How to Increase Your Willpower & Tenacity | Huberman Lab Podcast
发布时间 2023-10-09 12:00:26 来源
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today we are discussing how to build tenacity and willpower. Previous episodes of the Huberman Lab Podcast have focused on the topic of motivation.
欢迎来到胡伯曼实验室的播客，在这里我们讨论科学和科学为日常生活提供的工具。我是安德鲁·胡伯曼，我是斯坦福医学院的神经生物学和眼科学教授。今天我们将讨论如何培养坚韧和意志力。之前的胡伯曼实验室播客集中讨论了动机的主题。
And while motivation and willpower are linked thematically and mechanistically, today we are going to discuss tenacity, 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.
尽管动机和意志力在主题和机制上是相互关联的，但今天我们将讨论坚韧性，即在各种压力和阻力下持续努力的意愿，以及意志力，它涉及到做事情的动机和抵制某些事物的动机。今天你将学习关于坚韧性和意志力的心理学和神经科学。
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.
我必须告诉你，这是一本迷人的文献。事实上，你将学到一种脑结构，至少就我所知，大多数神经科学家甚至都不知道它的存在。然而，在研究这一话题时，我对这种脑结构深深着迷，因为它能够以令人难以置信的能力整合来自内部和外部的各种信息，以增强毅力和意志力。事实上，在今天你将学到一些研究支持的工具，可以帮助你在任何情况下提高毅力和意志力的水平。
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 general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.
在我们开始之前，我想强调一下，这个播客与我在斯坦福大学的教学和研究工作是分开的。然而，这是我渴望和努力让大众获得关于科学和科学相关工具的零成本信息的一部分。为了贯彻这一主题，我想感谢今天播客的赞助商们。
Our first sponsor is Maui Nui-Vennison. Maui Nui-Vennison is the most nutrient-dense and delicious red meat available. I've spoken before on this podcast in solo episodes and with guests about the need to get approximately one gram of high-quality protein per pound of body weight each day for optimal nutrition. There are many different ways that one can do that, but a key thing is to make sure that you're not doing that by ingesting excessive calories. Maui Nui-Vennison has the highest density of quality protein per calorie, and it achieves that in delicious things like ground meats, venison steaks, jerky, and bone broth. I particularly like the ground venison. I make those into venison burgers probably five times a week or more. I also like the jerky for its convenience, especially when I'm traveling or especially busy with work, and know that I'm getting an extremely nutrient-dense high-quality source of protein. If you'd like to try Maui Nui-Vennison, you can go to MauiNuiVennison.com slash Huberman and get 20% off your first order. Again, that's MauiNuiVennison.com slash Huberman to get 20% off.
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Today's episode is also brought to us by Helix Sleep. Helix Sleep makes mattresses and pillows that are tailored to your unique sleep needs. Now sleep is the foundation of mental health, physical health, and performance. When we are sleeping well and enough, mental health, physical health, and performance all stand to be at their best. One of the key things to getting a great night's sleep is to make sure that your mattress is tailored to your unique sleep needs. Helix Sleep has a brief two-minute quiz that if you go to their website, you take that quiz and answer questions, such as do you tend to sleep on your back, your side or your stomach, do you tend to run hot or cold in the middle of the night. Maybe you don't know the answers to those questions, and that's fine. At the end of that two-minute quiz, they will match you to a mattress that's ideal for your sleep needs. I sleep on the dusk at the USK mattress, and when I started sleeping on a dusk mattress about two years ago, my sleep immediately improved. So if you're interested in upgrading your mattress, go to helixsleep.com.com. Take their two-minute sleep quiz, and they'll match you to a customized mattress for you, and you'll get up to $350 off any mattress order and two free pillows. Again, if interested, go to helixsleep.com.com. For up to $350 off and two free pillows.
今天的节目也由Helix Sleep推荐给我们。Helix Sleep制造了专为您独特睡眠需求量身定制的床垫和枕头。良好的睡眠是精神健康、身体健康和表现的基础。当我们睡得好且充足时，精神健康、身体健康和表现都能达到最佳状态。要获得一个美好的夜间睡眠，关键之一就是确保床垫符合您独特的睡眠需求。Helix Sleep的网站上有一个简短的两分钟问卷，您可以填写并回答问题，比如您倾向于仰卧、侧卧还是俯卧睡觉，您晚上会感到发热还是发冷等等。也许您不知道这些问题的答案，没关系。在这两分钟的问卷结束时，他们将为您匹配到最适合您睡眠需求的床垫。我睡在USK床垫上，这是Helix Sleep的灰色系列，大约两年前开始使用，我的睡眠立刻得到改善。所以如果您有兴趣升级床垫，请访问helixsleep.com，参加他们的两分钟睡眠问卷，他们将为您量身定制一款床垫，您可享受高达350美元的折扣和两个免费枕头。再次强调，如有兴趣，请访问helixsleep.com，享受高达350美元的折扣和两个免费枕头。
I will also mention certain cases where 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.
我还会提到一些情况，太过坚韧和意志力过强可能对心理健康和身体健康造成问题。但对于大多数人来说，我相信提升坚韧度和意志力水平是有利的。
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 willpower are generated.
现在，让你放心的是，虽然有无数种不同情况下需要倚靠韧性和意志力才能成功，但大脑内确实存在一种主要机制，也就是韧性和意志力的主要生成机制。
And it arrives through the activation of a particular brain center that is a hub, 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.
它是通过激活一个特定的脑区域而产生的，这个脑区是一个枢纽，也就是说，它位于许多其他神经回路的交接处，并且接收到所有关键神经回路的输入，从而产生了坚韧和意志力所需的能量。
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.
现在，我们稍后将回到那个具体的神经回路，先讨论一下意志力的心理学问题，因为在谈论意志力心理学时，了解这个特定的大脑中枢或中心以及来自大脑和身体不同神经结构的输入和输出将确实使您能够充分利用已经在科学研究中显示出提高您坚韧和意志力水平的工具。
In other words, understanding the psychology of tenacity and willpower while valuable.
换句话说，了解坚韧和毅力的心理是非常有价值的。
If it's coupled with an understanding of the underlying neural mechanism, and notice I used 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 circumstances.
如果将它与对潜在神经机制的理解结合起来，并注意我使用了单数的神经机制，而不是产生韧性和意志力的多种机制，将使您能够使用并根据您的特定情况来调整增强韧性和意志力的特定协议。
So this is yet another case where certainly life circumstances vary from one person to the next.
这又是一个情况，生活环境因人而异。
The need for tenacity and willpower varies tremendously.
坚韧与意志力的需求存在巨大的差异。
For instance, some people may need more tenacity and willpower in order to engage in certain behaviors.
举个例子，某些人可能需要更多的毅力和意志力，以便参与某些行为。
Others of us might need more tenacity and willpower in order to resist certain types of behaviors.
我们中的其他人可能需要更多的坚韧和毅力来抵制某些行为。
Today, you will learn about the brain center that governs all of that.
今天，你将了解控制所有这一切的大脑中枢。
And then you can frame it within the psychological understanding of tenacity and willpower so that you can get the most out of the protocols that we will discuss.
然后，你可以将它放在执着和意志力的心理理解中，以便你能够充分利用我们将要讨论的协议。
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.
让我们从讨论坚韧和毅力的定义开始，并把它们与其他常被混淆的心理概念区分开来，因为这对于理解我们想要培养的坚韧和毅力的确切含义非常重要。
So tenacity and willpower can be distinguished from habit execution.
因此，坚韧和意志力可以与习惯执行区分开来。
Habit execution is what you do anytime you wake up in the morning, maybe you lie there for a bit, maybe you 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.
习惯的执行是指每天早上醒来后你所做的事情，也许你会躺在那里一会儿，也许你会立刻起床，希望你能出去并让一些阳光照进你的眼睛，尤其是在阴天时，刷牙，上洗手间，如果你和其他人住在一起的话，与他们进行互动，等等。
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.
所有这些行为，虽然有时候可能会更具挑战性，尤其是起床这一部分，可能是因为前一晚你没有睡好觉，比如说。
But all of those sorts of behaviors are behaviors that you have the neural circuits to generate and that typically you can generate without a lot of willpower required.
但所有这些行为都是你具备产生的神经回路，并且通常无需太多意志力即可生成的行为。
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.
坚定的决心，有时也被称为坚韧、毅力或持久性，与习惯执行截然不同，因为坚定的决心和毅力要求我们介入自己的默认神经过程，例如习惯或特定的思维模式。
And essentially govern ourselves to do or not do some particular thing.
基本上，这句话的意思是我们自己决定是否做某个特定的事情。
And that process requires effort.
这个过程需要努力。
It requires energy.
它需要能量。
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.
我觉得我们都对那种努力或能量的感觉很熟悉，这种感觉是为了参与我们实际上不情愿参与的行为，或者避免我们本能地会参与的行为或思考而需要付出的。
And when I talk about energy in this context, I'm mainly talking about neural energy.
当我在这个语境中谈论能量时，主要是指神经能量。
Remember that neurons, nerve cells in your brain and body use chemical and electrical signaling to communicate with one another.
请记住，您的大脑和身体中的神经元，也就是神经细胞，通过化学和电信号相互交流。
That's what allows you and all of us to do all the things that we do, think, feel, move, etc.
这就是让你和我们所有人能够做我们所做的一切事情，思考、感受、行动等等的原因。
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.
现在，当然，化学和电力通信需要来自葡萄糖、酮体、磷酸肌酸等物质的燃料来源，多种燃料系统为大脑的能量供应提供了支持。
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.
但是最重要的是，当我在今天的讨论中谈到能量时，我指的是参与或抵抗特定行为所需要的能量。
And that level of energy can be quite high, depending on how much resistance we are feeling internally or externally, right?
这种能量水平可能会相当高，这取决于我们内心或外部面对的阻力有多大，对吧？
Somebody can be telling us you're not going to be able to do this.
有人可能告诉我们，你将无法做到这一点。
You can't do it.
你做不到。
And you can say, no, I have a ton of resolve.
而且你可以说，不，我有极强的决心。
I have a ton of tenacity, willpower.
我有强烈的坚忍和毅力。
And I'm going to push past all the barriers that you are setting up for me on the outside.
我将逾越你在外界设置给我的所有障碍。
Oftentimes, 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.
往往，实在是太频繁地，我得说，我们会面临内心的抵触，有时我们感觉不想做某件事，或者真的很想做某件事，但我们却很难投入到不想做的事情中去，或者我们知道应该去做某事，但就是没有足够的动力去做，或者我们很难抵制那种吸引我们的事情。
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.
因此，在这种情境下，重要的不仅是区分坚韧和毅力与习惯执行，还要在这个连续体上划出一个范围，将在这个范围的一个极端上的坚韧和毅力与另一个极端上的冷漠和，是的，抑郁联系起来。
And we will return to the topic of depression a little bit later, but I can just queue 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.
稍后我们将再次回到抑郁问题，但我现在可以简单地提到，抑郁症的一个典型特征是对未来缺乏积极的期望，导致（这很重要，这里有一个动词时态）不太可能从事具体类型的行为，使得一个人能够达到一个特定、新的、不同且积极的未来。因此，我故意将冷漠和抑郁放在连续谱的一端，将毅力、坚持、坚韧和意志力放在另一端。
And a little bit later, it will 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.
稍后你会明白我为什么将那些特定的事物放在连续体上，而不是包括其他心理构建，如动机。因为事实证明，动机使你能够在这个连续体上上下移动，但动机本身作为一个动词与我们所称之为坚韧和意志力是不同的，动机本身也与我们所称之为冷漠和抑郁是不同的。
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.
但动力是引擎，或者说是马达，是让你能够在这个连续体上上下移动的动词，今天你将学习到多种工具，这些工具将帮助你通过刺激一个特定的神经回路，朝着坚韧和意志力的一端移动。
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 psychologists for well over 100 years. William James wrote about this, the ancient Greeks wrote about this, the topic of willpower is certainly not a new one.
在我们开始讨论神经回路之前，我想将注意力放在意志力的心理学上。这是心理学家们已经研究了100多年的一个领域。威廉·詹姆斯写过关于这个领域的文章，古希腊人也曾经提及，所以意志力的话题绝对不是新鲜事物。
And yet the formal study of willpower 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.
然而，在实验室环境中，对意志力的正式研究，即引入人类受试者并观察什么样的条件能够激发他们的意志力和坚韧，什么样的条件会真正消耗他们的意志力和坚韧，当然，还有平行实验在我们所称之为临床前模型的动物研究中完成，这些实验向我们揭示了哪些条件可以激发我们的意志力，哪些条件会削弱我们的意志力。
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.
现在，如果我们要全面掌握那整个文献，那其中有一大批文献，虽然不是全部，但其中有一大批文献认为并仍然认为意志力是一种有限的资源，就像身体或汽车燃料一样。
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 Bilemeister 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.
现在，意志力作为有限资源的想法并不是一个新的概念，但正式研究意志力和意志力作为有限资源的研究实际上可以追溯到20、25年前，当时罗伊·巴米斯特和他的同事开始探索这个想法，这个想法在之前已经存在了很多年，即随着每天我们参与的每一个决策的增加，以及我们作为一种资源所需要消耗的每一次意志力的增加，我们会耗尽我们内在拥有的这个意志力储备。
Now, Bilemeister and colleagues referred to that process as ego depletion.
现在，Bilemeister和他的同事将那个过程称之为自我耗竭。
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.
现在，当人们听到“自我”这个词时，有些人会联想到弗洛伊德的自我、超我、本我等等；而大多数人则认为自我意味着某人自视甚高，拥有强烈的个性。
When Bilemeister 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.
当Bilemeister提及自我耗竭时，他将自我耗竭定义为自我概念和外部挑战的概念，以及桥接自我概念和那些挑战所需的努力程度。因此，自我耗竭实际上是心理学领域内的一个操作性概念。因此我们不希望过于被“自我”这个词所分散注意力。有这样的倾向。
Anytime people hear ego, 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.
每当人们听到“自我”这个词时，他们就会联想到自恋，或者听到“煤气灯调节”（gaslighting）这个词便会立刻自认为知道这是什么意思，但实际上，这两个词的正式定义往往与在社交媒体、互联网乃至很多有关心理学的流行文献中的使用方式存在很大差异。
Okay, so let's just note that ego depletion is the term that Bilemeister 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.
好的，那么让我们先简单说明一下自我耗竭是Bilemeister用来描述我们意志力在每次尝试运用意志力后会逐渐耗尽的能力。同时，如果我们停下来进行决策并运用意志力，我们也可以通过休息来补充意志力的程度。
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 eating the cookie or thinking the thought or engaging in a particular type of behavior of any kind.
但是自我耗尽并不是当前的焦点。当前的焦点是意志力是否真的是一种有限资源，以及我们每做出一项决定和每次努力去进行一项我们不愿意参与的活动时，是否会消耗意志力。每次试图抵制一种行为、思维等对我们施加压力或者我们觉得自己想默认进行的行为（比如吃饼干、思考某个念头或者参与某种特定类型的行为），都可能会消耗意志力。
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 Bilemeister theory of willpower is 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 the Bilemeister and colleagues work about willpower as a limited resource. And then I'm going to present some of the conflicting evidence that Carol Dweck, my colleague at Stanford School of Medicine and researchers elsewhere, have carried out meta analyses and entirely in the past. And entirely new experiments, which indeed, in some cases, contradict the findings of Bilemeister, but more often than not contradict the conclusions that Bilemeister drew about willpower.
我们需要抵制这种消耗意志力资源的情况。在我深入讨论之前，我知道你们中的一些人可能已经意识到自尊心耗竭和Bilemeister关于意志力有限资源的理论在最近几年一直备受争议。所以今天我要做的是首先介绍一下Bilemeister和他的同事们关于意志力有限资源的研究成果。然后我将介绍一些卡罗尔·德韦克（我在斯坦福医学院的同事）以及其他研究者进行的元分析和全新实验所得到的争议性证据。这些研究在某些情况下确实与Bilemeister的研究结果相矛盾，但更常见的是与Bilemeister对意志力的结论相矛盾。
So if we are to understand the psychology of willpower and tenacity, it's important that we understand the concepts of ego depletion and willpower as a limited resource, even if, after hearing all the evidence, you decide that willpower is not a limited resource. And in fact, I'm quite confident that once you hear about the Bilemeister work and then you hear about the work of Dweck and others, which in some ways counters the conclusions of Bilemeister, that you'll have a much firmer and certainly a much more complete understanding about what tenacity willpower are. And perhaps, and here I'm revealing my own leanings when having examined the totality of the data, that tenacity 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.
所以，如果我们要理解意志力和坚韧心理学的本质，了解自我耗竭和意志力作为有限资源的概念至关重要，即使在听完所有证据之后，你决定意志力不是一种有限资源，也是如此重要。事实上，我非常有信心，一旦你听说了Bilemeister的研究工作，然后听说了Dweck和其他人的工作，这在某种程度上挑战了Bilemeister的结论，你对坚韧和意志力会有更牢固、更全面的理解。也许，这里我透露了自己的倾向，当我审视了全部数据后，我认为坚韧和意志力在某些情况下是一种有限的资源，可以通过身体内特定的过程来恢复。没错，是在身体内部。
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.
但是，这种毅力和坚韧，以及最重要的是如何发挥毅力和意志力，尤其是在面对很多挑战时，不仅仅是一个挑战，而是需要在一整天、几周、几个月等时间周期内完成的多个挑战。这种毅力和意志力可以反复借用，而不会耗尽。如果你对毅力和意志力的信念有清晰的认识，我意识到我刚才提到的是一个我甚至还没有讨论过的争议。所以这可能看起来像是一团没有任何背景的信息。
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 as a limited resource falls out of my mind. It 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 counter argument of what willpower really is that comes from other groups.
然而，我在我们对话的这个阶段提及争议的原因是，当“自我耗竭”或“意志力作为有限资源”这些词从我的脑海中消失时，它们就从我的口中说出来了。我可以听到外面有人说，等一下，我以为那个已经被揭穿了。我想要明确表示，意志力是一种有限资源，而自我耗竭并没有被揭穿，只是一个心理学研究中备受争议的领域。更重要的是，在今天的讨论中，我们必须理解意志力作为有限资源的理论，才能理解来自其他团体的对意志力本质的反对观点。
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.
我真的想向你们叙述整个故事的两个方面，这样当我们谈及决心和意志力的潜在神经机制，以及提高你的决心和意志力水平以及在不同环境中增强你的意志力灵活性的工具和方案时，你们能够充分利用这些工具和方案。好的，那么让我们来看一下意志力是一种有限资源的证据。
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 oftentimes 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.
我想大多数人都能理解毅力的感觉。这就是执着的感觉。而且，这是一枚硬币的两面。有意志和坚韧的一面是我们在真正不想参与某种行为时努力去尝试。或者当我们的冲动不是参与该行为时。当我说我们的冲动不是参与该行为时，是因为通常情况下，我们想要参与该行为。我们想要学习。我们想要学习乐器。我们想要表现好。我们想要锻炼身体。我们想要得到这些事物的好处。所以并不是我们不想要这些结果或奖励。在许多情况下，并不是我们不喜欢这些活动，而是由于某种原因我们感到缺乏动力。
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.
我们正在沿着那个连续性逐渐向更加冷漠的一端漂流。希望不会漂到深度抑郁和冷漠的程度，但我们正在往那个方向漂去，或者我们还没有达到足够高的程度，没有足够的动力去感受到为了某个目标本身或其成果而做某事的愿望是足够让我们去实践的。
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'll talk about today.
因此，耐克的口号“只是去做”，虽然是一句很棒的口号，但在没有理解如何激励自己去做某件事情的机制时，往往会显得力不从心。坦白地说，每当我听到有人说“只要消除思考，直接行动”时，这是一个宝贵的建议，直到它不起作用为止，因为当它不起作用时，它就是不起作用。然后你就需要依靠其他工具和机制，这些是我们今天将讨论的内容。
So while I have great respect for the just do it 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 Dewalter. 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.
尽管我非常尊重“只管去做”的口号，但当它不奏效时，它没有提供任何替代方案来激发坚韧和意志力。而且我不认识这个世界上的任何人。我不在乎你是大卫·戈根斯还是科特尼·德瓦尔特。总会有那么些日子，告诉自己“只管去做”或“只是不要这样做”不足够让你参与你需要参与或抵制你需要抵制的行为或思维。这只是现实的一部分。
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.
我们应该问自己，为什么现实就是这样呢？这是一个非常重要的观点。实际上，这真正阐明了增加坚韧和意志力的第一个工具和协议的范畴。这些工具和协议可以归类为调节因素。
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.
我之前在这个播客中提到过调解者和调节者之间的重要区别。调解者是指那些直接参与产生某种行动或情感的机制中的事物，无论是心理上的或生物学上的等等。这可能是神经化学物质如多巴胺或血清素等。而调节者是能够调节的事物。也就是说，他们可以间接地改变我们做某事或不做某事的可能性。
And in the context of tools and protocols to increase our level of tenacity and willpower, I will 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.
在增强我们的毅力和意志力的工具和协议的背景下，如果增加我们能够达到高水平的毅力和意志力的可能性的协议集合中没有包括至少一些调节因素，那么我将完全遗漏了其中一些工具。因此，我只想花大约三分钟来介绍这些调节因素。
Because what we know for certain is that the regions of the brain that generate tenacity, and again, there is literally a brain hub for generating willpower 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.
我们可以确定的是，产生坚韧不拔的大脑区域，确切地说，有一个产生意志力和坚韧性的大脑中枢，它从所谓的自主神经系统接收强烈的输入。自主神经系统由两个主要组成部分组成，即交感神经系统和副交感神经系统。
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.
记住，大多数人听到“sympathetic（交感）”这个词时，他们会想到同情、情感。实际上它与此毫无关系。Simpa意味着在一起，而交感神经系统的交感神经纤维，虽然听上去有点拗口，却负责在我们的大脑和身体中产生警觉状态。从恐慌到警觉和冷静，我们的运动倾向，或者在压力下运动的可能性。它还负责我们在需要抵制运动时的能力，因此它是一个主动的过程。
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. 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.
所以交感神经系统涵盖了所有的行动因素，当它参与产生静止状态时，这些是需要能量才能实现静止的情况。我想要非常清楚地表达这一点。交感神经系统不仅仅与身体的运动有关，虽然它与此密切相关。当需要抵抗运动、思考或情绪时，它也负责我们能够抑制自己的能力。
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, where when we have a difficult time getting into action.
我们自主神经系统中的副交感神经部分有时被称为“休息和消化”的神经回路和化学物质。这是真的，但副交感神经系统的组成部分还有很多。它也负责入睡。它让我们感到放松。它负责我们处于安静状态时的大多数心理和身体状况，在这种状态下我们不会感到运动的冲动，在我们难以行动时也起到作用。
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 or 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.
自主神经系统的交感神经和副交感神经方面总是相互推拉。可以将它们想象成一个跷跷板。当一边上升时，另一边下降。它们实际上是相互竞争，而它们的平衡反映了我们的警觉程度或困倦程度。
Now the reason I'm giving you this rather geeky nerd-speak, nomenclature-filled discussion about the autonomic nervous system in the context of willpower is that regardless of whether or not you're going to be able to get into a fight, 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.
现在我解释一下为什么在讲到意志力时会给你们带来这些有关自主神经系统的、带有术语的、有些极客气息、充满专业术语的讨论。无论你是否能够参与战斗，无论你是否相信意志力是有限的还是无限的资源，我们至少知道一件事：那就是意志力和坚韧性与我们当前的自主功能息息相关。
We can translate that to everyday language by saying that when 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.
我们可以用日常语言来解释这个意思，比如说，当我们休息得充足，比如前一晚和前天晚上都睡得很好，我们对于那些通常不会主动参与的事情展现出更高的坚韧和意志力，同时我们也能更有效地抵制那些平时会采取的行为和思维模式。
Conversely, when we are not getting enough quality sleep on a regular basis, our ability to call on tenacity and willpower is diminished.
相反地，当我们没有足够的高质量睡眠并且这种情况经常发生时，我们调动坚韧和意志力的能力将会减弱。
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 in tenacity and willpower in order to do or not do, tenacity and willpower will be diminished.
现在，我刚刚发表的一系列陈述对于大多数人来说显然是显而易见的，但重要的是要明白，当我们缺乏睡眠、身体上疼痛、情绪上痛苦，或者分心去想其他事情时，我们所需要的坚持和意志力就会减弱。
Now, all of those things together are just a bigger duh. We all know this. If you have got a splinter in your foot, it is 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 is looping around in your head, it is going to be very hard to engage in something else that you need to do because you are going to be distracted.
现在，所有这些事情放在一起只是更明显的道理。我们都知道这一点。如果你的脚上扎了一根木屑，很难不去想别的事情。如果你非常饥饿，或者和你非常在乎的人争吵了，并且他们说了一些特别令你恼火的话，这些话会在你的脑海中不断回旋，这时很难去从事别的你需要做的事情，因为你会分心的。
Likewise, if you are sleep deprived, likewise, if you are a bit sick or run down, or if you are in any kind of physical or emotional pain, your ability to draw on tenacity and willpower will be diminished.
同样地，如果你缺乏睡眠，同样地，如果你有点生病或身体虚弱，或者如果你身体或情绪上有任何疼痛，你的毅力和意志力将会减弱。
So, it is an absolute truth that your ability to generate tenacity and willpower rides on a reservoir of autonomic function. And today, we do not really have a way of quantifying the level of autonomic function or dysfunction in a very simple way.
所以，一个绝对的事实是，你产生坚韧和意志力的能力依赖于自主功能的储备。而如今，我们没有一种简单的方式来量化自主功能或紊乱的水平。
It is not like resting heart rate, although resting heart rate is involved. For instance, if you have not slept well for a few nights or if you are particularly stressed, over-trained, you will wake up in the morning with a significantly elevated heart rate.
这与安静心率不同，虽然安静心率也会受到影响。例如，如果你连续几个晚上睡眠不好或者处于特别紧张或过度训练状态，你早上醒来时心率会明显升高。
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 imbalanced, that is the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems of your autonomic nervous system are in the best possible balance to generate tenacity and willpower.
然而，没有像心率、血压甚至皮质醇水平那样简单的度量标准可以告诉你你的自主神经功能是否失衡，即你的交感神经和副交感神经系统是否处于最佳平衡状态以产生坚毅和意志力。
We do not 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.
我们目前还没有这样的衡量指标，尽管有些公司正开始开发设备，希望能够为我们提供自主神经功能正常或异常的指标。
But it is important that we acknowledge that if you are 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.
然而，重要的是我们认识到，如果你不关注坚韧和意志力的基础调节因素，那么我们将讨论的后续工具和协议在长期内都无法给你带来太多帮助。
You might get tenacity and willpower to engage one day when you are very sleep deprived, but it is going to be very difficult to consistently engage tenacity and willpower.
或许在你饱受睡眠不足之苦的一天，你可能会获得坚韧和意志力来投入其中，但要持续保持坚韧和意志力将非常困难。
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 put at HubermanLab.com.
因此，如果您在正常情况下无法获得足够质量的睡眠，或者有任何困扰睡眠的问题，请访问我们在HubermanLab.com上提供的免费睡眠工具包。
Please also see the Perfect Your Sleep, Master Your Sleep episodes also at HubermanLab.com.
请您还可以在HubermanLab.com上观看《完善您的睡眠，掌控您的睡眠》的其他集数。
And please also see the episode with expert guest Dr. Matthew Walker, professor of sleep, neuroscience and psychology at University of California, Berkeley.
请您还能观看专家嘉宾 Matthew Walker 博士的一集节目，他是加州大学伯克利分校的睡眠、神经科学和心理学教授。
We just revamped the HubermanLab website, so if you go to HubermanLab.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 timestamps that will queue up particular topics and protocols around sleep.
我们刚刚对HubermanLab的网站进行了改版，现在如果你打开HubermanLab.com并在搜索功能中输入类似于“睡眠”这样的词，它不仅会为你提供与睡眠相关的工具，还会准确地将你引导到特定的时间戳，以便浏览有关睡眠的主题和协议。
So if you were to put sleep and light, it would take you to those particular protocols. If you were to put sleep in Magnesium 3 and 8, it would take you to those particular protocols and so on and so forth.
所以，如果你要加上“睡眠”和“光”，它会带你到那些特定的协议中。如果你要在镁3和8中加上“睡眠”，它会带你到那些特定的协议中，循此类推。
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.
在今天的讨论中，我不想离题太远，但如果你睡眠不好，压力管理不当，不管你用什么工具，都会更加困难地表现出坚韧和毅力。
And those tools could be everything from behavioral tools to supplements to prescription drugs.
这些工具可以是各种类型的，包括行为工具、补充剂和处方药物。
You need to get those foundational modulators in check. And there are a lot of zero cost ways to do that that are all spelled out very clearly at the resources I just described.
你需要控制好那些基础的调节因子。而且，在我刚才描述的资源中，有很多零成本的方法可以做到这一点，并且都有非常清晰的说明。
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 HubermanLab.com website and put in stress threshold tools or stress real time tools, and you'll get a bunch of zero cost tools that will allow you to do that.
同样，在应对压力方面，无论是短期、中期还是长期的压力挑战，如果你认为自己的皮质醇水平升高，虽然事实可能并非如此。有许多工具可以实时调节压力，提高你的压力容忍度等。只需访问HubermanLab.com网站，搜索压力容忍度工具或实时压力工具，你就会得到一系列免费工具，帮助你达到这些目标。
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 the brain. And that's why we're trying to find and body toward particular activities or to resist particular activities.
值得一提的是，当我们讨论关于坚韧和意志力的神经科学时，你会明白为什么自主神经系统的健康和功能对于我们发挥坚韧和意志力非常重要。我现在就告诉你吧。这是因为自主神经系统的神经回路直接而强大地输入到大脑中控制我们将心智和身体投入到特定活动或抵制特定活动的核心位置。这就是为什么我们试图找到和投入身心到特定活动或抵制特定活动的原因。
As many of you know, I've been taking AG1 daily since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. AG1 is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that's designed to meet all of your foundational nutrition needs. Now, of course, I try to get enough servings of vitamins and minerals through whole food sources that include vegetables and fruits every day, but oftentimes I simply can't get enough servings. With AG1, I'm sure to get enough vitamins and minerals and the probiotics that I need, and it also contains adaptogens to help buffer stress. Simply put, I always feel better when I take AG1. I have more focus and energy, and I sleep better, and it also happens to taste great. For all these reasons, whenever I'm asked if you could take just one supplement, what would it be? I answer AG1. If you'd like to try AG1, go to drinkag1.com slash Huberman to claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3K2. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash Huberman.
如你们中的许多人所知，我从2012年开始每天都在服用AG1，所以我很高兴他们赞助这个播客。AG1是一种维生素矿物质益生菌饮料，旨在满足您所有基本的营养需求。当然，我会尽量通过摄入包括蔬菜和水果在内的整食来获取足够的维生素和矿物质，但往往我无法获得足够的摄入量。通过服用AG1，我能确保获得足够的维生素、矿物质和所需的益生菌，而且它还含有适应元素，有助于缓解压力。简而言之，每当我服用AG1时，我总是感觉更好。我拥有更好的专注力和精力，睡眠也更好，而且它的口感也很好。出于这些原因，每当有人问我如果只能选择一种补充剂时，我会选择AG1。如果你想尝试AG1，请访问drinkag1.com/huberman以获取特别优惠。他们将为您提供五个免费的旅行包以及一年的维生素D3K2供应量。再次强调，网址是drinkag1.com/huberman。
Okay, so let's think about the Balmeister data on willpower as a limited resource. I'm going to briefly describe one of the first studies that really said to the field, will power as 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.
好的，那么让我们思考一下巴爾邁斯特（Balmeister）有關意志力作為有限資源的數據。我將簡要描述其中一項最早的研究，它真正對該領域提出了意志力作為有限資源的觀點，但我想要明確一點，還有其他類似的研究，它們大致上遵循相同的輪廓，而該輪廓如下。
Balmeister 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.
巴尔迈斯特和他的同事们，以及现在许多其他实验室都进行了一些实验，他们把人类被试带进实验室，要求他们做一些需要思考努力或精力，也就是意志力的事情。这其中的典型例子是将人们带进实验室。其中一些人可能正在节食或禁食，但并非总是如此，他们面前放着两盘食物。其中一盘是红萝卜，就是普通的红萝卜。顺便说一下，我讨厌吃红萝卜，除非是腌制的红萝卜。我不知道为什么会这样。所以这些实验选择了我最不喜欢的蔬菜。我喜欢很多其他蔬菜，但对红萝卜不屑一顾。这只是一段个人评论。
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 mutants out there that are 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.
无论如何，萝卜摆了出来，旁边是新鲜出炉的饼干，房间里弥漫着刚出炉的饼干的香气。所以我认为可以说大多数人，因为天生对糖和脂肪有好感的倾向，尤其是当它们结合在一起时，会更喜欢吃饼干而不是萝卜。我知道有些异常的人说，我更喜欢萝卜而不是饼干，但看，大多数人更喜欢饼干而不是萝卜。这些研究中的被试被分成两组。
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 assumption. Again, this is an assumption because there's no brain recordings here, no ones 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.
一个小组被告知，你们必须抵制食用萝卜。另一个小组被告知，你们必须抵制食用饼干。然后在这段时间内观察被试者，尽管这真的并不是实验的主要目的。这个实验阶段的主要目的是让人们抵制某种特定的行为，并假设一些东西。再次强调，这只是个假设，因为这里没有脑部记录，没有人在核磁共振机中观察哪些脑区被激活或未激活。至少在这些早期实验中，并没有测量皮质醇。
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.
这些人要么抵制一件相当容易抵制的事情，也就是小萝卜，要么被要求抵制一件对大多数人来说比抵制小萝卜更难的事情，即新鲜出炉的饼干。而且，房间里飘散的新鲜烘烤饼干的香气使得这个挑战变得更加困难。
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 well-established 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.
在某些情况下，这种情况变得更加困难，因为这些人正在节食。请记住，当你限制卡路里摄入，或者采用任何类型的节食方式时，大脑中存在一种确立的机制，通过这种机制，负责引发饥饿感（尤其是对脂肪和糖的饥饿）以及对香气和味道有反应的神经元会被加强。也就是说，它们的活动水平会增加，这意味着当你饥饿时，闻起来很香的东西会变得非常非常香。当你终于吃到平常觉得很美味的东西时，它们会变得非常非常非常好吃。
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 use different puzzles, different experiments use different contexts. But the original experiments that Bell Meister and colleagues did had people try and solve a puzzle that could not be solved.
因此，实验的关键组成部分是激发人们的意志力。实验的第二部分要求所有被试分别参与另一个具有挑战性的任务。而他们被要求参与的挑战性任务是解决一个特定的谜题。不同的实验使用不同的谜题，不同的实验使用不同的背景条件。但是，Bell Meister和他的同事最初进行的实验是让人们尝试解决一个无法解决的谜题。
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 hard. And for some people would be very, very hard to resist.
所以，这非常非常困难。事实上，这是不可能的。但是被试者并不知道这一点。然后测量的是被试者坚持尝试解决这个不可能解决的谜题的时间。根据之前是否需要抵制萝卜（相对容易抵制）或者抵制饼干（至少较难抵制），被试者的表现会有所不同。对于某些人来说，抵制饼干是非常非常困难的。
Now you can probably already guess what the outcome of this in 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 would be a little bit more difficult. And then 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.
现在你可能已经猜到了类似研究中的结果，因为这引发了心理学领域内一个完全不同信仰阵营，即意志力是一种有限的资源。结果是，如果人们必须抵制饼干，这比抵制萝卜更难，那么当他们试图解决一个稍微困难一些的谜题时，他们会坚持的时间较短。然后，他们要解决一个他们不知道无法解决的谜题。相反，如果人们必须抵制一些相当容易抵制的东西，比如抵制吃萝卜，对我来说这非常容易抵制。嗯，当他们随后面对一个非常困难、实际上无法解决的谜题时，他们会坚持更长的时间。
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.
好的，所以简单来说，这项研究得出的结论是，如果你必须抵制一件困难的事情，那么你在之后参与另一项困难任务时，你的意志力中抵抗力就会减弱。而如果你在面对一个挑战之前有一个轻松的挑战或没有挑战，那么你在解决非常困难的谜题时会有更多的资源、更多的意志力可供运用。
So the conclusion that Balmeister 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.
因此，Balmeister和他的同事从这些结果中得出的结论是意志力是一种有限的资源，但他们并没有具体说明这种有限的资源是什么。这个理论非常吸引人，因为它与大多数人对自己的意志力和坚韧性的认知相吻合。这个想法是，是的，有些事情挑战我们的决心和抵制力，但我们可以做到，但当我们一次又一次地被要求这样做时，虽然我们可能会积累一些发挥意志力和坚韧性的能力。
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.
当然，我们听说过并且有些人知道的那些罕见的个体，似乎拥有无穷无尽的意志力和坚韧不拔。大多数人都有一种直观的理解，就是不断与生活摩擦，在不断地要求自己做事情和抵抗事物的过程中，是多么的艰辛。尽管这个能力可以扩大和增长，我们在这方面也可以变得更好，但主观而言似乎确实有一些关于坚韧和意志力的东西，无论它可能会让人感到愉快，但它也需要努力。这就是我们所谈论的神经能量。
So that raised the question of, okay, if willpower is a limited resource, what exactly is that resource at a physiological level? So Baumeister 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 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.
这就引出了一个问题，如果意志力是一种有限资源，那么在生理层面上，这种资源到底是什么？于是，鲍迈斯特和他的同事们随后开始探讨了一个我认为非常有趣且巧妙的想法。坦白说，我不得不承认我自己不会想到这个想法，但他们想到了。他们说，在某些情况下，人们吃饼干然后进行这个非常困难的拼图游戏。在其他情况下，他们吃芜菁然后进行这个困难的拼图游戏。当然，还有其他实验使用非食物挑战性选择，但他们提出了一个想法，即大脑作为我们整个身体中代谢活动最活跃的器官之一，如果不是最活跃的器官，它需要很多燃料。它需要很多葡萄糖。
Now, of course the brain mainly runs on 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. Baumeister 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.
现在，当然，大脑主要以葡萄糖为主要能源，但如果你遵循生酮饮食，你的大脑将主要以酮体为能源。但对于大多数杂食动物或食用碳水化合物的人来说，葡萄糖是神经元及脑部和身体中的神经细胞的主要和首选燃料来源。Baumeister及其同事提出了一个假设，即葡萄糖可用性本身就是限制自我控制力的资源。在一系列实验中，他们确实显示，如果要求人们进行一项艰巨的任务来调动他们的意志力，这可以通过抵制特定行为或从事特定行为来完成。我只是举一个从事需要意志力、或至少需要专注和精力的特定行为的例子，与之前提到的抵制萝卜与抵制饼干的例子相对照。
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's that arrive in the middle of sentences next to consonants, but not other vowels. Stuff that takes a lot of energy. So these are do's 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's in this passage, but also to resist the reflex to cross out other E's. And of course, all this is under time pressure, and oftentimes it's being rewarded or scored. This is the way that psychology researchers get people to engage in particular 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. 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.
在这样的实验中，有一种常见做法是给人们一段非常长的文字，像是一个故事，然后告诉他们一些关于如何编辑这段文字的规则。也许他们必须划掉每三个E或者是那些出现在句子中间并且旁边是辅音字母的E，但不能划掉其他元音字母。这些都需要花费很多精力的任务。所以这些是需要执行的行为，与之前讨论的抵制行为相反，比如抵制萝卜，抵制饼干。虽然在许多实验中，会有指令要求做某些事情，比如在这段文字中划掉特定的字母E，同时要抵制划掉其他E的冲动。当然，所有这些都是在时间压力下进行的，而且通常会有奖励或评分。这是心理学研究人员使人们参与特定实验和行为，并在实验室环境中抵制某些无聊和无意义事物的方式。如果你在任务中表现好，他们会给你更多的报酬。他们会给你一些钱，然后在实验结束时扣除你将要得到的钱。如果你出错了，他们也会对你施加时间限制，正如我之前提到的。
So there were lots of different conditions for, 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 my Stern 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.
所以，再次来说，这里有很多不同的条件，耗尽人们的意志力和坚韧性，当然也耗尽了他们的注意力。然后他们会让他们做另一个后续任务。在很多方面，这与我斯特恩学院同事们所进行的第一个曲奇萝卜实验非常相似。但在第一个和第二个困难任务之间，有一个重要的干预措施。这个干预措施是给一组人饮用约150卡路里的葡萄糖饮料。这样他们会喝下葡萄糖饮料来增加血糖水平，这是大脑的首选燃料来源，与给他们人工调味的饮料或者普通水相比，这些饮料当然在味道上是相匹配的，但不含任何葡萄糖或热量。
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.
现在，这是一个聪明的实验设计，如果你想一想的话，因为最初看起来，唯一真正不同的是大脑获得葡萄糖的可用性。你可能能猜到这些研究的结果是什么。这些研究的结果是，当受试者在第一个需要意志力的困难任务和第二个需要意志力的困难任务之间（在一些实验中还有第三个需要意志力的困难任务）中给予葡萄糖，他们的意志力水平可以从一个任务持续到下一个，并且在一些情况下，如果他们摄入了更多的葡萄糖饮料，意志力水平还会增加。
So what's really interesting and frankly really nice about these studies is that they attempted 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.
这些研究真正有趣且实际上非常棒的地方在于它们试图将心理特质（如坚韧和意志力）与生理特征联系起来。它们旨在验证意志力是一种可消耗资源的论断，并以一种生理变量来加以验证，而这种生理变量就是大脑中的葡萄糖可利用性。
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 of a problem. That you would have more willpower and tenacity, this thing that humans have been seeking more of since the beginning of time.
这一发现引发了有关心理学领域以及流行心理学领域的热烈讨论。人们对此感到非常兴奋。我的意思是，这一系列研究结果真正证明了一个论点，即如果你能够在一天中保持脑部葡萄糖水平持续或至少稳定，你将会拥有更多的意志力和坚韧性，这是人类自古以来所追求的品质。
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 a 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, in relationships, in all of the domains of life.
现在，所有这些看起来都很好，实际上有很多产品和课程都诞生于这些文献的基础上。人们争论说，你应该在做任何艰难任务时喝葡萄糖饮料，你应该在任务之间喝葡萄糖饮料，你应该将你摄入体内的食物视为你大脑内心理过程的燃料，这会使你在工作、学校、运动、人际关系和生活的各个领域表现更好。
But of course, any time 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 Balmeister 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 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.
当然，每当在任何科学领域中有一个重要的发现或真正引起人们兴奋的东西，尤其是在如此适用的心理学领域，就像是那个巴尔麦斯特的研究结果那样，就会有其他的团队试图复制这些发现，他们会深入研究这些发现本身，并考察统计数据，看看这些研究在功效或效果方面是好还是差。我们现在不想进行关于如何提高研究效力的全面讨论，但是提高研究效力与回答以下问题密切相关，即研究中是否有足够的被试者可以从中得出结论，或者统计数据是否能够表明，在意志力和坚韧性方面，葡萄糖摄入确实具有显著影响，但如果被试者不足，那么就可能存在其他可以解释这些结果的变量。
So there were a lot of meta-analyses and other studies trying to replicate the work of Balmeister, 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 Balmeister results was, and I want to be very clear, there was no real dispute as to whether or not Balmeister got the results that he and his colleagues claim 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?
所以有许多荟萃分析和其他研究试图复制巴尔迈斯特的工作，这就是事情变得有争议的地方。现在我们可以从所有这些争议中退后一步，毕竟我们不想花太多时间在争议本身上，而是想知道对巴尔迈斯特的研究结果的反解释是什么。我要非常清楚地说明，对于巴尔迈斯特及其同事声称获得的结果是否真实存在，并没有真正的争议。他们确实获得了这些结果。问题实际上是关于解释的。意志力是有限的资源吗？如果是的话，生理资源本身是否是供应给大脑的葡萄糖可用性？
So in 2013, a colleague of mine at Stanford, Dr. Carol Dweck, in our Department of Psychology, did a study in which he 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 Dweck and colleagues did an experiment that in many ways mirrored the overall organization of the experiments done by Balmeister and colleagues. There was a difficult task. In some cases, the difficult task was that crossing out a particular ease within a passage task, followed by another difficult task. And the difficult task that came second was the Stroop task.
所以在2013年，我在斯坦福大学的一位同事，心理学系的卡罗尔·杜维克博士做了一项研究，研究了意志力是一种有限资源的想法，以及这个有限的资源是大脑中葡萄糖的可用性。杜维克和他的同事进行了一项实验，这在很多方面与巴尔迈斯特和他的同事们进行的实验整体构思相似。实验中有一个困难的任务。在某些情况下，这个困难的任务是划掉一个段落中的特定字，然后再进行另一个困难的任务。而第二个困难任务是斯特鲁普任务。
This is a task I've talked about before on this podcast, although some episodes ago, so for those of you that are not familiar with the Stroop task, the Stroop task is where subjects are presented with words in different ways. The 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.
这是我在以前的播客中谈论过的一个任务，虽然很久之前了，所以对于那些不熟悉Stroop任务的人来说，Stroop任务是指受试者以不同方式呈现单词。这些单词有不同的颜色，并被指示要么读单词，即关注单词的内容，要么关注单词的字体颜色。对于大多数人来说，这可能看起来很容易，对吧？如果我拿出一张写着“apple”的卡片，而“apple”是用绿色书写的，如果你被告知要告诉我这个词是用什么颜色写的，你很可能不会有困难回答是绿色。
Okay, but if 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 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.
好的，但是如果我拿着一张写着"红色"的卡片，但字体实际上是绿色，就会比较困难。而且如果我接着这样做100张或300张卡片，并让你在时间压力下进行，你会失去你确定能得到的钱，如果犯错的话，或者如果你能正确回答问题，你会在实验结束时获得钱，那么你就会开始犯更多错误。
That's just the way these experiments work. So they did a variation on the Stroop task that isn't exactly the way I just described it. And the Stroop 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 of rules are very, very different as to what you would say or not say how you would behave, how you address your prefrontal cortex is largely although known entirely, is largely responsible for a lot of the context setting and rule setting from one situation to the next.
这就是这些实验的工作原理。所以他们对斯特鲁普任务进行了变化，不完全是我刚才所描述的方式。顺便说一下，斯特鲁普任务是用来探索前额叶皮质功能的一种任务，这个大脑区域位于我们额头后方，负责许多事情，但部分负责为特定规则下的情景和策略设置。所以，如果你上公共汽车或地铁，而不是走进一个黑领带晚宴，规则的情境会非常非常不同，你会说什么或者不说什么，你的行为方式如何，你应对前额叶皮质在很大程度上负责从一个情境到另一个情境的大量情景设置和规则制定，尽管不完全清楚。
And if you think about the Stroop 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.
如果你考虑斯特鲁普任务，它其实只是一个依赖于语境的策略任务。你要么专注于单词的意义，要么专注于单词所写的颜色。而你会犯多少错误取决于你面临着多大的时间压力，以及你是否面临着神经学或精神疾病方面的挑战，等等。但这是一个非常稳健的任务，已经存在于科学文献中很长时间了。
So the Duac 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 drawn 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 calories, but tasted, yes, they match them for taste.
所以，在Duac实验中，顺便说一句，这篇论文实际上有三个实验。出于时间考虑，我不会详细介绍它们，但我会在节目说明文字中提供论文链接。但这项研究的主要重点是让被试者先进行一项困难任务，然后进行另一项困难任务，这两者都会消耗意志力，以测试意志力是一种有限资源的观点，并且让其中一部分被试者摄入富含葡萄糖的饮料，而另一部分则摄入人工甜味的饮料，这样既没有葡萄糖也没有热量，但口感上是相符的。
Now, some of you who 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 the study are really spectacular in my mind, because what the study found was that, yes, indeed, ingesting glucose can improve performance on these multiple challenging willpower requiring tasks.
现在，一些不喜欢人造甜味剂的人可能会说它们的味道并不完全像真正的糖，但他们成功地使这些饮料的口感与真糖相匹配。然而，在某种情况下，这种饮料明显会增加血糖水平，而在另一种情况下，不会增加血糖。因此，根据这项研究的结果来看，它们真是令人惊叹，因为这项研究发现，确实摄入葡萄糖可以提高在这些多个具有挑战性且需要意志力的任务中的表现。
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.
然而，葡萄糖饮料对于提高表现的程度取决于你是否相信意志力是有限的资源，以及你是否相信这个资源就是葡萄糖。换句话说，如果你听到并相信意志力是一种有限的资源，那么每次你参与需要意志力和坚韧的后续任务或生活事件时，你都会感到意志力和坚韧的减少。
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?
然而，如果你相信意志力和坚韧不屈是无限的，并且实际上与血糖无关，不受生理上的意志力和坚韧的影响，那么你可以连续完成一个又一个具有挑战性的任务，而且不会降低表现。现在，这样的情况对我们来说非常困难，因为如果我们知道意志力可能是有限的资源或者意志力不可能是有限的资源，我们该如何决定我们应该相信什么呢？
Ah, well, the results of the Duac 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 Proseins and the National Academy of Sciences. Again, I'll provide a link to the study in the show note captions.
啊，好的，关于杜阿克研究的结果，顺便，我应该与你们分享一下研究的标题。研究的标题并不令人意外，它是关于信念决定意志力对葡萄糖对自我控制的影响的研究。这项研究发表在《自然与国家科学院》。我会在节目注释中提供研究的链接。
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 in willpower, a.k. self-control, from one task to the next, provided that you believe that glucose is the limiting resource for engaging tenacity in willpower. If you don't believe that, well, then you can engage tenacity in willpower without ingesting glucose.
在这个研究中，有三个主要实验，正如我之前提到的那样。我刚刚给出了它们的主要结论，基本上综合在一起。如果还不清楚的话，主要的结论是：是的，摄入葡萄糖可以提高你从一个任务到另一个任务坚持意志力的能力，也就是所说的自控能力，前提是你相信葡萄糖是从事坚持意志力所需的有限资源。如果你不相信这一点，那么你可以在不摄入葡萄糖的情况下发挥坚持意志力。
And that's where the artificially flavored drink comes in. I'll leave it to you to unpack what that means experimentally. But it's a very clever experimental design that Duac 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 in willpower. If you believe that tenacity in willpower exists 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 to the next.
这就是人工调味饮料出现的地方。我将把实验性的意义留给你来解释。但这是杜阿卡及其同事想出来的一个非常巧妙的实验设计，因为它表明，确实，在经历了一个具有挑战性的任务后，难以去完成另一个挑战性的任务。但没有理由认为，在发挥最大毅力的同时，你不能同时完成这两件事情。如果你相信毅力存在于你的内心，并且它是一种可以利用的单一机制，而不是一个在经历一个困难任务后消耗能量的机制。
Now, this is very important because we are about to transition into our discussion of the physiological, that is the neural underpinnings of tenacity in 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, and 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 origin of what we call tenacity in 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 Balmeister wasn't about to hear these results from Duac and 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.
现在，这非常重要，因为我们将要讨论意志坚定性的生理学基础，也就是神经基础，而这恰恰是大脑电路的一个主要组成部分。现在，可能还有其他尚未被发现的电路，但我们知道有一个主要的大脑电路组，特别是一个大脑区域，令人难以置信的是，有超过二十多个研究真正指向了它，将其称为意志坚定性的源泉。但在我们转向该生理学神经理解所提供的工具和协议以供我们全部使用和应用之前，我必须提及巴尔梅斯特不会仅仅听到杜亚克和同事的研究结果然后说，好吧，意志力不是有限资源，它不是血糖，它完全取决于你对意志力和血糖的信仰。
Rather, Balmeister himself went back to the lab and did subsequent experiments that in some ways not all counter the Duac 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 Balmeister camp or the Duac camp. Now, I don't want to give the impression that these are warring 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 meta-analyses that have confirmed the major theories of Balmeister and there are meta-analyses that have refuted the major findings of Balmeister. 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.
相反，巴尔迈斯特自己回到了实验室，并进行了随后的实验，有些方面并不完全与杜阿克的结果相违背，所以我并不是想要困惑任何人，但是如果我不给你们两方面的故事，我就没有尽到我的职责。现在，好消息是，不管你们属于巴尔迈斯特派还是杜阿克派，我们即将得到的工具和协议都是有效的。我不想给人们留下这些是敌对派别的印象，也不想给人们留下这些是固执和意志力领域中唯一的两个派别的印象。有很多团队在研究这些问题。事实上，已经有多个综合分析验证了巴尔迈斯特的主要理论，并有一些综合分析推翻了巴尔迈斯特的主要发现。我会在节目说明中提供几个例子的链接，这样你们可以查阅。
But let's discuss for a moment what Balmeister 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 that limiting resource. Balmeister and colleagues looked at the Duac 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 to back, but often two or three or four. And what Balmeister 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, challenges 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.
但是让我们短暂讨论一下巴尔迈斯特对自制力是一种有限资源、葡萄糖是那种限制资源的想法进行重新研究时得出的发现。巴尔迈斯特和他的同事们研究了Duac的数据，并表示，好吧，数据看起来很好，只是在现实生活中和他们以及其他人之前的许多实验中，并不仅仅是连续两个困难的挑战，而是经常是两个、三个或者四个。巴尔迈斯特和其他人发现，当受试者面对不只是连续两个挑战，而是三个以上连续的挑战时，这些挑战需要大量的神经能量、意志力、毅力、抵制做某些事情的决心，并需要努力参与某种行为和认知过程，当受试者通过摄入这些含有葡萄糖的饮料，在任务之间小口饮用，甚至在任务进行时饮用，脑中可利用葡萄糖，他们的表现，也就是他们的意志力和毅力来应对挑战，在这些多个挑战中得到了保持。
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 described as tenacity and willpower.
他们承认一个人对意志力的信念确实可以决定意志力是否是有限的资源，以及葡萄糖是否会增强个人从事意志力的能力。但他们认为，如果一个人面对多种挑战情境，这是非常自然的，就像我们所说的那样，非常符合日常真实生活的情况，那么在任务进行过程中和任务之间，葡萄糖的可用性以及大脑与外部环境的互动，对其内部环境的感知以及我们的内心感受与他人对我们的期望之间的关系，非常有价值，可以帮助人们从心理上描述的毅力和意志力去应对这些挑战。
I'd like to just take a brief break and thank one of our sponsors, which is Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means plenty of salt, sodium, magnesium and potassium, the so-called electrolytes, and no sugar. Now, salt, magnesium and potassium are critical to the function of all the cells in your body, in particular to the function of your nerve cells, also called neurons. Now, people, of course, have varying levels of requirements for sodium, so people with hypertension or pre-hypertension probably shouldn't increase their sodium. However, many people are surprised to find that by increasing their sodium intake, they are able to function better cognitively and physically, and that's because a lot of people, especially people who are following low carbohydrate or even moderate carbohydrate and really clean diets, oftentimes are excreting a lot of water and electrolytes along with it, and simply by increasing their electrolyte intake using element, they just feel better and function better. I typically drink element first thing in the morning when I wake up in order to hydrate my body and make sure I have enough electrolytes, and while I do any kind of physical training, and certainly I drink element in my water when I'm in the sauna and after going in the sauna because that causes quite a lot of sweating. If you'd like to try Element, you can go to drinkelement.com.com.
我想简单休息一下，感谢我们的赞助商之一，即 Element。Element 是一种电解质饮料，它拥有你所需要的一切，没有你不需要的东西。这意味着它含有丰富的盐、钠、镁和钾，也被称为电解质，但没有糖。现在，盐、镁和钾对于你体内所有的细胞的正常功能至关重要，尤其是对于你的神经细胞（也叫作神经元）的功能。现在，人们的钠需求当然是有所不同的，所以患有高血压或者前期高血压的人可能不应该增加他们的钠摄入量。然而，很多人会惊讶地发现，通过增加钠的摄入量，他们在认知和身体方面的功能会变得更好。这是因为很多人，特别是那些遵循低碳水化合物或者中等碳水化合物并进行严格饮食的人，通常会排出很多水分和电解质。而仅仅通过使用 Element 增加他们电解质的摄入量，他们就感觉更好，并且功能更强大。我通常在早上醒来时首先喝 Element，以滋润我的身体并确保我有足够的电解质。然后在进行任何体育训练时我也会喝 Element，当然，当我在桑拿房里时，我会在水中加入 Element，因为在桑拿时会大量出汗。如果你想尝试 Element，你可以去 drinkelement.com。
Let's talk about the physiology of tenacity 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.
让我们谈论一下坚韧和意志力的生理学，我向您保证，我们即将展开的对话不仅仅是一堆术语和对坚韧和意志力起源的机械性理解。相反，它表明坚韧和意志力有一个统一的来源，即一组特定的脑部区域。当这些区域活跃时，无论我们面对什么，无论我们是否试图参与一些本能上我们不想参与的事情，无论我们是否面临着我们必须抵抗的东西，我们都会感到坚韧和意志力。对我来说，这非常令人 ger 经，因为无论您是否相信血糖是意志力的限制资源，无论您是否相信您对意志力和血糖的信念会影响您的意志力水平，我们所知道的是存在一套单一的大脑回路。实际上，有一个单一的脑区似乎能够在很大程度上，如果不是完全地解释我们所称之为坚韧和意志力的这种现象。这应该让人 ger 心，因为它意味着坚韧和意志力反映了一个神经回路功能，这是一种技能。它是我们每个人内在的一种表达。我们每个人都有这个特定的脑区。
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 circumstances where willpower and tenacity are required.
令人兴奋地是，这是第三点，这个大脑区域非常具有可塑性。我们可以采取特定的行动和心态，来增加这一特定大脑区域的活动水平，甚至增加其大小，这样我们就可以在任何需要意志力和坚韧的情况下调动它，而不仅仅局限于学校、音乐学习、体育竞技或人际关系。
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 high level, 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 it's 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 underlie what we call tenacity and willpower. And we know that through several lines of evidence.
在这个播客中，我们经常讨论神经科学，但很少有机会指出特定的脑区，并自信地说，这个特定的脑区在高级心理活动如意志力和坚韧度方面起到了绝对关键的作用。但是今天我们可以做到这一点。这是因为有超过二十多个研究指出了一个特定的脑区，并且当然还有它与其他脑区的连接，因为没有一个脑区能够孤立地运作。每个脑区都在神经回路的背景下运作，与其接收输入和输入到其他脑区等等。但这个特定的脑区似乎真的是我们所谓的坚韧度和意志力的基础，我们通过多个证据线路了解到这一点。
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 in different labs calling the same thing different things. You'd 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 subdivision of a larger brain area simply called the singulate cortex.
首先，我给你说一下脑部区域的名称，尽管该名称本身不会告诉你太多，除非你是一位神经科学家或解剖学家，所以我会简单介绍一下背景。这个脑区的名称是前部中央单纯皮质。前部中央单纯皮质是较大脑区单纯皮质的一部分。在人类和动物之间，它的名称略有不同，不幸的是如此。这只是不同实验室的不同研究人员给同一个事物起不同名字的结果之一。这可能会让人很沮丧，但我们会简化它，因为今天我们将这个区域称为前部中央单纯皮质。这个区域是一个更大脑区的一个细分，简称为单纯皮质。
The anterior mid-singulate cortex resides in the frontal lobes, 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 weight.
前部中央单纯皮层位于额叶，也就是你的前额后面，尽管这并不能告诉你什么，因为如果你考虑一下的话，你的整个大脑都在前额后面。它大约位于离头部后面的位置的三分之一处。实际上，你有两个这样的结构，也就是两个前部中央单纯皮层，分别位于大脑的两侧。它们从许多不同的区域接受很多输入。当考虑到你运用顽强和意志力时，了解这些区域是非常重要的，这将涉及到不同的心理和生理资源。但是暂时先让我们按照列表的形式来看一下证据，为什么我们对前部中央单纯皮层是一个重要的运用顽强和意志力的枢纽感到如此有信心。
For each of these points that I'm about to make, there is indeed at least one, if not several, quality peer-reviewed studies, in humans. So there's a lot of data from animals, both rodents and primate models, et cetera, 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.
在我要提出的每个观点中，确实至少有一项，如果不是几项，是经过高质量同行评审的人体研究。因此，有很多来自动物（包括小鼠和灵长类动物模型等）的数据，我们今天不讨论这些，但我应该提及所有的这些都支持人体数据，反之亦然。我现在要描述的数据来自于人体以及各种不同类型的研究。
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 saving 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 or not it's exacerbated or whether or not it's diminished.
所以有很多不同的方法可以考虑是否大脑区域与某种心理或生理现象（如动机、悲伤或视觉感知）存在相关性。其中包括，例如，如果某个大脑区域在某种现象发生时活跃。因此，探索这一点的一种方法是将电极实际放置在颅骨下方，记录神经元的电活动，并评估当一个人在保存面容或感觉特定方式（如感到坚韧或无聊或具有攻击性等）时，这些神经元的电活动是否发生变化。另一种评估特定大脑区域在某种生理或心理现象中的作用的方式是在那些受伤的个体中，你可能会期望某种现象，比如意志力、感知面容的能力是否存在或不存在，它是否加剧或减弱。
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 it changes in volume over the course of some sort of training. So for instance, if somebody is not able to play a musical instrument, which is myself, and then I or a subject in one of these experiments learns a musical instrument and the volume, the size of that 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.
其他评估特定脑区是否参与特定现象的方式是观察该脑区是否真的改变大小，是否在某种训练过程中改变体积。举个例子，如果一个人无法演奏乐器，比如我自己，然后我或者一个实验中的受试者学习了一种乐器，可以通过学习过程中或者仅仅在学习前后评估该特定脑区的体积，若其增大或者甚至缩小、形状发生改变，那么可以推断它在学习乐器的过程中某种程度上参与了其中。不能断言它的参与，但结合其他类型的证据，或许可以得出这样的结论。
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.
这只是评估大脑区域功能的部分方法清单。其他方法包括评估特定脑区接收来自其他区域的输入。例如，对于前中扣带皮层，我们很快会讨论到它从自主神经系统接收到强大的输入，你之前已经了解过了。它还从大脑的奖励系统，如多巴胺和血清素基础的奖励系统中获得强大的输入，并且还从大脑的上下文和策略设置区域以及其他许多不同的脑区获得强大的输入。因此，就前中扣带皮层参与坚韧和意志力而言，有着结构逻辑，但单个解剖、生理或者病变方面的结果都没有把所有关于前中扣带皮层的研究结果一起对比来说令人信服。
So for instance, recordings by neural imaging of the anterior mid-singulate 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.
例如，通过神经成像对前中央岛皮质进行记录，以不偏倚的方式进行，意味着人们被放入脑部扫描器中，观察和测量大脑活动。所有大脑区域都会被观察，并且人们会被分别提供一个艰难的任务和一个容易的任务。研究发现，前中央岛皮质在艰难任务中显示出较高水平的活动。此外，我想强调的是，研究人员并没有寻找这个结果，他们只是观察到了这个结果。
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.
此外，如果将在多个不同学科表现出较高学术水平的人放入脑扫描仪中评估所谓的静息态连接性，没有特定任务，只是评估大脑不同区域在自发情况下的活动水平，被试者只需坐在扫描仪里看着空白屏幕。高成就个体的前中扣带回皮质的静息或自发活动水平相对于低成就个体更高。
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 there's any other type of activity. In addition, people who are not looking at the same activity as the first one is asking about whether or not it's athletic or academic, etc.
此外，那些具有前部中间标签皮质功能缺陷或干扰的人展现出更多的冷漠和抑郁，并且无论是在生活的哪个领域中询问，还是是否有其他类型的活动，都显示出更低的坚韧和动力水平。此外，无论问到的活动是体育、学术等，只要不是与第一个活动一样，参与者就会有不同的反应。
Indeed, successful dieters show elevated spontaneous N, 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, 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.
事实上，成功的节食者在前正中纹扣区显示出较高的自发活动水平，即所谓的唤起水平。因此，即使在休息时，他们的前正中纹扣区活动水平也较高。而对那些面临食物并需要抵制食物的人来说，前正中纹扣区的活动水平会进一步上升，尤其是那些可以抵制诱惑的人，也就是那些能够通过意志力不吃美味食物的人。
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.
相反地，个体在试图通过施加足够的意志力来减轻体重时，如果由于与追求医疗健康有关的医疗原因而未能成功，以及肥胖者似乎在前中单核皮层的活动水平减弱。此外，患有抑郁症的人，表现出很多冷漠，尤其是临床诊断为重度抑郁的人，在前中单核皮层的活动水平也较低。
Humans that express a lot of what's called learned helplessness, that is, they've adopted the belief in the actions associated with the belief that no matter what they do, the outcomes are not going to be what they desire, expressed 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.
那些表现出学得性无助的人，也就是，他们接受了一种信念，即无论他们做什么，结果都不会是他们希望的，前部中扣带回皮质的神经活动水平较低。所以你可以看到这个列表还在继续，事实上它变得更加有趣。刚才提到，成功的减肥者在前部中扣带回皮质的神经活动水平会升高。
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 disorders such as anorexia nervosa. Now I've done a Huberman 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.
现在可能看起来像是一件好事，而且实际上它确实可以是一件好事，但节食与一个人的意志力和抵制食物的能力之间存在一种病理性状况，那就是饮食失调，如厌食症。我已经在Huberman实验室的播客中单独讨论过厌食症，而在该播客中，我提到了一个观点，现在我会再次强调，那就是厌食症是所有精神疾病中最致命的，导致患者中有很大比例的人死亡。
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.
现在，幸运的是，有许多治疗方法不断涌现出来，但这是一种非常严重的心理和生理疾病，极具致命性。患有厌食症的个体在静息状态下，以及面对食物时，他们的前脑中央后奏角皮层活动水平会显著增高。
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 Huberman 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 send 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.
我不想完全展开关于厌食症的话题，因为我们在之前的播客中已经讨论过厌食症，你可以在Huberman Lab.com找到相关内容，只需在搜索功能中搜索厌食症或进食障碍即可。但是厌食症患者明显的症状之一是，我们知道与之相关的奖赏途径与前额中央单核皮质有直接联系，而这些途径似乎在厌食症患者避免食物而不是进食时被激活。
And then there's a very interesting and positive literature about so-called super-agers. 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. And that's what particular things are in just a few minutes.
接下来，有关所谓的“超级老年人”有非常有趣和积极的文献。我们确信的是，随着人们的年龄增长，尤其是在60到90岁之间，许多脑区的大小都会减小，尤其是前中单鞘皮质，除非采取某些措施来抵消这种情况。接下来我们将讨论这些具体措施是什么。只需几分钟。
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 super-agers. But also within the category of super-agers 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-year-olds, 30-year-olds, and often even of people in the world.
但现在有一类人类特别活跃且寿命非常长。这些人是最有可能成为百岁老人的人群，其中许多人就是百岁老人，也被称为"超级长寿者"。而在超级长寿者这个类别中，也包括年龄在60岁或以上的人，因为并不是所有人都已经活到了80岁、90岁，并且他们的认知能力常常可以媲美甚至超过世界上某些四五十岁的人。
Now, there are a lot of things that are different about these super-agers, super-agers 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 age-matched cohorts.
现在，与这些超级长寿者相比，有很多不同的事情，所谓的超级长寿者是指他们保持着非常年轻的认知水平。但是，从神经影像数据中可以发现一个非常明显的事实，那就是超级长寿者的前部中间纹状回皮质的体积，也就是大脑某个区域的大小，明显大于与他们年龄相仿的同龄人群。
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 is a bunch of neuroimaging, structural volume data, blood uptake data, lesion studies, and so on and so forth.
因此，令人振奋的是，有很多证据表明，至少前中单纯场皮层与我们产生坚韧和毅力的能力有关，并且当其活跃时，我们会从冷漠和抑郁的状态转变为能够参与或抵制特定类型行为的状态。所以我刚才描述的是一系列神经影像学、结构体积数据、血液吸收数据、损伤研究等等。
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 own way. 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.
但是我们可以简化所有这些，并且实际上，要说到的是，当我们谈论毅力和意志力时，我们实际上是在谈论两种情况。我们要么在谈论那种激励我们说：“不管你告诉我什么，不管你摆在我面前什么，不管你对我做什么，我都会坚持下去。”现在，另一种表达毅力和意志力的方式是在我们内心，你的内心，我的内心中，当毅力和意志力起作用时，我们有一种感觉。我们身体内的感觉，以及大脑中的思绪模式，也就是我们的感觉，无论你说什么，你做什么，你摆在我面前什么，我都不会屈服。
So really willpower is either an expression of I will, or I absolutely will, 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, 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, willpower off, willpower off.
因此，毅力实际上是“我一定会”或“我绝对会”，也许这种说法更好，或者“我绝对不会”。现在，这可能只是对一堆生理数据和心理研究进行了简单的主观重新排序，但实际上，我们更需要理解这个“我绝对会”和“我绝对不会”的意义。因为如果确实有一个单一的大脑区域可以支配毅力，并且毅力不仅仅是一个东西，而是至少两种东西，一种是“无论你说什么、无论你做什么，我都会绝对会”，另一种是“无论你说什么、无论你做什么，我绝对不会”，那么这个大脑区域就不可能是一个简单的开关，它不能是毅力开启、毅力关闭、毅力关闭。
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'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., 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 week, 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, it's 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.
这是无法绝对确定的，如我们所说，它必须经过分级，必须有层次，因此更像是调光开关上的滑块，而不是二选一的开关。此外，如果真的有一个大脑区域在产生坚韧和意志力方面起着关键作用，而坚韧和意志力在我们必须坚定地表态的许多不同背景中是必需的，例如：我一定会、是的，这个；我绝对不会知道那个；我绝对也会，是的，这样等等。因为生活是复杂的，即使只是简单的事情，比如节食或努力获得某个学位，或者试图应对甚至是简单的疾病，比如我要度过这一周，尽管感觉糟糕，我要好好照顾自己。以某种意义上说，所有这些事情都需要坚韧和意志力，我们需要参与或避免参与的行为都是非常动态的，这取决于不仅是我们是谁以及我们试图做什么或不做什么，还取决于我们那一天、那一个时刻所处的环境。
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 context of what we're trying to accomplish, not just what feels good in the moment.
这意味着前端中间单核皮质也需要获取关于上下文的信息，它需要理解在我们努力实现目标时，什么是有益或无益的，而不仅仅是瞬间感觉良好的事物。
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 post-mortem brain tissue in humans, but also, nowadays, there are certain types of neuroimaging, particularly 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 T-R-A-C-T-S tracks, so these are the wires that connect neurons are called axons, and those axons are in sheath with a fatty substance called myelin, and that in sheathment with myelin allows them to transmit information very quickly.
现在，幸运的是，已经有很多研究探讨了前扣带回中部的活动水平以及前扣带回中部在我们之前讨论过的几种情况下的大小，比如抑郁症、肥胖、成功的节食者、成功的学生、成功的运动员等等。这些研究不仅包括了许多解剖示踪研究，从死亡脑组织中（也就是尸体脑组织）进行，还包括了现在某些类型的神经影像学研究，尤其是一种被称为扩散张量成像的技术，它能够让我们检查不同脑区之间信息的流动，通过所谓的白质轨迹。所谓轨迹，指的是连接神经元的电线，也称为轴突，这些轴突被一种称为髓鞘的脂质物质包裹着，这种包裹髓鞘的脂质物质使它们能够非常快速地传递信息。
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-called corpus callosum, 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 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 Human Lab Podcast with Robert Sapolsky 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. Sapolsky 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.
在接下来的一刻，你会看到我要表达的意思。根据我们的了解，前中间纹状体皮层，即脑的两侧各有一个，位于前额到脑后面的大约三分之一处，正好在所谓的胼胝体上方，这是一组非常强大的白质通路，连接了大脑的两侧。它接收并发送信息到一些不同的脑区域，包括但不限于以下内容： 自主神经中枢，例如控制心血管功能的增加或减少心率、呼吸，以及快速或深浅的呼吸；免疫系统，通过与脾脏和人体其他器官通过几个不同的通道联系起来，间接地释放B细胞和T细胞，以及对抗细菌、病毒和真菌感染、修复身体创伤的免疫分子；它与内分泌系统通信，这是脑和身体系统释放雌激素和睾酮等物质的系统，顺便提一下，雌激素和睾酮在雌性和雄性身上都存在。在《Human Lab Podcast》上，我曾邀请Robert Sapolsky担任嘉宾，我们讨论了睾酮的作用。许多人认为睾酮与攻击、交配有关，这完全是错误的。尽管它可能参与了这些不同的过程，但Sapolsky博士和我讨论的是，睾酮在大脑中的一个主要功能是使努力感觉良好。你可以看到，这与坚韧和意志力的概念直接相关，我们稍后将更详细地讨论这一点。
So the first point is that the enter mid-singulate cortex is in direct communication with all of the areas of the brain and through a couple of other stations, the body is all about the brain. The body that modulate our sense of tenacity and willpower, which we talked about earlier, the need for sleep, the need for pain or lack of pain or emotional comfort or discomfort to modulate our level of tenacity and willpower.
首先，那就是进入中央交感皮质直接与大脑的所有区域进行交流，并通过其他几个站点，身体完全受大脑控制。身体会调节我们对坚韧和毅力的感知，正如我们之前所讨论的，需要睡眠、需要疼痛或缺乏疼痛、情感上的舒适或不舒适都会调节我们的坚韧和毅力水平。
The enter 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.
进入中间单子皮质也直接与前运动中枢相连，这些是大脑中组织特定行为模式的中枢，事实上它们可以抑制特定行为模式。当我告诉你这些时，你可能会自动填补空白，这就是在参与一种行为或者抵制一种行为。
The enter 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. 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 enter mid-singulate cortex. The point here is that it is in direct communication with the enter mid-singulate cortex and the enter mid-singulate cortex is in direct communication with the dopamine system.
中枢前扣带回皮层与大脑的奖赏通路直接相连。它能够触发多巴胺的释放，并能够对多巴胺的释放做出反应。多巴胺的释放可以通过行为产生，可以通过某种食物奖励产生，也可以通过药物产生。多巴胺系统与中枢前扣带回皮层之间有许多不同的沟通方式。重要的是，它们之间存在直接的沟通，并且中枢前扣带回皮层与多巴胺系统之间也存在直接的沟通。
What I just gave you is frankly just a partial list of the different areas of the brain that are communicating robustly with the enter 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. 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, and alexia, and so on.
我刚给你的其实只是不完全的大脑区域与中央纵隔皮层之间强烈的交流的一部分清单。它接收有关内觉察的信息，即我们对自己身体感受的读数。它还与大脑中与外觉察相关的区域有着强大的输入输出联系，即我们对周围环境的感知。所有这些为我们之前在抑郁症、焦虑症、高绩效和失读等上下文中所讨论的神经影像学数据、损伤数据和容积数据提供了逻辑基础。
But one of the most important arguments that's ever been made in favor of the enter 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 Huberman Lab podcast. We've actually recorded that episode already and it should be out very soon.
然而，关于中央单体皮层在坚韧和意志力方面扮演重要角色的观点之一来自于Lisa Feldman Barrett博士。她即将成为Huberman Lab播客的嘉宾。实际上，我们已经录制了该期节目，很快就会发布。
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 enter mid-singulate cortex. And Lisa and colleagues have written several spectacular reviews about the enter 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.
丽莎的实验室以在情绪和情感研究方面的开创性研究而闻名。我强烈推荐你一旦该集发布，就去听这一集。而实际上是丽莎自己启发了我对中央扣带前回皮层的重要性的意识。丽莎和她的同事们撰写了几篇关于中央扣带前回皮层及其在坚持和动机中的作用的出色综述。我会在节目音轨备注中提供一些相关链接。其中我特别激动的一篇文章，我已经花了大量时间研究了，标题是《坚持不懈的大脑：中央扣带前回皮层如何助力实现目标》。
So if you have a background in biology, even if you don't, I think you'll find that review 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 enter mid-singulate cortex under different conditions and to a greater or lesser extent than others. So hats off to Lisa for cuing me to this incredibly interesting brain structure. I had known that it existed, after all I teach neuroanatomy, to medical students at Stanford and I taught neuroanatomy for many, many years, but I don't think enough people and indeed very few professional neuroscientists could tell you what the enter mid-singulate cortex does, but it has this apparently incredible function in generating tenacity and motivation.
因此，如果你有生物学背景，即使没有，我认为你会发现这个评论非常有趣。它进一步证实了我刚才提到的关于不同情境和不同类型的人以不同程度和方式激活他们的内侧边缘单间皮质的观点。因此，向Lisa致敬，她让我了解了这个非常有趣的脑结构。事实上，我知道它的存在，毕竟我在斯坦福大学教授神经解剖学，并且已经教授神经解剖学很多年了，但我认为很少有人，包括专业神经科学家，能告诉你内侧边缘单间皮质的作用是什么，但它显然在产生坚韧和动力方面具有令人难以置信的功能。
Along those lines, one of the most incredible and important studies about the enter mid-singulate cortex and its capacity to generate feelings of tenacity and willpower comes from one of my colleagues at Stanford, Joe Parvizi, 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 of Neuron Cell Press Journal, Excellent Journal, and it's entitled The Will to Persevere Induced by Electrical Stimulation of the Human-Singulate Jirus.
沿着这个思路，关于内中央单相皮层及其产生坚韧和意志力感觉能力的一项最令人难以置信和重要的研究，来自斯坦福大学的我的一位同事乔·帕维齐。他基本上进入需要进行其他原因的脑部手术的人体内，用非常高的精度刺激特定的脑区域。我所指的那篇论文的标题发表于2013年的《神经细胞出版社杂志》，这是一本优秀的杂志，题为《通过对人体中枢单核神经刺激诱导的坚持意志》。
Now you'll notice the title said human-singulate jirus, not enter mid-singulate jirus, but because they had electrodes and a stimulation technique that would allow them to stimulate in very small regions, extending as little as five millimeters, but no more away from the stimulation site. They were able to march their stimulation around different sub-regions of the singulate jirus of humans while those people were awake and then ask 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.
现在你会注意到标题说的是人类单核节神经元，而不是进入中间单核节神经元，但是因为它们拥有电极和一种刺激技术，可以将刺激范围扩展到仅为5毫米的区域，但不能超过刺激部位。他们能够在人类的单核节神经元的不同亚区周围进行刺激，当人们清醒时问他们，你感觉如何？在这一刻你在体验什么？此外，他们还记录了这些人的各种自主神经参数，如心率、呼吸，以及脑电活动。
So what the subjects report when their enter 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 this 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.
研究对象在中线岛皮层受到刺激时，所报告的情况是，他们感觉到有事情即将发生。他们觉得有一种外部的压力在他们身上，不是物理上的压力，而是感觉有些事情即将发生。事实上，其中一个被试描述了这种感觉，就像远处有一场暴风雨一样，但我知道我需要走进这场暴风雨，我也知道我能够度过它。
Another subject described the experience of having their enter mid-singulate cortex stimulated as something not necessarily good is going to happen, but I know that I need to marshal resources and resist, and I'm confident that I can push through.
另一个受试者描述了刺激他们的中单回皮质时的经历，他觉得好像即将发生一件并不一定好的事情，但我知道我需要调动资源并抵抗，而且我自信能够坚持下去。
Now, because Parvizian 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 subjects then reported, I don't feel like anything's about to happen. Yeah, I don't feel anything at all.
现在，因为Parvizian的同事是优秀的科学家，所以他们当然进行了对照实验。在这些实验中，他们告诉参与者，好了，我们正在刺激刚才你告诉我会让你感到一些压力、你必须抵抗的脑区，会产生一种战斗或紧迫感，但实际上，在某些对照条件下，他们并没有刺激那些脑区，结果参与者报告说，我感觉不会发生任何事情。是的，我什么感觉都没有。
In other words, it was the stimulation of the enter mid-singulate cortex and only the enter 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 marshal resources in order to push back upon.
换句话说，只有刺激中间扣带回皮层（enter mid-singulate cortex），才能在人们心中产生一种需要抵抗某种东西的感觉，一种感觉就像有什么在给予他们压力，不是身体上的压力，而是心理上的压力，并且他们将不得不调动资源来进行反击。
In fact, they reported feeling as if their body was getting ready to do something. One subject said something along the line, so I feel like I'm about to do something. I'm about to go someplace or do something to resist this foreboding sense that's now coming over me.
实际上，他们报告称感觉自己的身体正准备做某事。其中一位受试者说了类似这样的话，我感觉自己就要做些什么。我即将去某个地方或者做某事来抵抗这种突然袭来的不祥感。
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 enter mid-singulate cortex, so on and so forth. And it really points to the idea that the enter mid-singulate cortex is a hub, a 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 marshal resources, which takes us back, of course, to the studies of Baumice stir, and indeed of Dweck, 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.
这非常有趣，并且与我们之前讨论的有关神经活动模式、自发性和诱发性的大脑体积变化的数据是一致的，诸如此类。它真正指出了进入中横回皮层是一个中枢，它从我们几分钟前讨论过的各种大脑区域接收信息，并在我们内部生成一种特定的感觉，即我们将成为质心、我们将抵抗某些事情，也许我们将以某种特定的方式移动或行动，或者如我们一直讨论的那样，以某种特定的方式抵制行动，但这需要我们调动资源，这当然让我们回想起对鲍密斯特的研究，确实也是杜威克的研究，他们探讨了意志力作为一种有限资源，也许是葡萄糖，也许是那种有限资源，对意志力和葡萄糖的信念，很有可能也会涉及进入其中.
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, as a neuroscientist, we're generally taught nowadays that individual brain areas don't really trigger individual functions and perceptions of the brain.
尽管存在争议，但很明显这需要一种能量。我们都将这种坚韧和意志力现象与参与或抵抗特定行为或思维模式的激活状态联系在一起，而以一种神奇的方式，作为一名神经科学家，我们现在通常被教导说，个体的脑区并不能真正触发大脑的个体功能和感知。
There are a few exceptions to that. You have a fuse form 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 enter mid-singulate cortex, it really does seem to meet those criteria as the brain hub responsible for tenacity and willpower.
这其中有一些例外情况。你有一个似乎与面孔感知有关的面部区域，当损伤时，你无法识别面孔，但除了极少数有限的情境之外，很少有文献认为所有涉及的研究都指向一个单一的大脑结构及其网络作为坚韧和意志力这样复杂而灵活的东西的来源。然而，在进入中单边皮层的情况下，它似乎确实符合这些标准，作为负责坚韧和意志力的大脑枢纽。
Now, a key idea that Dr. Feldman Barrett has contributed to studies of the enter 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.
现在，费尔德曼·巴雷特博士对于探究前扣带回脑皮质作为一个帮助我们培养坚韧意志和毅力、帮助我们实现不同目标的结构所做的关键贡献之一是“异态稳态”的概念。
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.
你们中的大部分人可能都听说过“稳态”，它是指我们所有的细胞、所有的器官，确切地说，就是我们整个身体和心理都在不断追求稳态，也就是睡眠和活动、食物和燃料消耗、氧气和二氧化碳等等的完美平衡。
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.
虽然母体平衡确实存在并且是一个有效的现象，但我们很少听说另一个同样重要的概念，即顺应性平衡。顺应性平衡是指我们的大脑和身体需要做的许多事情，特别是我们的大脑，需要将资源分配给特定的功能，这取决于我们的动机目标和所面临的挑战。
And in every way, what we understand about the structure and function of the enter 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 to run. In that sense, the enter 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.
在各个方面上，我们对中间纹状回皮质的结构和功能的理解是它会做出决策。它决定给定的脑区应该消耗多少葡萄糖，也许是涉及视觉感知的脑区，因为你正在进行一项需要付出细致的视觉注意力来成功的动力任务，或者你正在进行一项需要听一些特定事物的任务，又或者你正在参加一场身体接力赛跑，而你不希望大量的能量用于思考你的步幅或步伐，除非是必要的，并且实际上你想尽量降低你的大脑活动，除了那些需要继续奔跑的大脑区域。在这个意义上，中间纹状回皮质就像一个调节器，调控的不是整个大脑和身体的燃料消耗量，而是个别的大脑和身体部分的消耗量。
It means 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.
这意味着我们希望一个控制坚韧和意志力等因素的脑区域符合所有的标准，因为就算是那些似乎拥有无尽的坚韧和意志力的人，他们也必须养成某种习惯性行为。他们不能只凭借对外界的阻力、对外界力量的抵抗，甚至对内部力量，例如头脑中的声音等的抵抗来面对生活的各个方面。他们仍然需要睡觉，他们仍然需要在坚韧和意志力的表达中保持功能性。他们需要能够灵活转换策略，他们需要能够放慢节奏，就像我们所说的。这并不是因为坚韧和意志力本身是一种有限的资源，而是因为在生活的许多方面，运用坚韧和意志力并不总是有利的。这就是我之前提到的饮食失调的例子，大脑看似固有的功能，即为抵制某种行为而产生某种奖励，当这一功能过度发展时，实际上可能会威胁到一个人的健康甚至生命。
So the concept of allostatic load, allostatic balance, and allostatic 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 were 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.
因此，我们在与费尔德曼巴雷特博士讨论中详细介绍了关于应激性负荷（allostatic load）、应激性平衡（allostatic balance）和应激性功能（allostatic function）的概念，而该讨论即将发布。但与此同时，如果你将前子单核皮质看作具有单一功能，即控制不同脑部和身体区域在特定情境中应获得多少能量，那么我觉得这非常合理，并且我认为这是对前子单核皮质所有功能数据最好的描述，确实与前子单核皮质的所有解剖学数据相吻合。
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.
在这一切中，一个真正重要的转折是前中单皮层不仅仅是坐在那里来分配和分发不同脑区的能量和活跃度。它还接收来自大脑和身体的输入，以某种美妙的方式来解释前中单皮层的整个功能，我们知道当我们移动身体时，我们正在激活前中单皮层。我们也知道，当我们移动身体时，因为我们以某种方式迫使或鼓励自己这样做，我们会更多地激活前中单皮层。
Similarly, and because the anterior mid-singulate cortex is so flexible in the different contexts 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 tangentially points 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.
同样，由于前扣带回皮质在不同的上下文中可以被激活，因此当我们仅仅是阅读、听力学习、尝试学习音乐或试图完成任何任务时，前扣带回皮质确实会被激活，但是当我们经历许多需要克服的阻力时，它的激活水平将更高。请记住之前的结果，顺便说一句，我会在节目注释中提供该特定研究或一系列研究的链接。有大约两项研究，其中一项非常引人注目，还有几项间接指出相同的发现，即当人们从事困难任务而非简单任务时，前扣带回皮质的活动水平会升高。
So the way to think about the anterior mid-singulate cortex is that it's not just sitting there as a hub that you 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 necessarily in the context of physical exercise, although it could be that too.
因此，对于前部中央纹状沟皮层的思考方式是，它不仅仅是坐在那里作为一种你可以触及并激活的中心，它还接收能够激活它的输入。这就是我们现在可以讨论的工具和协议，不仅让我们能够参与前部中央纹状沟皮层并获得更多的顽强和意志力，还让我们能够进行锻炼，不一定是身体锻炼的情境，尽管也可以是。
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 chockoblock full of the expression of molecules such as kim kinase II, receptors to various neurotrophins, particular types of NMDA and methyl D aspartate receptors, all of which, if none of those names mean anything to you, just know that all of them refer to different aspects of a capacity for synaptic plasticity, which is the ability for connections in the brain to change.
但是，我们要锻炼我们前部中央纵裂皮层不仅可以在这种具有挑战性的环境下发挥作用，还可以在其他具有挑战性的环境中发挥作用。事实上，我现在就告诉你，非人类灵长类动物的研究以及在人类身上的有限程度的研究表明，在非人类灵长类动物数据和人类数据之间存在很强的类比。前部中央纵裂皮层集中了许多分子的表达，例如kim kinase II、多种神经营养因子的受体、特定类型的NMDA和methyl D aspartate受体，所有这些，如果这些名称对你来说一无所知，只要知道它们都指的是大脑中突触可塑性的不同方面的能力，即大脑连接改变的能力。
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 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 that 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.
它们可以变得更强大，而你实际上可以建立新的联系。换句话说，前正中扣带皮层可以被构建成一种结构，通过激活它来参与坚韧和意志力，可以通过一种或有限数量的不同类型的行为来实现这一点，这意味着参与一些我们宁愿不参与的行为。同时，还要避免那些我们本能地想要参与的行为，那些诱使我们参与的行为。在这两种情况下，无论我是否真的想参与，或者你告诉我我不能参与，我都会决定去做；同时，我即使你诱惑我，或着是被某事诱惑，我也不会做那件事。
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 in particular types of behaviors and resisting particular types of behaviors, well 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.
前扣带中线皮质的增长在生活的其他领域产生广泛的影响，因为这是同一结构用于其他需要坚韧和意志力的行为和学习。这让人非常安心。实际上，这真是令人兴奋，因为正如我之前提到的，虽然我们每个人在许多不同的情况下都需要坚韧和意志力，但似乎有一个非常通用的机制来产生坚韧和意志力。这意味着，如果我们通过参与特定类型的行为和抵制特定类型的行为来增强我们的坚韧和意志力能力，那么它将以非常有效的方式延伸到我们在其他方面面临的具有挑战性的生活方面，以及我们未来可能面临的挑战。
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 taken you a lot of tenacity and willpower to get this far through the episode, waiting with baited breath, presumably, to learn how exactly you can improve the functioning of your anterior mid-singulate cortex.
好吧，到现在为止，我希望已经说服了你，因为实话实说，数据非常具有说服力，前扣带中纹状皮质是你大脑内用于分配能量和资源、产生坚韧和意志力的至关重要的中枢。或许，你花费了很大的毅力和意志力才能看到这一集的最后，怀着忐忑不安的心情，希望了解如何 exactly 改善前扣带中纹状皮质的功能。
Now, fortunately, there are published peer-reviewed 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 run off, 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.
现在，幸运的是，有已经发表的同行评审数据来解释如何做到这一点。实际上，2006年Colum和同事发表了一项研究，题为《有氧运动训练增加衰老人类的大脑体积》。在你匆匆奔跑并从事有氧运动之前，我将向你描述这项研究的轮廓以及具体的做法，以便你能够根据你自身的情况来实施最佳的方案。
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 age really 50 and older and maybe 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 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?
这是一项研究，探讨为什么以及如何随着年龄增长，某些脑区和脑容积会普遍减少。正如我先前提到的，众所周知，年龄在50岁及以上、甚至可能从30岁开始的人，会出现脑容积的减少，其中某些特定的脑区缩小速度更快。但当然，还有其他人，包括我们之前提到的高龄健忘者以及其他许多人，他们并没有出现相同的脑容积减少现象。那么，为什么他们能够保持年轻时的脑大小或减少的幅度较小呢？
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.
这正是这项研究的研究人员最初感兴趣的内容。他们确实得出了一些非常有趣的结论。但他们也得出了一些与今天关于坚韧和意志力的讨论相关的有趣结论。
This study involved having individuals who were 60 to 79 years old divided into one of two groups. One group did cardiovascular exercise. The other group did more calisthenics slash stretching type exercise. Both groups did one hour of exercise three times per week.
这项研究涉及将年龄在60至79岁之间的个体分成两组。一组进行有氧运动，另一组进行更多的肌力训练和拉伸类运动。两组每周进行三次一小时的锻炼。
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.
最初进行心血管训练的那个团队，开始时只是进行所谓的有氧训练。这可能意味着在划船机上划船，或者跑步，或者骑车。考虑到理解工具和协议的应用，你会希望选择一种你能够持续进行而不会受伤的任何活动。这才是真正重要的。这样做可以提高你的心率。
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 one 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 two 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.
他们开始给这些人进行相对低强度的心血管运动，每小时进行一次，将心率提高到最大心率的大约50%左右。但很快就要求这些人提高心血管训练的强度。因此，他们每周进行三次一小时的训练，将心率保持在最大心率的大约75%左右。有时候会稍微低一点，60%左右，有时候会稍微高一点，但基本在那个范围内。所以对于那些考虑不同心血管区域的人来说，这可能是第三个区域，不完全是第二个区域的运动，可能是第三个区域的运动。在这个区域，人们不能轻松地进行交流，但也不会像达到最大心率或接近最大心率时那样喘不过气来。
So three one hour 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.
每周进行三次持续一个小时的中等强度心血管训练。另一组则只进行相同时间量的体操和伸展运动，而在研究中还有一个年龄较小的组别，他们进行了类似的活动，或者根本没有活动，只是作为大脑成像数据的对照组。
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 proves in more detail if you like.
现在我正在对这项研究进行简要概述，为了节省时间，我将提供该研究的链接在节目注释中，这样你可以进一步查看和了解更多细节，如果你愿意的话。
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.
但是，如果这个研究只是关于心血管训练和脑容量的研究，我不会提到它。我提到这个研究是因为通过每周进行三个小时中等强度的心血管训练，特定的脑区域能够保持或在某些情况下增加体积。
Included, of course, the anterior mid-singulate cortex. That was actually the primary location in which the maintenance of 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 three 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.
当然包括前部中回盖叶皮层。实际上，这是观察到脑体积维持的主要位置。而且在某些情况下，观察到脑体积增加了，对吗？这是一组通常会减少前部中回盖叶皮层体积的人，但每周进行三小时中等强度有氧运动可以维持该皮层的体积，也就是它的大小。而在某些情况下，还可以增加前部中回盖叶皮层的体积，也就是它的大小。
And they also observed a maintenance or increase in the size of the anterior white matter tracks. Remember, T-R-A-C-T-S. 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 track that maintained size in the penis.
他们还观察到前白质通道的大小维持或增加。记住，T-R-A-C-T-S。之前我没有详细解释，只是为了好玩而拼写出来，尽管这是我可能会做的那种事情。这些白质通道是不同脑区之间进行沟通的途径，而这个前白质通道在阴茎中保持了大小。
And the overall 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 lobes, 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.
在那些进行心血管训练的人群中，与仅进行体操训练和拉伸的人相比，整体大小较大的是连接大脑两侧额叶的白质轨迹，这使得大脑的前部中缝皮质与另一侧的前部中缝皮质以及其他脑结构能够相互沟通。
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 mid-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. cortex.
我的意思是，这项研究的作者并没有开始这项研究来寻找或甚至观察前中央单列皮层的体积增加或维持以及与前中央单列皮层之间的通信路径。只是碰巧每周进行三次、每次一小时的心血管训练，以现代强度的方式，增加了前中央单列皮层的大小。
And as I mentioned, the white matter tracks, which allow information to go in and out of the intermid-singulate cortex.
正如我之前提到的，白质纤维束在中线单楔内皮层之间传递信息的过程中起到了关键作用。
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. You know, is there something inherent to running or cycling or rowing or swimming or in a rovix class, dancing, etc that gets the heart rate up that directly feeds into the intermid-singulate cortex? After all, is the intermid-singulate cortex responsible for generating the activity of running or cycling or swimming? No.
现在，我们都应该问自己，为什么会这样呢？我的意思是，有人会骑固定自行车，踩踏板或骑公路自行车或跑步。你知道，跑步、骑车、划船、游泳或在类似rovix的课上跳舞等运动，是不是有某种内在因素使心率增加，直接影响到intermid-singulate cortex（胼胝体皮质）？毕竟，是不是intermid-singulate cortex（胼胝体皮质）负责推动跑步、骑车或游泳等活动呢？并不是。
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, et cetera, and get to these exercise classes or sessions that they did with others or alone.
相反，解释是为了参加这每周三次、每次一个小时的心血管训练课程，他们必须调配资源。他们需要从椅子上站起来。他们需要离开沙发。他们需要拒绝其他潜在的义务、社交活动、餐食等，并参加其他人或独自进行的锻炼课程或训练。
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 imaged these people's brains before and they imaged these people's brains after the 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, et cetera. We simply don't know.
现在，一项有趣且实际上非常重要的研究方面是，对于每周进行三小时心血管训练的遵从率非常高。有85%的个体参与了这些训练。在研究的六个月期间，我之前应该提到过，这项研究是在六个月的时间内进行的。他们没有机会在一周或两周后进行神经影像学检查。所以他们在六个月之前进行了这些人的大脑成像，然后在六个月之后再次进行了成像。我们不知道在一个月间隔或其他时期是否会观察到相同甚至更大的增加，这完全是个未知数。
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 intermid-singulate cortex and the volume of intermid-singulate cortex, is related to one's ability to generate tenacity and willpower for any number of different endeavors. Well, then having access to a tool or a protocol that can increase the size of one's intermid-singulate cortex is going to be extremely valuable.
进行这类研究的成本（包括能量和财务成本）非常高昂。因此，虽然他们观察了六个月的时间，但抛开这些成本不谈，在今天的讨论背景下，这项研究非常重要。因为它意味着，如果我们承认中央支脉区和中央支脉区体积与一个人在各种不同努力中生成坚韧和意志力的能力相关，那么拥有一种能够增加中央支脉区大小的工具或协议将非常有价值。
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 intermid-singulate cortex. I do think that's the case if you're not already doing sufficient amounts of cardiovascular training and what constitutes sufficient amounts. Well, I think there's general agreement now, both between the material that I've covered in our foundational fitness protocol and in the series on exercise physiology with Dr. Andy Galpin and in various discussions with Dr. Peter Atia. The general agreement is that everyone should be getting somewhere between 150 to 200 minutes of so-called zone two low intensity cardiovascular exercise per week.
那么这项研究的主要结论是什么呢？这项研究的主要结论并不是说你应该每周进行三次一小时的心血管训练，持续六个月以维持或增加你的Intermediate-Singulate Cortex（大脑皮层区域）的大小。我认为，如果你之前没有进行足够量的心血管训练，而什么是足够量的标准，我认为现在已经有了一些共识，既包括我所介绍的我们的基础健身方案中所涵盖的材料，也包括与运动生理学博士Andy Galpin以及与Peter Atia博士的各种讨论。总体上，共识是每个人每周都应该进行约150到200分钟的所谓“二区低强度”心血管锻炼。
But the results of this study really point to the idea that we should all be doing perhaps three hours, but certainly we should all be doing some form of physical exercise. But for any of us that are interested in increasing tenacity and willpower across domains, both for cognitive and physical endeavors, emotional endeavors too, for that matter, that we should be engaging in some exercise, and again, we're going to talk about cognitive exercise in a moment, but that we should be engaging in some exercise that we are not already doing.
但是这项研究的结果确实指出，我们都应该做大约三小时的运动，当然我们至少都应该进行某种形式的身体锻炼。但对于任何想要在不同领域增强毅力和意志力的人来说，包括认知和身体努力以及情感努力，我们都应该参与一些运动，而且对此我们一会儿还会讨论认知锻炼，但我们应该参与一些我们尚未做过的锻炼。
Now, that of course will lead many people to think, wait, I'm already doing 200 minutes per week of zone two cardio. How can I add three hours more of cardio? That's not what I'm saying. What's important to understand about this whole discussion about tenacity and willpower is that the ability to engage the intermid-singulate cortex and to build up its volume literally and increase its activity relies on one critical feature, which is that you have to be in some degree of resistance, some lack of desire, or I should say lack of reflexive desire or ability to engage in that behavior.
现在，当然会让很多人想到，等等，我已经每周进行200分钟的二区有氧运动了。我怎么能再增加三个小时的有氧运动呢？我并不是这个意思。关于坚韧和意志力的整个讨论中需要理解的重要一点是，能够参与中间纬敏皮层并增加其体积，从而增加其活动性的关键特征是，你必须有一定程度的抗拒力，一定程度的没有欲望，或者我应该说是没有自发性欲望或能力来进行这种行为。
This is super important if you're thinking about tools and protocols to increase your level of tenacity and willpower. If, for instance, you love cold showers and ice baths, well, then it's very unlikely that taking cold showers or getting into an ice bath is going to increase your level of tenacity and willpower further. It might reinforce the tenacity and willpower that you've already built, but it's not going to increase it further. You need to add something or subtract something that makes it harder, not easier, to engage in or resist a behavior.
这对于考虑采用工具和协议来提高坚毅和意志力水平非常重要。比如说，假设你喜欢冷水淋浴和冰水浴，那么很有可能继续进行这些行为不会再进一步增加你的坚毅和意志力水平。它可能会强化你已经建立的坚毅和意志力，但不会进一步增加。你需要添加或减少一些使行为更难而不是更容易参与或抵制的内容。
I want to be really clear about this. In the study that I just described from Colom and colleagues, they took individuals that were not exercising prior to the study, and those people had to therefore generate significant amounts of motivation in order to regularly engage in these three one-hour per week episodes of cardiovascular training. Now, the fact that there was no comparable increase in the volume of the anterior mid-singulate cortex or anterior white matter tracks in the group that did the calisthenics and stretching is also important because it implies that activities that are easier to carry out that don't get the heart rate elevated as much are not going to create changes in this brain structure that is associated with tenacity and willpower.
我希望对此事非常明确。在我刚才描述的Colom和他的同事的研究中，他们选择了之前没有锻炼的个体，这些人必须因此产生大量的动力，以便每周定期参加这三次每周一小时的心血管训练。现在，那些进行体操和拉伸的群体的前中胶质束体积和前白质途径没有类似增加的事实也很重要，因为它意味着更容易进行的活动，心率不会被提高得太高，不能造成与坚韧和意志力有关的大脑结构的变化。
There's a nice confirmation of that in the study, in fact, because they observed, as one would expect, a significant increase in VO2 max in the individuals that were assigned to the group that did cardiovascular training, but they did not observe a significant increase in VO2 max in the individuals that did three one-hour per week sessions of calisthenics and stretching across the six-month period.
实际上，研究中有一个很好的证实，因为他们观察到，正如人们所预期的那样，在被分配到进行心血管训练的组的个体中，他们的最大耗氧量（VO2 max）显著增加了。然而，在六个月的时间内，他们没有观察到进行三次每周一小时的体操和拉伸训练的个体的最大耗氧量（VO2 max）有显著增加。
Okay, so the important point here is if you're already doing, let's say, an hour a week of moderate to high-intensity cardiovascular training or resistance training for that matter, you're going to need to add something in order to get further activation of this brain hub for tenacity and willpower. And of course, the idea here, or else we wouldn't be talking about it, is that that activation and that increase in volume in the anterior mid-singulate cortex would then be applicable to other endeavors, for instance, academics or some aspect of your professional life or relationship life, that you can build up tenacity and willpower as a capacity within you, or we should say within your anterior mid-singulate cortices, but that the route to activating and increasing the robustness of your anterior mid-singulate cortex requires that you engage in something that you don't really want to do and certainly not something that you're regularly engaging in already.
好的，这里的重点是，如果你已经每周进行一小时中等到高强度的心血管训练或抵抗训练，那么为了进一步激活大脑中负责坚韧和意志力的中央区域，你需要添加一些东西。当然，我们谈论的意思是，这种激活和增加背叛前脑前部的体积，将能够应用到其他努力上，例如学术或职业生活或人际关系，你可以在自己内心建立坚韧和意志力作为一种能力，或者我们应该说是在你的前脑前部，但是激活和增强前脑前部的路径要求你从事一些你真的不想做的事情，当然也不是你经常参与的事情。
Remember, way back at the beginning of today's episode, we compared willpower and tenacity to habit execution. Well, this is a simple case where if you're already doing something, simply continuing to do it might maintain what you've already got, but it's not going to further build up your tenacity and willpower.
记住，在今天的这集开始的时候，我们将意志力和坚韧性与习惯的执行进行了对比。嗯，这个简单的例子说明，如果你已经在做某件事情，仅仅继续做下去可能会维持你已经拥有的东西，但不会进一步增强你的坚韧性和意志力。
So along those lines, I don't want you to simply take the three one-hour cardiovascular sessions per week protocol that they use within this study and expect it to increase your levels of tenacity and willpower unless, of course, you're currently only doing one hour of cardiovascular training at moderate to high intensity per week, in which case, increasing to two hours may very well increase your anterior mid-singulate cortex and overall level tenacity and willpower and certainly doing three hours per week would be expected to do it even further.
所以在这方面，我不希望你仅仅按照研究中使用的每周三次一小时的心血管训练方案来提高你的坚韧和意志力，除非当然你目前每周只进行一小时中至高强度的心血管训练，这种情况下增加到两小时很可能会提高你的前中单核皮层和整体坚韧度和意志力，而每周三小时的训练则会被预计进一步提高它。
And I should mention that we can extrapolate from this study in a meaningful way, I think, in a grounded way that's related to mechanism and say, well, if you, for instance, like me, can't play a musical instrument or are not bilingual in language, that taking on the challenge, if indeed it's a challenge, and for me it would be a challenge perhaps for you as well, to learn an instrument as an adult or to learn a second or maybe a third language. If that's challenging and in fact that's something that you're resisting doing, well then great. It's going to provide an even greater opportunity to engage the activity of the anterior mid-singulate cortex. Remember that study that showed that hard task, hard challenges are what activate the anterior mid-singulate cortex. Easy challenges don't. Habits that are reflexive simply do not. So you have to pick something hard. You have to pick something that's either physically and or psychologically hard.
我要提到的是，我觉得我们可以从这项研究中以有意义、与机制相关的方式进行推断。比如，对于像我这样无法演奏乐器或者不能讲双语的人来说，接受一个挑战（如果确实是挑战的话），例如成年人学习一种乐器或者学习第二、第三门语言。如果这是一项具有挑战性的任务，对我来说可能也是对你来说也是如此，那么太好了。这将提供更多机会来参与前部中间单状皮质的活动。还记得那项研究吗？它表明艰巨的任务、挑战性的任务才能激活前部中间单状皮质。简单的挑战并不能激活它。那些无意识习惯也不行。所以你必须选择一些困难的事情。你必须选择一些在身体上和/或心理上都具有挑战性的事情。
And of course, we want to highlight the fact that you never want to engage in anything physical or cognitive, emotional or otherwise, that is psychologically or physically damaging to you, right? Because this is something that you're going to want to maintain or carry out for some period of time. Now, along those lines, we could imagine a huge number of different protocols that one could engage in. But I think there are a couple of key things that extend across all of those opportunities.
当然，我们想强调的是，您绝对不想参与任何身体、认知、情感或其他方面对您造成心理或身体伤害的事情，对吗？因为这是您想要在一段时间内保持或执行的事情。在这方面，我们可以想象出很多不同的协议，但我认为有几个关键因素贯穿其中所有的机会。
First of all, it's clear now, based on our understanding of the anatomical inputs to the anterior mid-singulate cortex, that while exercise is great and certainly movement to the body when we don't want to move our body, a.k.a. running, a.k. weightlifting, a.k. learning a new skill like dancing or gymnastics or something of that sort is going to engage this hub for tenacity and willpower, the anterior mid-singulate cortex. But there are a number of other opportunities to do that. And we can think of those in a kind of playful context, but one is both playful and highly functional and applicable.
首先，根据我们对前中央单旁皮层解剖学输入的了解，现在清楚了，运动对身体是很好的，当我们不想运动身体时，运动可以使身体运动起来，例如跑步、举重、学习跳舞或体操等新技能都会激活这个与坚韧和意志力相关的中央单旁皮层中枢。但是还有其他许多机会可以实现这一点。我们可以将这些机会以一种有趣的方式来思考，但其中一种既有趣又极具功能性和适用性。
So for instance, if you already resistance train and you're doing what we now generally agree as a field is the minimum of six hardworking sets per muscle group per week in order to maintain or build muscle size and strength. Some of you don't want to build muscle size, but everyone should be trying to maintain muscle strength. There's a very high correlation. We now know between muscle strength and cognitive function, especially as one gets past 40 years of age, but even younger.
举例来说，假设你已经在进行抗阻力训练，并且按照我们现在普遍认可的标准，每个肌肉群每周至少需要进行六组高强度的训练，以保持或增加肌肉大小和力量。有些人可能并不想增加肌肉大小，但是每个人都应该努力保持肌肉力量。我们现在知道，在认知功能方面，尤其是在40岁以上的人群中，甚至更年轻的人群中，肌肉力量与认知功能存在着非常高的相关性。
So maintaining neuromuscular function and strength is very, very important. Even if you don't want to increase muscle size, you can learn how to do that, by the way. We have zero cost protocols. They're all listed out by going to HubermanLab.com. Check out the series I did with Dr. Andy Galpin. Check out the key toolkit takeaways from that series. Also available at HubermanLab.com. Just put exercise protocols into the search function.
因此，保持神经肌肉功能和力量非常重要。即使您不想增加肌肉大小，您也可以学会如何做到这一点，顺便说一句。我们有零成本的方案。您可以通过访问HubermanLab.com上的网站，查看所有的列表。请查看我与Andy Galpin博士合作的系列节目。请查看该系列节目中的关键工具包摘要。也可以在HubermanLab.com上找到。只需将运动方案输入搜索功能即可。
But let's say you're already resistance training. You're already doing cardiovascular training. What can you do to build up your tenacity and willpower for application in not just that endeavor, but other endeavors? Well, pick something that you don't want to do. These are what I call in a very non-scientific way, micro sucks. These things suck, but they suck a little bit and they're safe. You have to pick things that are safe for you. But they suck enough that they require some effort. They require getting over some friction, engaging in something that you don't reflexively want to do.
但是假设你已经在进行耐力训练和心血管训练了。你可以做些什么来增强自己的坚韧和意志力，不仅用于那项努力，还可以用于其他事情呢？好吧，选择一些你不想做的事情。以一种非常非科学的方式，我把这些事情称为微小的吸引力。这些事情确实很烦人，但它们只是一点点烦人，而且是安全的。你必须选择对你来说安全的事情。但它们足够让你付出一些努力，足够让你克服一些阻力，从事一些你不直觉想做的事情。
So for instance, that might be one extra set at the end of a round of three to five sets of a given exercise. Or it could be, for instance, a hundred jumping jacks at the end of what you consider a hard run. It could be, for instance, finishing out that language lesson and then deciding to do five minutes of sitting still, thinking about the material that you learned when you so desperately want to just jump on your phone. Right? Pick circumstances where the degree of resistance is very high, where the degree of impulse to do something else, then the thing that you know you need to do is very high and then start applying those on a regular basis. It could be after every workout. It could be in the middle of the workout.
比如说，这可能是在三到五组给定练习的最后增加一组。或者例如，在你认为跑步很辛苦的时候，最后再做一百个跳跃动作。也可以是，在完成语言课程后，决定坐在那里静坐五分钟，思考你学到的材料，而你内心却非常渴望拿起手机。对吧？选择那些阻力非常大的情境，你非常想做其他事情，但你知道自己需要做的事情也非常重要，然后开始定期应用这些技巧。可以是每次锻炼后，也可以是锻炼中间。
For instance, some people have a really hard time not looking at their phone during a workout. I like to listen to podcasts or music during a workout, but I really try and resist text messaging and reading email and things of that sort while working out. So the harder that becomes, the more I think about it and the more I resist it, the more presumably activation of the enter mid-singulate cortex I'm getting and that you would get as well.
例如，有些人在锻炼期间很难不看手机。我喜欢在锻炼时听播客或音乐，但我会尽量抵制发短信、查邮件等其他事情。所以，这越困难，我就越会思考它，越会抵制它，据推测，我和你一样都会激活前扣带回皮层。
So these little micro sucks, like, ah, it sucks not to look at the phone right now. It sucks to do a hundred jumping jacks at the end of a run. Of course, if you're excited due to the hundred jumping jacks at the end of the run, that's not going to be a good avenue into activating and increasing the volume of your enter mid-singulate cortex. Everything we've talked about up until now supports the statement I just made. Easy tasks, desirable tasks, don't do it. It's the thing you don't want to do. So, in part of these little micro sucks can be very useful. You'll have to think about what particular micro sucks you incorporate into your exercise routines, your cognitive routines and your daily routines and how often.
所以这些微小的糟糕事情，就像，啊，不看手机现在真让人烦恼。在跑步结束后做一百个跳跃广播真让人糟心。当然，如果你因为跑步结束后的一百个跳跃广播而感到兴奋，那就不会对激活和增加进入中间单峰皮质的音量产生好的作用。我们之前讨论的一切都支持我刚才说的那句话。简单的任务、令人向往的任务，别做。应该是你不想做的事情。因此，在这些微小的糟糕事情中的一部分是非常有用的。你需要考虑什么样的微小的糟糕事情可以融入你的锻炼计划、认知计划和日常计划，以及多频繁地使用它们。
I don't think you need to go completely berserk on this doing them all day long. But keep in mind that these are the sorts of behaviors and resistance of behaviors because again, certain micro sucks might be, you know, if you're somebody who practices intermittent fasting, you know, we don't want to send you into the realm of eating disorder. But, you know, maybe you really do wait an extra 15 minutes before your usual first meal time, which for me would really suck. That might even move from micro suck into macro suck because I like to eat when I'm hungry, but waiting a few extra minutes for no other reason than allowing oneself to activate that enter mid-singulate cortex circuitry would be one way to try and build up one's tenacity and willpower.
我不觉得你需要整天都去疯狂做这些。但是要记住，这些行为和对抗行为是某些微不足道的困扰，假如你是一个有节制饮食的人，我们不想让你陷入进食障碍的领域。但也许你真的可以在通常的第一顿饭时间之前多等15分钟，对我来说这真的很糟糕。这可能会从微不足道的困扰变成巨大的困扰，因为我喜欢在饥饿时进食，但只是为了让自己激活那个进入中单核皮层的神经回路，多等几分钟是一种增强坚毅和意志力的方式。
So, at some level, this should all seem pretty logical. It actually doesn't even require a firm understanding of the underlying neuroscience for it to make sense, right? You want to do something, you resist doing it. That's building up tenacity and willpower. You don't really want to do something you do it. That's building up tenacity and willpower. Well, I do believe in fact, there's a lot of data to support the fact that our understanding of the mechanisms underneath things like tenacity and willpower can be very advantageous when trying to carry out these different types of behaviors to increase tenacity and willpower.
所以，在某种程度上，这似乎是相当合乎逻辑的。实际上，即使没有对神经科学的深入理解，这也是有道理的，对吧？你想做某件事，却抗拒去做。这是在培养坚韧和意志力。你并不真的想做某件事，却去做了。这是在培养坚韧和意志力。嗯，事实上，我相信有很多数据可以支持这样一种观点：我们对坚韧和意志力等机制的理解对于尝试进行这些不同类型的行为以增强坚韧和意志力来说是非常有益的。
Why? Well, today we learned that there's a huge variety of contexts in which one can activate the enter mid-singulate cortex, which means that it's not cardiovascular exercise per se. It's not resisting the cookie per se, right? It's not waiting 15 more minutes to eat or making sure that you sit still and don't look at your phone at the end of a learning bout and really think about what you learned a little bit more. I know it really, really sucks to do that. It's really hard. It creates a lot of agitation. It's not about any one of those protocols, if you will, per se. Rather, it's about deliberate engagement in the behaviors that we least want to do in a given moment.
为什么呢？嗯，今天我们学到了有许多不同的情境可以激活前扣带回。这意味着，这并不是指单纯的心血管运动。它并不是指抵制饼干本身，对吧？也不是等待再过15分钟吃东西，也不是确保你坐得稳，不看手机，在学习结束后认真思考所学内容一会儿。我知道这真的非常痛苦，非常困难，会产生很大的焦虑。它并不是指特定的任何一个步骤或协议本身。相反，它是关于在某一给定的时刻，专注地参与我们最不想做的行为。
Or if you're trying to build up willpower and tenacity to not engage in certain types of behaviors, it's about our ability to suppress behavioral action. Now, I do want to highlight the potential hazards of this type of approach to building up tenacity and willpower and indeed to life. And we can call on the earlier example of eating disorders as a very salient one, right? There is a way in which all of this can run amok and we can get so heavily into stoicism, we can get so heavily into the idea of building up tenacity and willpower that it takes us into realms that are unhealthy for us psychologically, emotionally, and or physically. And that's certainly not the goal here. And I certainly don't want to motivate that type of behavior or resistance of behavior. We should all be seeking a relationship with life and with goals, etc.
或者，如果你试图培养意志力和坚韧性，以免陷入某些行为，那么就是关于我们抑制行为的能力。现在，我想强调这种方法对于培养坚韧性、意志力和生活的潜在危害。我们可以以饮食失调为一个非常突出的例子。在某种程度上，我们可以过度沉迷于冷静沉着，过度追求坚韧性和意志力，使我们在心理、情感上或身体上陷入不健康的境地。这当然不是我们的目标。我绝对不想激发那种行为或对抗行为的动机。我们应该都在寻求与生活和目标等建立良好的关系。
That involves, yes, I believe some degree of activating tenacity and willpower, really finding that fight within us that Parvizi and colleagues found when they stimulated the enter mid-singulate cortex of people, right? All of a sudden they're like, yep, I'm driving into a storm or there's something about to happen and I'm going to have to resist. I'm either going to have to do something or resist doing something, but there's something activated inside of me. I think it's very important that we are all able to garner those resources and to activate those states within us voluntarily. But I also know from experience and from observing others and indeed from the literature on the enter mid-singulate cortex as it relates to eating disorders and other aspects of neurologic and psychiatric challenges is that we also need to learn how to turn that off.
这涉及到某种程度的激发坚韧和意志力，真正找到了帕尔维兹和他的同事在刺激人们进入单一皮质中央区时所发现的那种斗争精神，对吧？突然间，他们就像是，是的，我正驾驶着一场风暴的到来，或者有某种即将发生的事情，我必须要抵抗。我要么不得不做一些事情，要么不得不抵制做某事，但是我内心激活了某种东西。我认为，我们都能够获得这些资源，并主动地激发这些状态是非常重要的。但我也知道，从经验和观察他人，以及关于单一皮质中央区与饮食障碍及其他神经和精神方面挑战相关的文献中了解到，我们还需要学会如何关闭这种状态。
With that said, the little micro sucks that we discussed, you know, the addition of 100 jumping jacks at the end of a cardiovascular training session when you would much rather just shower up and go home, getting into the cold shower or cold plunge when you absolutely don't want to do it. Well, provided you can do it safely, that's going to be the best time to do it if your goal is to build up tenacity and willpower to say nothing else of the known benefits of things like deliberate cold exposure and exercise like jumping jacks, etc. There are also entire landscapes of life and academics and sport that afford us the opportunity to build up tenacity and willpower.
说到这一点，我们讨论过的那些微小的困扰，你知道的，有时候在有氧训练结束时还得再做100个开合跳，而你可能更愿意洗个澡然后回家；或者在你绝对不想做的时候冲个冷水澡或者冷水浸泡。嗯，前提是你能安全地完成，如果你的目标是培养顽强的意志力和决心，那这就是最好的时机了，更不用说 deliberate cold exposure 和开合跳等锻炼带来的已知好处。在人生、学术和体育领域，我们还有许多机会可以培养顽强的意志力和决心。
I for instance can recall taking my so-called qualifying exams in graduate school where they ask you questions until you say, I don't know, until you don't know the answer. It's just like that puzzle in the Baumeister study. They're taking you to the point where you basically can't win. And that turns out to be a very important lesson that extends beyond the information that they're asking you about. And of course every student at the end of their qualifying exam runs off and figures out the answers to the question that they couldn't get the right answer to. Sometimes there is a right answer. Sometimes they're not. If the committee is pretty diabolical, they'll give you an impossible to answer question because there's no answer. But the point being that whether or not it's in martial arts, whether or not it's in sports, whether or not it's in music, whether or not it's in academics, whether or not it's in relating to others, there is some value to getting to that point where you can't solve the puzzle. And I think that's an important message for us to understand and maybe to incorporate into our tools and protocols that there are some endeavors that have no end point, right? There's no winning, there's no finish line. And those type of endeavors are extremely important, extremely important for continually building up our tenacity and willpower.
比如说，我还记得在研究生阶段参加所谓的资格考试，他们会一直问你问题，直到你说“我不知道”，直到你不知道答案为止。这就像宝邁斯特研究中的那个难题一样。他们会把你带到一个基本上无法获胜的境地。而这事实上是一个超越他们所问的问题的非常重要的教训。当然，每个学生在资格考试结束后都会着手解答那些无法得到正确答案的问题。有时候可能存在正确答案，有时可能没有。如果评委会特别恶毒，他们会给你一个无法回答的问题，因为根本就没有答案。但重点是，无论是在武术、体育、音乐、学术还是与他人相处时，都有一些无法解开的难题是有价值的。我认为这是一个重要的信息，我们应该理解并将其纳入我们的工具和协议中，一些努力是没有终点的，没有胜利，没有终点线。而这些类型的努力对于不断建立我们的坚韧和毅力非常重要。
So much so that we can even take a somewhat 3000 mile view from the top down onto everything we've talked about today and think about those superagers. Those superagers that somehow are able to maintain the cognitive function of a much younger person.
甚至我们可以从事物的顶部向下看，俯视我们今天讨论的一切，以及思考那些超级老年人。这些超级老年人有着异常强大的认知功能，可以维持得像年轻人一样。
（尽量易读版）甚至我们可以从上方俯瞰我们今天讨论的所有内容，并思考那些超级老年人。这些超级老年人不知何故能够保持像年轻人一样的认知功能。
And if you look at the data on superagers and people similar to them, you'll find are always engaged in some activity that's hard for them. They're always trying to learn something and they have a sort of playfulness about it. But they seek out those friction points, both resistance of certain behaviors, right? Trying to not do certain things, but perhaps more often doing certain things, learning a new skill, learning pottery, learning music, placing themselves into novel environments that are a little uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable provided that it's safe.
如果你看一下那些非常老而健康的人和与他们类似的人群的数据，你会发现他们总是参与某些对他们来说很困难的活动。他们一直在尝试学习一些新东西，并对此抱有一种玩耍的态度。但他们寻找那些摩擦点，包括对某些行为的抵制，对于想要不去做的事情，以及更经常地去做某些事情，学习一项新技能，学习陶艺，音乐等等。他们会让自己置身于一些新奇的、可能有点不舒服甚至非常不舒服的环境中，前提是安全。
So from that standpoint, one could even entertain the idea that because these people are living much longer than everybody else in addition to maintaining the cognitive function of much younger individuals, that perhaps the intermidsingulate cortex in its ability to allocate resources to different parts of our brain and body to meet certain motivational goals is actually associated with this thing that we call the will to live.
从这个角度而言，我们甚至可以思考这样一个想法：由于这些人比其他人寿命更长，并且保持着年轻个体的认知功能，也许与我们所说的“生存意志”相关的正是前扣带回皮质的能力，它可以将资源分配到我们大脑和身体的不同部分，以实现特定的动机目标。
Now the concept of the will to live is certainly getting a little bit squishy for scientists like me who, yes, I'm happy to entertain discussions that relate to psychological constructs such as tenacity and willpower, but as you've probably noticed, I'm very comfortable with and very excited about the idea that, okay, maybe it's relayed somehow to brain energetics and glucose, maybe not. Certainly I'm on board the idea that beliefs impact our physiology and physiology impacts our beliefs. I'll, Dr. Ali Chrome, who was a guest on this podcast previously talked about belief and mindset effects, which are very powerful. They change our physiology literally and the duet data that we talked about today. But of course, also that there are brain areas and circuits that underlie these things that we call tenacity and willpower.
对于像我这样的科学家来说，对于生存意志这个概念，确实变得有点模糊不清。我很乐意讨论与坚韧和意志力等心理结构相关的问题，但正如你可能注意到的，对于将其与脑能量和葡萄糖相关联的想法，我非常乐观并且感到兴奋，也许并不完全准确。当然，我支持这样一种观点，即信念会影响我们的生理机能，而生理机能又会影响我们的信念。我们在今天讨论的一项研究数据中提到了这一点。当然，我们也知道，这些所谓的坚韧和意志力的表现背后存在着大脑区域和回路。我之前邀请过的嘉宾、Ali Chrome博士在这个播客中谈到了信念和心态的影响，它们是非常强大的。它们实际上可以改变我们的生理机能，这也符合我们今天讨论的相关数据。
So when we get into a discussion about tenacity and willpower and then find ourselves, as we are now talking about the will to live, I don't think it's going too far to say that when one looks at the data on longevity, both physical and psychological longevity, it's very clear that they're underlying physiological explanations, not the least of which is likely to be the maintenance, if not growth over the lifespan of this intermidsingulate cortex. But also that the people that are achieving that are continually forging in their environment. They're continually looking for new environments. They're continually exploring. They are not becoming complacent. They are not becoming sedentary. They're not existing down at that end of the continuum that we call apathy and depression, but that they're not existing down there.
所以，当我们讨论坚韧和意志力，并且现在我们谈论到生存意志时，我认为可以毫不夸张地说，在寿命（无论是身体上的还是心理上的）的数据中，很明显存在着一些潜在的生理学解释，其中至少有可能是这个中间沟回皮层在一生中的维护，甚至可能是生长。同时，那些能够实现寿命延长的人们持续地与环境相互作用。他们不断寻找新的环境，持续进行探索。他们不会变得满足，也不会变得久坐不动。他们不会处于我们所称之为冷漠和抑郁的极端，而是不会陷入那样的状态。
And they are existing up toward the end of the continuum that we call tenacity and willpower and engaging motivation to get there. Motivation, again, as a verb. But in doing that, that they're reinforcing the very circuits that give rise to tenacity and willpower. This is what in engineering terms is referred to as a closed loop. It's like you do A, which leads to B, which leads to C, which feeds back onto A and makes A that much more likely to occur. It's like turning the little A into a capital A and then turning into a boldface capital underline A, the buildup of neural circuits.
它们存在于我们称之为坚韧和意志力以及积极动力的连续体末端。再次强调，这里的动力是一个动词。但是通过这样做，它们在加强产生坚韧和意志力的神经回路。从工程的角度来说，这就是所谓的闭环。就像你做A，导致B，再导致C，反过来又反馈到A，使A更有可能发生。就像把小写的A变成大写A，然后变成粗体下划线A，神经回路逐渐累积。
So while today we focused a lot on an individual brain area, anterior mid-singulate cortex. And in many ways, I presented it as if it's the be all end all of tenacity and willpower. It is not the be all end all of tenacity and willpower. It's our ability to engage the anterior mid-singulate cortex that allows us to express tenacity and willpower. But in this closed loop fashion, it's our ability to express tenacity and willpower that then feeds back onto that circuit and makes it more robust and more likely to be accessible in the future when we encounter something that we don't want to do or that we have to resist very strongly in order to not engage in some sort of behavior or thought pattern.
因此，尽管今天我们非常关注一个特定的大脑区域——前扣带回皮层。在很多方面上，我把它呈现得好像它是坚韧和意志力的全部和最终代价。而实际上，前扣带回皮层并不是坚韧和意志力的全部和最终代价。正是我们能够激活前扣带回皮层的能力使我们能够表达坚韧和意志力。但是以这种闭环方式，我们表达坚韧和意志力的能力反过来影响到那个回路，使其更强大，并在将来我们遇到不想做的事情，或者面对需要极力抵制的行为或思维模式时更容易访问。
So the big takeaway is that if you want to increase your tenacity and willpower, you absolutely can. You can do that by triggering activation of this incredible hub within the brain, the anterior mid-singulate cortex, for which there is now a very large amount of evidence is at least central to the whole process of generating tenacity and willpower that I absolutely will do that.
所以重要的结论是，如果你想增加你的坚韧和意志力，你绝对可以做到。你可以通过触发大脑内这个令人难以置信的中心，前脑中纵裂皮层的激活来实现。现在有大量证据表明，这个中心至少对于产生坚韧和意志力的整个过程是至关重要的，我绝对会这么做。
And the, no, I absolutely won't do that. It's the resistance hub. It's the thing that's allocating resources to do the thing that we don't want to do or that someone's trying to prevent us from doing. It's also the brain area that's allowing us to resist doing the thing that we want to do or that someone else wants to do when we decide that's not good for us.
不，我绝对不会做那件事。这是抵抗中心。它在分配资源来完成我们不想做或别人试图阻止我们做的事情。它还是我们能够抵制我们想做或别人想让我们做的事情的大脑区域，当我们认为对我们不利时。
We can really be certain based on the psychology literature, based on the neuroscience literature, and really based on this beautiful literature that's now emerging that includes the column study, but some other studies as well that perhaps we'll talk about in a future episode that we really can build up our capacity for tenacity and willpower. It's a real thing.
根据心理学文献，神经科学文献以及现在涌现出来的美丽文献（包括列研究和其他一些研究），我们可以非常肯定地说，我们确实可以增强自己的坚韧和意志力。这是一种真实存在的能力。
And as a final point to this, and indeed as a final protocol, I was very excited to look into the early release of peer-reviewed papers out from neuron just this last week and to see that there was a study, albeit in a preclinical model, in an animal model, that explored what is called stress relief as a natural resilience mechanism. And I won't go into this study in full detail, especially not now, laid into a slightly long episode such as this one.
最后，我非常兴奋地研究了上周neuron期刊提前发布的同行评审论文，发现了一项研究，虽然只是在动物模型中进行的临床前研究，但是探讨了所谓的应激缓解作为一种自然复原机制。我不会在这个节目中对这项研究进行详细介绍，特别是现在，因为这一集已经略微冗长了。
But what the study showed is that when an animal is in a state of despair or ahedonia, a lack of pleasure when it's under stress, and then that stress is removed, there's a sense of reward. There's a sense of well-being that accompanies that release of stress. And that's pretty obvious. That's something that we've known about for a very long time. But what's interesting about this study, and they actually talk about this in terms of its applicability, potentially to humans, is that when we are able to withstand a stress, maybe that stress is school, maybe that stress is a particular relationship. Again, you never want to do these things in a way that's unhealthy or dangerous.
这项研究表明，当动物处于绝望或无乐感状态时，在受到压力的情况下，当压力消失时，会产生一种奖励感。伴随着这种压力释放，有一种幸福感。这是非常明显的。这是我们很久以来就知道的。但这项研究有趣之处，在于它可能适用于人类，即当我们能够承受一种压力时，也许这种压力来自学校，也许来自某种特定的关系。再次强调，我们决不能以一种不健康或危险的方式去做这些事情。
But when we are able to do that, the relief that we feel afterwards is its own form of reward that serves to reinforce that whole process of tenacity and willpower that got us through the stressor. And an interesting thing about this study is that they went on to compound that reward. They showed that rewarding oneself for having gotten through a stressful episode actually serves to increase the capacity to get through stressful episodes in the future.
然而，当我们能够做到这一点时，之后感受到的松劲成为一种独特的奖励，进一步强化了我们坚韧和毅力的整个过程，帮助我们度过压力。有趣的是，这项研究还发现，为自己成功应对压力事件而奖励自己实际上会增加未来成功应对压力事件的能力。
In other words, if you decide to develop certain tools and protocols to increase your levels of tenacity and willpower, which frankly I hope that you will at least consider, again, providing you do it safely, this seems like a very good thing to do for all of us, especially as we age. And guess what? We're all aging from the time we're born.
换句话说，如果你决定开发某些工具和协议来增强你的坚韧和意志力水平，坦率地说，我希望你至少考虑一下，当然，前提是安全的。这对我们所有人来说似乎是一件非常好的事情，尤其是随着我们变老。你猜怎么着？我们从出生开始就在变老。
If you decide to do that, pick something that's challenging, overcome that challenge. Again, this could be the requirement to engage in a particular behavior when you don't want to, or to resist a particular behavior that you would otherwise want to engage in. But also, when you've successfully completed that resistance, when you've engaged that tenacity and willpower, and you've activated that anterior mid-singulate cortex, well, then occasionally, not always, but occasionally providing yourself with a reward of something that you like. And here, it's highly subjective. You'll just have to pick something that you like. Again, something that's hopefully health promoting, not health diminishing, can serve to further reinforce the behavior that you just engaged in, which was to increase your tenacity and willpower.
如果你决定这样做，选择一些具有挑战性的事情，克服这个挑战。同样，这可能是在你不想要的情况下采取特定行为的要求，或者抵制你本来想要采取的行为。但是，当你成功完成这种抵抗，当你发挥了坚持和毅力，并激活了前匹配脑前部皮层时，那么有时候，不总是，但是偶尔给自己一个喜欢的奖励。这里是非常主观的。你只需要选择你喜欢的东西。同样，希望这是有益于健康的，而不是损害健康的东西，可以进一步强化你刚刚展示的行为，即增加你的坚持和毅力。
And if you listen to the episodes that I've done on dopamine motivation and drive, or on dopamine more generally, you will know that I am not a fan of rewarding oneself for wins, or for engaging tenacity or willpower for that matter on a regular basis, or certainly every time. This is the sort of thing that just randomly, every once in a while, when you've done the hard thing or you've resisted the thing that was pulling on you, that you should reward yourself, but of course, reward yourself in healthy and safe ways.
如果你听过我关于多巴胺动机和驱动力的节目，或者多巴胺的其他相关话题，你就会知道我不喜欢为胜利而奖励自己，或者为坚持不懈或意志力而奖励自己，至少不是每次都这样。这种事情只是偶尔发生，当你已经完成了困难的事情，或者抵抗了诱惑力的事情时，你应该奖励自己，当然，要用健康和安全的方式奖励自己。
For those of you that are interested in learning more about how to reward the actions of tenacity and willpower, I'll provide a link to the recently published paper and neuron in the show note captions. I will also be doing a toolkit episode that relates to what we cover today, as well as some additional tools gleaned from other papers and resources in the not too distant future.
对于那些对学习如何奖励坚韧和意志力行为感兴趣的人，我将在节目注释中提供一个链接，以了解最近发表的论文和神经元的更多信息。同时，我也会制作一个工具包专题节目，与今天讨论的内容相关，并在不久的将来从其他论文和资源中获取一些额外的工具。
Thank you for joining me for today's discussion, all about tenacity and willpower. We talked about the idea gleaned from research in the field of psychology that tenacity and willpower are limited resources, and that perhaps, again, perhaps, they relate to this concept of ego depletion that relates to this idea that what is depleted or what's limited in our ability to engage tenacity and willpower somehow relates to brain energetics and fuel consumption, namely glucose.
感谢大家参加今天关于坚韧和意志力的讨论。我们谈论了心理学领域的研究观点，认为坚韧和意志力是有限的资源。也许，这可能与自我衰竭的概念相关，自我衰竭指的是在从事坚韧和意志力行为时所消耗的大脑能量和葡萄糖的饮用有关。
I also talked about the conflicting data that argues that if we believe tenacity and willpower are limited and that glucose is the thing that limits them, well, then that's exactly what happens. So I talked about that controversy and some of the data that actually reconcile a bit of the differences there. So in the absence of new data, you'll have to decide for yourself what you believe about tenacity and willpower.
我还谈到了有关数据的矛盾观点，这些观点认为，如果我们相信坚韧和毅力是有限的，并且葡萄糖是限制它们的因素，那么情况就会确实如此。因此，我谈论了这个争议，以及一些数据，实际上在一定程度上解决了其中的差异。所以在没有新数据的情况下，你必须自己决定对于坚韧和毅力你所相信的是什么。
However, it's very important to acknowledge the universal truth, which is that our tenacity and willpower rides on the tide of autonomic function. That is, when we are sleep deprived, when we are in pain, when we are in emotional pain, or when we are distracted, our tenacity and willpower is diminished, which calls upon all of us to make sure that we're taking care of our autonomic functions through viewing morning sunlight, getting sufficient sleep, adequate nutrition, social connections, things that I've covered extensively on previous episodes.
然而，承认普遍真理非常重要，即我们的坚韧和意志力取决于自主功能的推动。也就是说，当我们缺乏睡眠、感到疼痛、情绪受伤或分散注意力时，我们的坚韧和意志力就会减弱。这就需要我们所有人确保通过早上晒太阳、获得充足的睡眠、适当的营养、社交联系等来照顾好我们的自主功能，这些事情我在之前的节目中已经广泛介绍过了。
Then we talked about the neural underpinnings of tenacity and willpower and this absolutely incredible brain structure that we'll call a hub because it's not operating in isolation, but rather it's getting inputs from lots of different brain areas relate to reward, executive function, autonomic function, motor planning, goal seeking, etc., that we call the anterior mid-singulate cortex, this phenomenally interesting brain area that seems to be able to generate this thing that we call tenacity and willpower, and that when we engage or express tenacity and willpower by doing the thing that we least want to do, by not doing the thing that we most want to do in a given moment, that we actually can build up our anterior mid-singulate cortex and thereby build up our future capacity to engage the anterior mid-singulate cortex when we need to call on tenacity and willpower.
然后，我们讨论了坚韧和意志力的神经基础，以及这个非常惊人的大脑结构，我们称之为“枢纽”，因为它并不是孤立工作，而是从与奖励、执行功能、自主功能、运动规划、目标追求等相关的许多不同的脑区获取输入。我们称之为前间束旁皮质，这是一个极其有趣的脑区，似乎能够产生我们所称之为坚韧和意志力的东西。当我们通过做我们最不愿意做的事情，不做我们最想做的事情来参与或表达坚韧和意志力时，我们实际上可以增强我们的前间束旁皮质，并因此增强我们将来使用前间束旁皮质时调用坚韧和意志力的能力。
Then we talked about some of the peer-reviewed data that shows how that actually can be done. Were these individuals who were not previously exercising did a challenging three one-hour sessions per week of cardiovascular training and indeed their anterior mid-singulate cortex and the connections to and away from it increased in a way that set them apart from their age-related cohorts.
然后我们讨论了一些经过同行评审的数据，这些数据显示实际上可以做到这一点。这些人之前没有进行锻炼，但每周进行了3个小时的具有挑战性的心血管训练。事实上，他们的前部中单子皮层以及与其相连的神经连接方式得到增强，使他们和同龄人有所区别。
That is, their brains stayed younger, maybe even got younger, whereas those that did not do the hard thing, that didn't engage tenacity and willpower did not experience the same effect. Then we talked about how those data could be extended into a number of different realms such as cognitive learning, learning languages, learning math, learning art, learning any number of different things, or in the physical realm, engaging in certain types of exercise that one is not already engaging in, adding in a little bit of additional exercise specifically at a time in which you least want to do that, or extending your fasting period if that's something that you're doing and that you can do healthfully, simply because it allows you to exercise your anterior mid-singulate cortex, aka tenacity and willpower.
换句话说，他们的大脑保持了年轻，甚至可能变得更年轻，而那些没有做困难事情、没有展现毅力和意志力的人则没有经历相同的效果。然后，我们讨论了这些数据如何可以延伸到不同的领域，如认知学习、语言学习、数学学习、艺术学习以及其他各种学习，或者在身体层面，参与某些你之前没有参与过的锻炼方式，在你最不想做的时候增加一点额外的锻炼量，或者延长你的禁食期（如果你正在健康地进行禁食），简单地说，因为这样做可以让你锻炼你的前着中单皮质，也就是毅力和意志力。
Of course, we highlighted that all of that needs to be done in the context of psychological and physical safety. We don't want anyone to do things that are going to be physically damaging to themselves, but if one simply takes the stance of, okay, what's something that I can do in a moment that will allow me to build up tenacity and willpower? Well, it's going to be the thing that I least want to do in that moment, or the thing that I least want to resist doing in that moment, to periodically add in those little, what I refer to as microsucks, a very non-scientific, frankly, non-psychological term, but I think we all understand what it means.
当然，我们强调所有这一切都需要在心理和身体安全的框架下完成。我们不希望任何人做会对自己造成身体伤害的事情，但如果一个人仅仅采取这样一个立场：好吧，在某个时刻我可以做什么来增强坚韧和毅力？那么，就是那件我在此时最不想做的事情，或者最不想抵制的东西，不断地添加一些我所称之为微不足道的事情，这是一个非常非科学、坦率地说非心理学的术语，但我认为我们都明白它的意思。
Little things that we don't want to do, but that if we do them, you can be sure that you are activating the enter mid-singulate cortex and thereby increasing the probability, the likelihood that you can access tenacity and willpower more readily in the future.
我们不想做的小事情，但如果我们做了它们，你可以确信你正在激活进入中央前帘皮质，并从而增加未来更容易获得坚韧和意志力的可能性和概率。
So what I've done today is explain the scientific studies in the realm of psychology and neuroscience that explain what tenacity and willpower are and what allows us to build up our tenacity and willpower over time. And then it's really up to all of us, to you and to me and everybody else to figure out in which particular domains and with which frequency we're going to decide to build up our tenacity and willpower.
所以，我今天做的是解释心理学和神经科学领域的科学研究，用以解释坚韧和意志力是什么，以及是什么让我们能够逐渐增强自己的坚韧和意志力。然后，真正取决于我们每个人，包括你和我以及其他人，要决定在哪些具体领域以及以何种频率去培养我们的坚韧和意志力。
So it's clear that tenacity and willpower are not just resources that we need to call upon from time to time in order to overcome things, but then, indeed, calling on our ability and building up our ability for tenacity and willpower can allow us a much richer enjoyment of life and perhaps can even extend our life by engaging the will to live.
因此，很明显，坚韧和毅力不仅是我们需要时不时调用的资源，以克服困难，而且我们调用和培养坚韧和毅力的能力，可以让我们对生活有更丰富的享受，甚至可能通过激发求生的意愿延长我们的生命。
Thank you for joining me for today's discussion about the science of tenacity and willpower and tools and protocols to increase one's ability to access tenacity and willpower. If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero cost way to support us. In addition, please subscribe to the podcast on both Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five star review. If you have questions for me or comments about the podcast or topics or guests that you'd like me to cover on the Huberman Lab podcast, please put those in the comment section on YouTube. I do read all the comments.
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Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion about tenacity and willpower. And last, but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.
再次感谢您参加今天关于坚韧和意志力的讨论。最后，但确实并非最不重要的，感谢您对科学的兴趣。