's discussion because

what it means is that if we acknowledge

that the anterior mid singulate cortex

and the volume of an mid singulate

cortex is related to one's ability to

generate tenacity and will power for any

number of different

Endeavors well then having access to a

tool or a protocol that can increase the

size of one's anterior mid singulate

cortex is going to be extremely valuable

so what's the takeaway from this study

the takeaway from the study is not

necessarily that you should be doing

three one-hour bouts of cardiovascular

training per week for six months to

maintain or increase the size of your

anterior mid singulate cortex I do think