Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Train for a Great Life. I love talking through story and experience and anecdotals. Today, I'm going to pass on some research-backed stuff, some science, and we're going to talk about a part of the brain called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex. Okay, this is something that if you're familiar with, a guy named Dr Andrew Huberman. He talks a lot about this stuff. I think you're going to find it interesting.

Speaker 1: 0:32

So, um, when was the last time you dragged yourself to the gym, though every fiber in your body screamed skip it? Uh, for me it was actually yesterday. I am not doing as great with sleep recently, where, you know, I'm helping out with Calvin in the middle of the night. He's four months old and the day before I was about to head into the gym and I thought to myself you know what, like, I actually think I just need a nap instead of the gym right now. And I was about to do that again and I thought to myself you know what? This isn't me. I can't let myself do this two days in a row. So, anyway, that's my most recent one. It was literally yesterday. Or maybe you close the fridge instead of pouring a habitual nightly drink, or you shut the cupboard instead of taking a habitual nightly drink. Or you know you, you shut the cupboard instead of taking a piece of chocolate. Okay, the tiny victories. They're not just wins in the moment, they are literally reshaping your brain. Okay, we're going to talk through this.

Speaker 1: 1:38

Neuroscientists call this area the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, which I'm going to refer to as AMCC for the rest of this podcast. Think of it as the brain's cost-benefit accountant for effort. Mri studies show that it lights up when we contemplate something hard, especially when the reward is far off. More importantly, this region grows both in thickness and connectivity when we choose effort over comfort. I'm pulling this from peer-reviewed research-backed EDU GOV websites. It's also bigger in athletes, dieters and quotation super-agers. Dr Andrew Huberman points out a striking pattern that athletes have a measurably larger AMCC than non-athletes. People who lose significant weight see the area rebound after dieting. It's actually smaller during obesity, but expands with discipline change. And in the elderly so-calledcalled super agers, people in their 80s who test like 50 year olds across biomarkers they retain amcc the size of much younger brains. Meanwhile, neurodegenerative patients so show shrinkage here. So the translation here is that the circuit that powers willpower is also tied to longevity.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Okay, the catch it only grows when you don't feel like doing something. So here's the nuance that that Huberman stresses the hard work that you enjoy, say, a hobby marathoner who loves every mile, doesn't give the same structural bump. The growth stimulus is doing what you'd rather avoid, whatever it may be a cold shower, 10 pm, mobility drills or, yes, a glass of wine that you choose to skip at dinner. If you think of Navy SEAL veteran David Goggins running 12 miles on his knees, held together with freaking band-aids, he calls the AMCC the, the seat of the will to live, okay. And the protocol is brutally simple Do the thing over and over again, okay. So here's sort of like a three-step amcc workout that you can try today.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Pick a micro rep, something that you habitually resist right before your coffee. Do five push-ups, five minutes of journaling, something that just stings a little, a thing that you think about but you kind of choose to pass on it, even if it's very subconsciously. Label that friction, okay, when your brain says skip it internally. Tag that moment. This is the rep. The neuroscientists call this metacognition, you call it awareness, and then three stack the consistency, not the heroics, okay.

Speaker 1: 4:41

The growth is dose dependent, not intensity, meaning that, the tiny reps, the five pushups a day before your coffee when you don't want to do them. Beat the heroic binges that are done sporadically, like choosing to do a hundred pushups all in a day just cause, okay, if you have. If you do this for 30 days, you've run a progressive overload cycle that your willpower will. It will build that circuit. Okay, why this matters? Every skipped drink every Wednesday workout that you didn't have time for is a brick in the wall of resilience. Over years, this will predict better health, stronger cognition and a longer, more vibrant life, and I think in the end, that's kind of all what we're aiming for. There's just some real science behind doing hard things. See you in the gym.