How to Increase Your Willpower & Tenacity

Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.

欢迎来到休伯曼实验室播客，我们在这里讨论科学和基于科学的日常生活工具。

I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine.

我是安德鲁·胡伯曼，斯坦福大学医学院神经生物学和眼科教授。

Today, we are discussing how to build tenacity and willpower.

今天我们讨论的是如何培养坚韧和意志力。

Previous episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast have focused on the topic of motivation, and while motivation and willpower are linked thematically and mechanistically, today we are going to discuss 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.

胡伯曼实验室播客的前几集主要讨论动机的话题，虽然动机和意志力在主题和机制上是联系在一起的，但今天我们要讨论坚韧，即在不同类型的压力和阻力下坚持下去的意愿，以及意志力，它既与做事的动机有关，也与抵抗某些事情的动机有关。

Today, you will learn about the psychology and neuroscience of tenacity and willpower.

今天，您将了解坚韧和意志力的心理学和神经科学。

And I must tell you, this is a fascinating literature.

我必须告诉你，这是一本引人入胜的文学作品。

In fact, you will learn about a brain structure that, at least to my knowledge, most neuroscientists are not even aware of.

事实上，您将了解一种大脑结构，至少据我所知，大多数神经科学家甚至都没有意识到这一点。

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.

然而，在研究这一集的过程中，我绝对爱上了这种大脑结构，因为它具有令人难以置信的能力，能够整合来自内部和外部的各种信息，以利用和建立坚韧和意志力。

And indeed, today you will learn research-supported tools for how to enhance your level of tenacity and willpower in any circumstance.

事实上，今天您将学习研究支持的工具，以帮助您在任何情况下提高坚韧和意志力的水平。

Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

在开始之前，我想强调一下，这个播客与我在斯坦福大学的教学和研究角色是分开的。

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.

然而，我的愿望和努力的一部分是向公众提供有关科学和科学相关工具的零成本消费者信息。

In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

为了与这个主题保持一致，我要感谢今天播客的赞助商。

Okay, let's talk about tenacity and willpower and how to enhance your level of tenacity and willpower.

好，我们来谈谈坚韧和意志力，以及如何提高自己的坚韧和意志力水平。

I will also mention certain cases where having too much tenacity and willpower can be problematic for mental health and physical health.

我还会提到某些情况，过度的坚韧和意志力可能会给心理健康和身体健康带来问题。

But for most people, I believe that enhancing one's level of tenacity and willpower would be advantageous.

但对于大多数人来说，我认为提高自己的韧性和意志力是有好处的。

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.

现在，您会放心地知道，虽然在几乎无数种不同的情况下，一个人需要依靠坚韧和意志力才能成功，但大脑内存在一种主要机制。

Indeed, one major mechanism by which tenacity and willpower are generated, and it arrives through the activation of a particular brain center that is a hub.

事实上，这是产生坚韧和意志力的一种主要机制，它是通过激活作为枢纽的特定大脑中心而实现的。

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.

也就是说，它位于许多其他神经回路的接口处，并具有人们产生坚韧和意志力所需的所有关键神经回路的输入。

Now, we are going to return to that particular neural circuit a little bit later after we talk about the psychology of willpower.

现在，在我们讨论意志力心理学之后，我们将稍后回到那个特定的神经回路。

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.

因为在谈论意志力心理学时，它会解释为什么理解这一特定的大脑中心或大脑和身体不同神经结构的输入和输出的枢纽确实能让你充分利用科学研究中显示的工具来提高你的坚韧和意志力水平。

In other words, understanding the psychology of tenacity and willpower, while valuable, if it's coupled with an understanding of the underlying neural mechanism, and notice I 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.

换句话说，理解坚韧和意志力的心理学虽然很有价值，但如果它与对潜在神经机制的理解相结合，并且注意我使用单一神经机制，而不是机制来产生坚韧和意志力，将允许您使用和定制特定的协议来增强坚韧和意志力，以适应您的独特情况。

So this is yet another case where certainly life circumstances vary from one person to the next.

因此，这是另一种情况，每个人的生活环境肯定有所不同。

The need for tenacity and willpower varies tremendously.

对坚韧和意志力的需求差异很大。

For instance, some people may need more tenacity and willpower in order to engage in certain behaviors.

例如，有些人可能需要更多的坚韧和意志力才能从事某些行为。

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意志力才能抵制某些类型的行为。

Today, you will learn about the brain center that governs all of that, and then you can frame it within the psychological understanding of tenacity and willpower so that you can get the most out of the protocols that we will discuss.

今天，您将了解控制所有这一切的大脑中心，然后您可以在对坚韧和意志力的心理学理解中构建它，以便您可以充分利用我们将讨论的协议。

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.

让我们首先明确什么是坚韧和意志力，并将坚韧和意志力与它们经常混淆的其他一些心理结构区分开来。

Because this will be important in understanding exactly what we are trying to build when we say we want to build tenacity and willpower.

因为当我们说我们想要建立坚韧和意志力时，这对于准确理解我们正在努力建立的目标非常重要。

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力区分开来。

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.

习惯执行是你早上醒来时所做的事情，也许你躺在那里一会儿，也许你立即起床。

Hopefully, you get outside and get some sunlight in your eyes, especially on cloudy days.

希望您到外面去，让阳光照射到眼睛里，尤其是在阴天。

Go brush your teeth, use the restroom, engage with others in your home if you live with others, et cetera.

去刷牙、上厕所、与家里的其他人交流（如果您与他人住在一起）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，虽然在某些日子可能更具挑战性，尤其是起床部分，例如，也许您前一天晚上没有睡个好觉。

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有神经回路产生的行为，而且通常不需要太多的意志力就可以产生。

Now, willpower, sometimes also referred to as tenacity, grit, or persistence, is a distinctly different phenomenon than habit execution.

现在，意志力，有时也被称为坚韧、毅力或坚持，是与习惯执行截然不同的现象。

Because willpower and tenacity require that we intervene in our own default neural processes, such as habits or particular patterns of thinking, and essentially govern ourselves to do or not do some particular thing.

因为意志力和坚韧要求我们干预自己默认的神经过程，例如习惯或特定的思维模式，并从本质上控制自己做或不做某些特定的事情。

And that process requires effort.

而这个过程需要付出努力。

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.

我认为我们所有人都熟悉那种需要付出努力或精力的感觉，才能从事我们真正不想从事的行为或避免默认情况下我们自然会从事的行为或想法。

And when I talk about energy in this context, I'm mainly talking about neural energy.

当我在这种情况下谈论能量时，我主要谈论神经能量。

Remember that neurons, nerve cells in your brain and body, use chemical and electrical signaling to communicate with one another.

请记住，大脑和身体中的神经元、神经细胞使用化学和电信号相互通信。

That's what allows you and all of us to do all the things that we do, think, feel, move, et cetera.

这就是让你和我们所有人能够做我们所做、思考、感觉、移动等等的所有事情。

Now, of course, that chemical and electrical communication requires fuel sources that indeed come from things like glucose, ketones, the creatine phosphate system.

当然，现在化学和电气通讯需要燃料来源，而这些燃料来源确实来自葡萄糖、酮、磷酸肌酸系统等。

Multiple fuel systems feed the energetics of the brain.

多种燃料系统为大脑提供能量。

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.

但最终，当我在今天的讨论中谈论能量时，我谈论的是参与或抵制特定行为所需的能量。

And that level of energy can be quite high depending on how much resistance we are feeling internally or externally, right?

这种能量水平可能相当高，具体取决于我们内部或外部感受到的阻力有多大，对吗？

Somebody can be telling us, "You're not going to be able to do this.

有人可能会告诉我们：“你无法做到这一点。

You can't do it." And you can say, "No, I have a ton of resolve.

你做不到。”你可以说：“不，我有很大的决心。

I have a ton of tenacity, willpower, and I'm going to push past all the barriers that you are setting up for me on the outside."

我有很强的毅力和意志力，我将克服你们在外面为我设置的所有障碍。”

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.

很多时候，我应该说，我们会经历来自内部的阻力，我们感觉自己不想做某事，或者我们真的想做某事，但我们遇到困难，要么去做我们不想做的事情，要么我们知道我们应该做，但我们只是感觉不到那种程度的动力，或者我们很难抵制那些拉我们去做的事情。

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，在这种情况下，对我们来说重要的是，不仅要区分坚韧和意志力与习惯执行力，还要绘制一个连续体，在该连续体的一端表现出最极端的坚韧和意志力，在该连续体的另一端表现出冷漠和抑郁。

And we will return to the topic of depression a little bit later, but I can just cue 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.

稍后我们将回到抑郁症的话题，但我现在可以指出，重度抑郁症的一个标志性特征是对未来缺乏积极的预期，这会导致，这很重要，这里有一个动词时态，这会导致人们不太倾向于从事特定类型的行为，而这些行为将允许一个人到达一个特定的新的、不同的和积极的未来。

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.

因此，我故意将冷漠和抑郁放在连续体的一端，而将勇气、毅力、坚韧和意志力放在连续体的另一端。

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.

稍后，你就会变得非常清楚为什么我将这些特定项目放在连续体上，而不是其他心理结构（例如动机）。

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.

因为事实证明，动机可以让你在这个连续体中上下移动，但动机本身作为动词，与我们所说的坚韧和意志力不同。

And motivation itself is distinct from what we call apathy and depression.

动机本身不同于我们所说的冷漠和抑郁。

But motivation is the engine or the motor, the verb that allows you to move up and down that continuum.

但动力是引擎或马达，这个动词可以让你在连续体中上下移动。

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.

今天，您将学习多种工具，通过参与非常具体的神经回路，这些工具将使您能够朝着这个连续体的坚韧和意志力方向迈进。

Before we get into the discussion of neural circuits, I'd like to talk about the psychology of willpower.

在我们开始讨论神经回路之前，我想先谈谈意志力心理学。

And this is something that really has been considered by psychologists for well over 100 years.

这确实是心理学家一百多年来一直在考虑的事情。

William James wrote about this.

威廉·詹姆斯曾写过此事。

The ancient Greeks wrote about this.

古希腊人对此有记载。

The topic of willpower is certainly not a new one.

意志力这个话题当然不是什么新鲜事。

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，在实验室背景下对意志力的正式研究，即将人类受试者带入实验室，检查什么样的条件可以让他们发挥意志力和坚韧，什么样的条件真正削弱或耗尽他们的意志力和坚韧，当然，在我们所谓的临床前模型中进行的平行实验，即动物研究，已经向我们揭示了很多关于允许我们产生意志力的条件和耗尽我们意志力的条件。

Now, if we are to throw our arms around that entire literature, there is a big batch of that literature, not the whole batch.

现在，如果我们要拥抱整个文献，就会发现有一大堆文献，而不是整批文献。

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.

但有大量文献相信并且仍然相信意志力是一种有限的资源，就像体内的燃料或汽车的燃料一样。

Now, the idea of willpower as a limited resource is certainly not a new idea.

现在，意志力作为有限资源的想法当然不是一个新想法。

But again, the formal study of willpower and willpower as a limited resource really dates back a little over 20, 25 years when Roy Baumeister 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.

但同样，对意志力和意志力作为有限资源的正式研究实际上可以追溯到20、25年前，当时罗伊·鲍迈斯特（Roy Baumeister）和他的同事开始探索这样一个想法，当然，这个想法已经被讨论了很多年，即随着我们在一天中必须做出的每一个额外的决定，以及我们必须作为资源利用的每一次额外的意志力，我们都会耗尽我们内心的意志力储备。

Now, Baumeister and colleagues referred to that process as ego depletion.

现在，鲍迈斯特和同事将这个过程称为自我损耗。

Now, when people hear the word ego, some people think Freud, ego, super ego, id, and so forth.

现在，当人们听到“自我”这个词时，有些人会想到弗洛伊德、自我、超我、本我等等。

Most people think ego, like somebody having a big personality where they think a lot of themselves.

大多数人认为自我，就像一个有很大个性的人，他们非常重视自己。

When Baumeister 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.

当鲍迈斯特提到自我损耗时，他将自我损耗定义为自我概念和外部挑战的概念，以及弥合自我概念和这些挑战所需的努力程度。

And so ego depletion is really an operational construct within the field of psychology.

因此，自我损耗实际上是心理学领域内的一种操作性构造。

So we don't want to get too distracted by that word ego.

所以我们不想因为“自我”这个词而太过分心。

There's a tendency anytime people hear ego or if they hear narcissism or if they hear gaslighting, to immediately assume that they know what that means, when in fact, the formal definitions of those quite often differ from the way that they're kicked around on social media, the internet, and even in a lot of popular writing about psychology.

每当人们听到“自我”，或者听到“自恋”，或者听到“煤气灯”时，就会立即假设他们知道这意味着什么，但事实上，这些词的正式定义往往与社交媒体、互联网、甚至许多流行心理学著作中的定义不同。

Okay, so let's just note that ego depletion is the term that Baumeister 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.

好吧，让我们注意一下，鲍迈斯特用“自我损耗”这个术语来描述我们的意志力随着每次连续尝试运用意志力而被耗尽的能力，推而广之，如果我们暂时停止做决定和运用我们的意志力，我们补充意志力程度的能力。

But ego depletion itself isn't the focus right now.

但自我损耗本身并不是现在的焦点。

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 would prefer not to, at least in that moment, and with each attempt to resist a behavior, thought, et cetera, 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, and we need to resist that, that it is draining that willpower resource.

现在的焦点是意志力是否确实是一种有限的资源，无论我们做出的每一个决定和每一次努力参与我们不愿意做的活动，至少在那个时刻，以及每次尝试抵制一种行为、思想等，这些行为、思想等等，正在拉着我们，或者我们觉得我们默认想要参与，要么吃饼干，要么思考想法，要么从事任何类型的特定类型的行为，我们需要抵制这种行为，它正在耗尽意志力资源。

Now, before I go any further, I know that some of you out there are probably aware that ego depletion and the Baumeister theory of willpower as a limited resource has been very contentious, especially in recent years.

现在，在我进一步讨论之前，我知道你们中的一些人可能已经意识到自我损耗和鲍迈斯特关于意志力作为有限资源的理论一直非常有争议，特别是在最近几年。

And so today what I'm going to do is I'm going to first present the Baumeister 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 new experiments, which indeed, in some cases contradict the findings of Baumeister, but more often than not, contradict the conclusions that Baumeister drew about willpower.

所以今天我要做的就是首先介绍鲍迈斯特及其同事关于意志力作为有限资源的研究，然后我将介绍一些相互矛盾的证据，这些证据表明我在斯坦福大学医学院的同事卡罗尔·德韦克和其他地方的研究人员进行了荟萃分析和全新的实验，这些证据确实在某些情况下与鲍迈斯特的发现相矛盾，但更多时候，与鲍迈斯特得出的关于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.

因此，如果我们要了解意志力和坚韧的心理学，重要的是我们要了解自我损耗和意志力作为有限资源的概念，即使在听完所有证据后，您认为意志力不是有限资源。

And in fact, I'm quite confident that once you hear about the Baumeister work, and then you hear about the work of Dweck and others, which in some ways counters the conclusions of Baumeister, that you'll have a much firmer and certainly a much more complete understanding about what tenacity and willpower are.

事实上，我非常有信心，一旦你听说了鲍迈斯特的工作，然后你听到了德韦克和其他人的工作（这些工作在某种程度上与鲍迈斯特的结论相反），你就会对什么是坚韧和意志力有一个更坚定、更完整的理解。

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.

也许，在检查了全部数据后，我在这里揭示了我自己的倾向，即在某些情况下，坚韧和意志力是一种有限的资源，可以通过参与体内的特定过程来补充。

That's right, within the body.

没错，就是在体内。

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, et cetera, that tenacity and willpower can be drawn upon repeatedly without them being depleted if you are clear on your beliefs about tenacity and willpower.

但意志力和坚韧，最重要的是，如何发挥坚韧和意志力，尤其是当你面前有很多挑战时，不仅仅是一个挑战，而是需要一整天、几周、几个月等等进行的多项挑战，如果你清楚自己对坚韧和意志力的信念，那么坚韧和意志力就可以反复利用，而不会被耗尽。

So I realize 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.

所以我意识到我刚才提出的是一个关于我还没有讨论过的事情的争议，所以它可能看起来有点像一堆信息，实际上没有任何背景。

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 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 as a limited resource and ego depletion have not been debunked.

但我在谈话的这个阶段提出争议的原因是，当自我损耗或意志力作为有限资源这些词从我嘴里说出时，我可以听到那些声音说：“等一下，我以为这一切都被揭穿了。”我想澄清的是，意志力作为一种有限的资源和自我损耗尚未被揭穿。

It's simply a controversial area of psychological research.

这只是心理学研究中一个有争议的领域。

And more importantly for today's discussion, we have to understand the theory of willpower as a limited resource if we are to understand the controversy, that is the counterargument of what willpower really is that comes from other groups.

对于今天的讨论来说，更重要的是，如果我们要理解这场争论，我们就必须理解意志力作为有限资源的理论，即来自其他群体的关于意志力到底是什么的反驳。

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.

所以我真的想给你们讲故事的两面，这样当我们了解坚韧和意志力的潜在神经机制，以及提高坚韧和意志力水平的工具和协议，以及在不同情况下意志力的灵活性时，您将能够充分利用这些工具和协议。

Okay, so let's take a look at the evidence that willpower is a limited resource.

好吧，让我们来看看意志力是有限资源的证据。

I think most of us are familiar with what willpower feels like.

我想我们大多数人都熟悉意志力的感觉。

That is, what it feels like to be tenacious.

也就是坚韧的感觉。

And again, there are two sides to this coin.

再说一遍，这枚硬币有两个方面。

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.

当我们真的不想做某事，或者当我们的冲动不该做某事时，我们就会有意志力和坚韧去尝试做某事。

And I say when our impulse is not to engage in that behavior because oftentimes we want to engage in the behavior.

我说当我们的冲动不是从事这种行为时，因为我们常常想从事这种行为。

We want to study, we want to learn the instrument, we want to perform well, we want to exercise.

我们要学习，我们要学乐器，我们要表现出色，我们要锻炼身体。

We want the benefits of all those things.

我们想要所有这些东西的好处。

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.

所以，并不是我们不想要这些事情的结果或回报，而且在很多情况下，并不是我们不喜欢这些活动，而是无论出于何种原因，我们都感到缺乏动力。

We're drifting down that continuum toward the more apathetic end of things.

我们正沿着这个连续体漂流，走向事情更加冷漠的结局。

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.

希望不会一直陷入深度抑郁和冷漠，但我们正在朝着这个方向漂移，或者我们在连续体上还不够远，而且我们没有足够的动力去感觉做某事的愿望，无论是为了它本身还是为了那件事的回报和结果，都足以让我们去做那件事。

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.

因此，耐克的口号是“Just Do It”，这是一个很棒的口号，只不过如果我们不了解如何让自己只做某事的机制，那么它常常会达不到要求。

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.

说实话，每当我听到人们说“好吧，消除这种想法，然后去做吧”，这都是很有价值的建议，直到它不起作用为止。

Because when it doesn't work, it simply doesn't work, and then you need to rely on other tools and mechanisms, which are the sort that we will talk about today.

因为当它不起作用时，它根本不起作用，然后你需要依赖其他工具和机制，这就是我们今天要讨论的那种。

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.

因此，虽然我非常尊重“只管去做”的口号，但当它不起作用时，它并没有提供任何替代解决方案来调动坚韧和意志力。

And I do not know anyone on this planet, I don't care if you're David Goggins or Courtney Dauwalter, 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.

我不认识这个星球上的任何人，我不在乎你是大卫·戈金斯还是考特尼·道瓦尔特，总有一天，告诉自己“就这样做”或“不要那样做”不足以让你参与或抵制你需要参与或抵制的行为或想法。

That's just reality.

这就是现实。

And we should ask ourselves, why is that reality?

我们应该问自己，为什么会是这样的现实？

And this is a very important point, and in fact, really illustrates the first bucket of tools and protocols for increasing tenacity and willpower.

这是非常重要的一点，事实上，它真正说明了第一桶用于增强韧性和意志力的工具和协议。

And these are the tools and protocols that I would categorize under the rubric of modulators.

这些是我将归类在调制器标题下的工具和协议。

I've talked before on this podcast about the important distinction between mediators and modulators.

我之前在这个播客上讨论过调解者和调节者之间的重要区别。

Mediators are things, either psychological or biological, et cetera, that are directly in the mechanisms that generate some sort of action or emotion.

中介者是指直接存在于产生某种行为或情感的机制中的心理或生物等事物。

This could be neurochemicals like dopamine or serotonin and so on.

这可能是神经化学物质，如多巴胺或血清素等。

Modulators are things that can modulate, that is, can change our probability of doing something or not doing something, but they do so indirectly.

调节器是可以调节的东西，也就是说，可以改变我们做某事或不做某事的概率，但它们是间接的。

And in the context of tools and protocols to increase our level of tenacity and willpower, I would be completely remiss if one of the sets of tools, that is the protocols, for increasing the probability that we can access high levels of tenacity and willpower didn't include at least some of these modulators.

在提高我们的坚韧和意志力水平的工具和协议的背景下，如果用于提高我们获得高水平坚韧和意志力的可能性的一组工具（即协议）不包括至少其中一些调节器，我将完全失职。

So I'm just going to spend about three minutes on these modulators, because what we know for certain is that the regions of the brain that generate tenacity, and again, there is literally a brain hub for generating willpower and tenacity, gets strong input from the so-called autonomic nervous system.

所以我只会花大约三分钟的时间来讨论这些调节器，因为我们可以肯定的是，大脑中产生坚韧的区域，而且，实际上有一个产生意志力和坚韧的大脑中枢，从所谓的自主神经系统获得强烈的输入。

The autonomic nervous system has two major components.

自主神经系统有两个主要组成部分。

They are referred to as the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

它们被称为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.

请记住，因为当大多数人听到“同情”这个词时，他们会想到同情，他们会想到情感。

It has nothing to do with that.

与此无关。

Sympa 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.

Sympa 的意思是“在一起”，我知道这很拗口，自主神经系统的交感神经臂负责在我们的大脑和身体中产生警觉状态。

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.

从恐慌到警觉和冷静，我们的移动倾向或在压力下移动的可能性，当我们需要抵抗运动时，它也与我们抵抗运动的能力有关，因此这是一个主动的过程。

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.

因此，交感神经系统是所有行动的主体，当它参与产生无行动时，这些就是无行动需要能量的情况。

Okay?

好的？

I want to be very clear about this.

我想非常清楚地说明这一点。

The sympathetic nervous system isn't just about moving our body, although it has a lot to do with that.

交感神经系统不仅仅负责移动我们的身体，尽管它与此有很大关系。

It is also responsible for our ability to resist movement or thought or emotion when we need to do that, clamp down on ourselves.

当我们需要这样做时，它还负责我们抵抗运动、思想或情绪的能力，压制自己。

The parasympathetic aspect of our autonomic nervous system is the one that's sometimes referred to as the rest and digest neural circuits and chemicals.

我们的自主神经系统的副交感神经有时被称为休息和消化神经回路和化学物质。

And that's true, but there's a lot more to the parasympathetic component of the autonomic nervous system.

确实如此，但自主神经系统的副交感神经成分还有更多的作用。

It's also responsible for falling asleep.

它还负责入睡。

It's responsible for us feeling relaxed.

它让我们感到放松。

It is responsible for most of the states of mind and body in which we are quiescent, where we don't feel an impulse to move, or when we have a difficult time getting into action.

它是导致我们处于静止状态、感觉不到运动冲动或难以采取行动的大多数身心状态的原因。

So the sympathetic and the parasympathetic aspect of the autonomic nervous system are always in a push-pull with one another.

因此，自主神经系统的交感神经和副交感神经始终处于相互推拉的状态。

Think of them more or less on a teeter-totter.

想想它们或多或少都在摇摇欲坠。

When one end goes up, the other end goes down.

当一端上升时，另一端下降。

They're really in competition with one another, and it's their balance that reflects how alert or how sleepy we happen to be.

它们实际上是在相互竞争，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 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，我之所以要给你们这个相当极客的、书呆子般的、充满术语的关于意志力背景下的自主神经系统的讨论，是因为无论你是否相信意志力是有限的还是无限的资源，我们肯定知道一件事，那就是意志力和坚韧依赖于我们当前的自主功能。

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.

我们可以将其转化为日常语言，即当我们休息良好时，例如，当我们在前一天晚上和前一天晚上获得了充足的睡眠时间时，我们从事通常默认情况下不会从事的事情的坚韧和意志力水平，以及抵制原本默认的行为和思维模式的行为和思维模式的能力要高得多。

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，当我们没有定期获得足够的优质睡眠时，我们召唤坚韧和意志力的能力就会减弱。

Now, that series of statements I just made is clearly going to be a duh for most people.

现在，我刚刚发表的一系列言论显然对大多数人来说都是废话。

But it is very important to understand that when we are sleep deprived, when we are in physical pain, when we are in emotional pain, and/or when we are distracted, when we are thinking about something else aside from what we are trying to engage tenacity and willpower in order to do or not do, tenacity and willpower will be diminished.

但重要的是要明白，当我们睡眠不足时，当我们感到身体疼痛时，当我们感到情绪痛苦时，和/或当我们分心时，当我们除了想用坚韧和意志力去做或不做的事情之外还想着其他事情时，坚韧和意志力就会减弱。

Now, all of those things together are just a bigger duh.

现在，所有这些事情加在一起只是一个更大的废话。

We all know this.

我们都知道这一点。

If you've got a splinter in your foot, it's really hard to think about not thinking about something else.

如果你的脚上有刺，就​​很难不去想其他事情。

If you are extremely hungry or if you had an argument with somebody that you really care about and they said something that was particularly vexing to you and it's looping around in your head, it's going to be very hard to engage in something else that you need to do because you're going to be distracted.

如果你非常饿，或者你和你真正关心的人发生了争执，而他们说了一些让你特别烦恼的话，并且这些话在你的脑海中盘旋，那么你就很难去做其他你需要做的事情，因为你会分心。

Likewise, if you're sleep deprived, likewise, if you are a bit sick or run down, or if you're in any kind of physical or emotional pain, your ability to draw on tenacity and willpower will be diminished.

同样，如果你睡眠不足，如果你有点病了或精疲力尽，或者如果你处于任何身体或情感上的痛苦，你发挥坚韧和意志力的能力就会减弱。

So it's an absolute truth that your ability to generate tenacity and willpower rides on a reservoir of autonomic function.

因此，你产生坚韧和意志力的能力依赖于自主功能的储备，这是绝对的事实。

And to date, we don't really have a way of quantifying the level of autonomic function or dysfunction in a very simple way.

迄今为止，我们还没有一种方法能够以非常简单的方式量化自主功能或功能障碍的水平。

It's not like resting heart rate, although resting heart rate is involved.

它与静息心率不同，尽管涉及静息心率。

For instance, if you haven't slept well for a few nights or if you're particularly stressed, overtrained, you'll wake up in the morning with a significantly elevated heart rate.

例如，如果您有几个晚上没有睡好，或者您压力特别大、训练过度，您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 in balance, 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这样简单的指标可以告诉你你的自主神经功能是否平衡，也就是说，你的自主神经系统的交感神经和副交感神经系统是否处于最佳平衡状态，以产生坚韧和意志力。

We don't yet have such a metric, although there are companies that are starting to develop devices that hopefully will give us indices of autonomic function or dysfunction.

尽管有些公司开始开发设备，希望能为我们提供自主功能或功能障碍的指标，但我们还没有这样的指标。

But it is important that we acknowledge that if you're not taking care of the foundational modulators of tenacity and willpower, none of the subsequent tools and protocols that we will discuss are going to help you that much over time.

但重要的是，我们承认，如果你不照顾坚韧和意志力的基本调节剂，那么随着时间的推移，我们将讨论的后续工具和协议都不会为你提供那么多帮助。

You might get tenacity and willpower to engage one day when you're very sleep deprived, but it's going to be very difficult to consistently engage tenacity and willpower.

有一天，当你睡眠严重不足时，你可能会获得坚韧和意志力来参与，但要始终如一地发挥坚韧和意志力将是非常困难的。

For that reason, if you have any struggles with sleep, that is getting enough quality sleep on a regular basis, please see the zero cost toolkit for sleep that we've put at hubermanlab.com.

因此，如果您在睡眠方面有任何困难，即定期获得足够的优质睡眠，请参阅我们在 hubermanlab.com 上发布的零成本睡眠工具包。

Please also see the Perfect Your Sleep, Master Your Sleep episodes also at hubermanlab.com.

另请参阅 hubermanlab.com 上的“完美您的睡眠”、“掌握您的睡眠”剧集。

And please also see the episode with expert guest Dr.

另请观看专家嘉宾 Dr. 的剧集。

Matthew Walker, professor of sleep neuroscience and psychology at University of California, Berkeley.

马修·沃克 (Matthew Walker)，加州大学伯克利分校睡眠神经科学和心理学教授。

We just revamped the Huberman Lab 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.

我们刚刚修改了 Huberman Lab 网站，因此，如果您访问 hubermanlab.com，并将睡眠之类的内容放入搜索功能中，它不仅会带您进入睡眠工具包，还会带您进入准确的时间戳，这些时间戳将围绕睡眠排列特定主题和协议。

So if you were to put sleep and light, it would take you to those particular protocols.

因此，如果你要睡眠和光照，它会带你进入那些特定的协议。

If you were to put sleep and magnesium threonate, it would take you to those particular protocols, and so on and so forth.

如果你要加入睡眠和苏糖酸镁，它会带你进入那些特定的方案，等等。

Okay, I don't want to get too far off topic here during today's discussion, but if you're not sleeping well and if you're not managing your stress levels well, it's going to be much harder for you to engage tenacity and willpower, regardless of the tools you happen to use, and those tools could be everything from behavioral tools to supplements to prescription drugs.

好吧，我不想在今天的讨论中偏离主题太远，但如果你睡眠不好，如果你不能很好地管理你的压力水平，那么无论你碰巧使用什么工具，你都很难保持坚韧和意志力，而这些工具可以是从行为工具到补充剂再到处方药的各种工具。

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.

您需要检查这些基础调制器，并且有很多零成本的方法可以做到这一点，这些方法在我刚才描述的资源中都非常清楚地说明了。

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, et cetera.

同样，对于压力，如果您正在经历短期、中期或长期压力的挑战，如果您认为自己的皮质醇水平升高（顺便说一下，情况可能并非如此），有很多工具可以实时调节压力，提高压力阈值等。

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.

只需访问 hubermanlab.com 网站并输入压力阈值工具或压力实时工具，您将获得一堆零成本工具来帮助您做到这一点。

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.

还值得一提的是，当我们讨论坚韧和意志力的神经科学时，您就会明白为什么自主健康和自主功能对于我们发挥坚韧和意志力的能力如此重要。

I'll just tell you right now, it's because the neural circuits of the autonomic nervous system provide direct and robust input to this hub in the brain, this brain location that governs our ability to allocate our mind and body toward particular activities or to resist particular activities.

我现在就告诉你，这是因为自主神经系统的神经回路向大脑的这个中枢提供了直接而强大的输入，这个大脑位置控制着我们将我们的思想和身体分配给特定活动或抵制特定活动的能力。

Okay, so let's think about the Baumeister data on willpower as a limited resource.

好吧，让我们将鲍迈斯特关于意志力的数据视为一种有限的资源。

I'm going to briefly describe one of the first studies that really said to the field, "Willpower is a limited resource." But I want to be clear that there are other studies like it, and they all generally follow the same contour, and that general contour is as follows.

我将简要描述第一个真正向该领域表明的研究：“意志力是一种有限的资源。”但我想澄清的是，还有其他类似的研究，它们通常都遵循相同的轮廓，一般轮廓如下。

Baumeister 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.

鲍迈斯特和他的同事，以及现在的许多其他实验室，都进行了将人类受试者带入实验室的实验，这些人类受试者必须做一些需要脑力或精力（又名意志力）的事情。

The classic example of this is you bring people into the laboratory.

典型的例子就是将人们带入实验室。

Some of them might actually be dieting or fasted, although not always.

他们中的一些人可能实际上正在节食或禁食，尽管并非总是如此。

And there are two platters set out for them.

还为他们准备了两个拼盘。

One platter contains radishes, just plain radishes.

一盘里有萝卜，只是普通的萝卜。

By the way, I hate radishes unless they're pickled radishes.

顺便说一句，我讨厌萝卜，除非它们是腌萝卜。

I don't know why that is.

我不知道为什么会这样。

So these experiments picked my least favorite vegetable.

所以这些实验选择了我最不喜欢的蔬菜。

I love many other vegetables.

我喜欢许多其他蔬菜。

I disdain the radish.

我鄙视萝卜。

That was just a personal editorial.

那只是个人社论。

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.

不管怎样，萝卜摆好了，旁边是刚出炉的饼干，房间里飘着刚出炉的饼干的香味。

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.

所以我认为可以公平地说，大多数人因为天生喜欢糖和脂肪，特别是当它们结合在一起时，更喜欢吃饼干而不是萝卜。

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.

我知道有一些变种人说，“我喜欢萝卜胜过饼干”，但是你看，大多数人喜欢饼干胜过萝卜。

The subjects in these studies are divided into two groups.

这些研究中的受试者分为两组。

One group is told you have to resist eating the radishes.

一组人被告知你必须抵制吃萝卜。

The other group is told you have to resist eating the cookies.

另一组被告知你必须抵制吃饼干。

And then the subjects are observed during this time typically, but this is really not what the experiment is about per se.

然后通常会在这段时间内观察受试者，但这实际上并不是实验本身的目的。

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 one's in an MRI machine looking at what brain areas are activated or not activated.

这个阶段的实验实际上是为了让人们抵制某种行为而设计的，而假设，这又是一个假设，因为这里没有大脑记录，没有人在核磁共振机器中观察哪些大脑区域被激活或未被激活。

There's no cortisol being measured, at least not in these early experiments.

没有测量皮质醇，至少在这些早期实验中没有。

These people are either resisting something that's pretty easy to resist, radishes, or they are being asked to resist something that, for most people, is going to be harder to resist than resisting radishes, which is resisting freshly baked cookies, and that challenge has been made even more difficult by the wafting aromas of freshly baked cookies in the room, and in some cases, has been made even more difficult because these people are dieting.

这些人要么抵制一些很容易抗拒的东西，萝卜，要么他们被要求抵制一些对大多数人来说比抗拒萝卜更难抗拒的东西，即抗拒新鲜出炉的饼干，而房间里飘荡的新鲜出炉的饼干的香味使这一挑战变得更加困难，在某些情况下，因为这些人正在节食而变得更加困难。

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 tastes, are heightened.

请记住，当您限制卡路里或进行任何形式的节食时，大脑中存在一种完善的机制，通过该机制，引起饥饿（尤其是对脂肪和糖的饥饿）以及对香气和味道等事物做出反应的神经元会增强。

That is, their activity levels are heightened, which means that things that smell really good, smell really, really good when you're hungry.

也就是说，它们的活动水平会提高，这意味着当你饿的时候，闻起来非常香的东西闻起来非常非常好。

Things that ordinarily would taste really good, taste really, really, really good when you finally eat them.

平时味道很好的东西，最后吃起来真的非常非常非常好吃。

So the key component of this stage of the experiment is to engage people's willpower.

所以这个阶段实验的关键就是调动人们的意志力。

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.

实验的第二部分让所有受试者分别从事另一项具有挑战性的任务，而他们被要求从事的具有挑战性的任务是解决一个特定的难题。

And again, different experiments use different puzzles.

同样，不同的实验使用不同的谜题。

Different experiments use different contexts.

不同的实验使用不同的背景。

But the original experiments that Baumeister and colleagues did had people try and solve a puzzle that could not be solved.

但鲍迈斯特和同事所做的最初实验让人们尝试解决一个无法解决的难题。

So it's very, very difficult.

所以这是非常非常困难的。

In fact, it's impossible, but the subjects weren't aware of that.

事实上，这是不可能的，但受试者并没有意识到这一点。

And then what was measured was how long subjects persisted in trying to solve this impossible-to-solve puzzle, depending on whether or not previously they had to resist the radishes, which is pretty easy to resist, or resist the cookies, which is at least harder to resist, and for some people, would be very, very hard to resist.

然后测量的是受试者坚持尝试解决这个不可能解决的难题的时间，这取决于他们之前是否必须抵制萝卜，这是很容易抵制的，还是抵制饼干，这至少更难抵制，对某些人来说，会非常非常难以抗拒。

Now, you can probably already guess what the outcome of this and similar studies was because it birthed this entire belief camp within the field of psychology that willpower is a limited resource.

现在，你可能已经猜到这项研究和类似研究的结果是什么，因为它催生了心理学领域的整个信念阵营，即意志力是一种有限的资源。

The outcome was that if people had to resist the cookies, which is harder to do than resisting the radishes, that they would persist for less time when they had to try and solve a puzzle that unbeknownst to them could not be solved.

结果是，如果人们不得不抵制饼干（这比抵制萝卜更难），那么当他们不得不尝试解决一个他们不知道无法解决的难题时，他们会坚持更少的时间。

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.

相反，如果人们不得不抵制一些很容易抵制的事情，比如抵制吃萝卜，对我来说这是非常非常容易抵制的事情，那么，当他们随后面临试图解决一个非常困难的，实际上是不可能解决的难题时，他们会坚持更长的时间。

Okay, so put very simply, this 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.

好吧，简单地说，这项研究得出的结论是，如果你必须抵制一件事，而且这是一件很难抵制的事情，那么你的抵抗力就会减弱，你的意志力就会减少，从而无法随后从事另一项艰巨的任务。

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.

然而，如果你之前遇到了一个简单的挑战，或者在面临一个挑战（例如一个非常困难的谜题）之前没有任何挑战，那么你就有更多的资源、更多的意志力来解决这个谜题。

So the conclusion that Baumeister and colleagues drew from those results was that willpower is a limited resource.

因此，鲍迈斯特和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。

But it didn't specify, nor did they specify, exactly what that limited resource is.

但它没有具体说明，他们也没有具体说明有限的资源到底是什么。

And this was quite an attractive theory because it jived well with most people's perception of what willpower and tenacity was for them.

这是一个相当有吸引力的理论，因为它与大多数人对意志力和坚韧的看法非常吻合。

This idea that, yes, there are things that challenge us both to do and to resist, but that we can do that.

这个想法是，是的，有些事情挑战我们去做和抵制，但我们可以做到。

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, 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.

但是，当我们被要求一次又一次地这样做时，虽然我们可能会建立一些能力来调动我们的意志力和坚韧，当然，有一些我们听说过的、我们中的一些人知道的稀有个体，他们似乎拥有无底洞的意志力和坚韧，但我们大多数人都会直观地了解到不断与生活发生摩擦是多么困难。

To constantly have to push ourselves to do things and to resist things.

不断地迫使自己去做事和抵制事。

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.

虽然这种能力可以扩展和增长，我们可以做得更好，但似乎确实有一些东西，这里只是主观地说，似乎确实有一些关于投入坚韧和意志力的东西，是的，它可以感觉很好，但它也需要努力，我们正在谈论的这种神经能量。

So that raised the question of, okay, if willpower is a limited resource, what exactly is that resource at a physiological level?

因此这就提出了一个问题：如果意志力是一种有限的资源，那么在生理层面上这种资源到底是什么？

So Baumeister and colleagues subsequently went on to explore what I think is a really interesting and clever idea.

因此，鲍迈斯特和同事随后继续探索我认为非常有趣且聪明的想法。

Frankly, I can't confess that I would've thought of this, but they did.

坦率地说，我不能承认我会想到这一点，但他们确实想到了。

They said, okay, in some cases people are eating the cookie, and then they're engaging in this very difficult puzzle.

他们说，好吧，在某些情况下，人们会吃饼干，然后他们就会陷入这个非常困难的谜题。

In other cases, they're eating the radish and engaging in this difficult puzzle.

在其他情况下，他们正在吃萝卜并参与这个难题。

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.

当然，其他实验使用了非食物挑战性的选择，但他们提出了一个想法，即大脑作为我们整个身体中代谢最活跃的器官之一，即使不是我们整个身体中代谢最活跃的器官，也需要大量的燃料。

It requires a lot of glucose.

它需要大量的葡萄糖。

Now, of course, the brain mainly runs on glucose, but if you're following a ketogenic diet, your brain will mainly run on ketones.

当然，现在大脑主要依靠葡萄糖运行，但如果你遵循生酮饮食，你的大脑将主要依靠酮运行。

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.

但对于大多数杂食动物或吃碳水化合物的人来说，葡萄糖是神经元、大脑和身体神经细胞的主要且首选的燃料来源。

Baumeister and colleagues raised the hypothesis that perhaps glucose availability itself is the resource that's limiting willpower.

鲍迈斯特和同事提出了这样的假设：也许葡萄糖的可用性本身就是限制意志力的资源。

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.

在一整套实验中，他们确实表明，如果人们被要求做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参与特定行为来完成。

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.

我只是给你举一个例子，说明参与某种需要意志力或至少是专注力和精神能量的特定行为，以与我之前给出的抵制萝卜和抵制饼干的例子进行对比。

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.

在这样的实验中，一种常见的做法是给人们一段很长的文字段落，所以这是一个故事，然后给他们一些关于如何编辑该段落的规则。

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.

也许他们必须划掉每三个 E 或句子中间辅音旁边的 E，而不是其他元音。

Stuff that takes a lot of energy.

需要大量能量的东西。

So these are dos as opposed to resisting behaviors, like we were talking about earlier, resisting the radish, resisting the cookies.

所以这些都是“dos”，而不是抵制行为，就像我们之前讨论的，抵制萝卜，抵制饼干。

Although in many of these experiments, there's a command to do something, cross out certain letter E's in this passage, but also to resist the reflex to cross out other E's.

尽管在许多这样的实验中，有一个命令要做某事，划掉这段文字中的某些字母 E，但也要抵制划掉其他 E 的反射。

And of course, all this is under time pressure, and oftentimes it's being rewarded or scored.

当然，所有这一切都是在时间压力下进行的，而且通常会得到奖励或得分。

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.

这就是心理学研究人员让人们参与特定的实验和行为，并在实验室环境中抵制某些事情的方式，而坦率地说，这些事情有点无聊和毫无意义。

They'll pay you more if you do well at the task.

如果你完成任务，他们会给你更多的报酬。

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.

他们会给你钱，然后减去你在实验结束时犯错误或类似事情时将得到的钱，并且他们会在时间限制下完成，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.

因此，这里有很多不同的条件，“耗尽人们的意志力和坚韧”，当然也会耗尽他们的精神注意力。

And then they would have them do another subsequent task.

然后他们会让他们做另一项后续任务。

So in many ways, this just mirrors the first cookie radish experiment done by Baumeister and colleagues.

因此，从很多方面来说，这都反映了鲍迈斯特及其同事所做的第一个饼干萝卜实验。

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.

但在第一个和第二个艰巨任务之间有一个重要的干预措施，该干预措施是给一组人提供约 150 卡路里左右的葡萄糖饮料。

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.

因此，他们会喝葡萄糖饮料来提高血糖水平，而血糖是大脑的首选燃料来源，而不是给他们人工调味的饮料或只是水或当然与味道相匹配的东西，但不含任何葡萄糖或卡路里。

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.

现在，如果你仔细想想，这是一个聪明的实验设计，因为至少乍一看，唯一真正不同的是大脑的葡萄糖可用性。

And you can probably guess what the outcome of these studies was.

您大概可以猜到这些研究的结果是什么。

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.

这些研究的结果是，当受试者在第一个需要意志力的艰巨任务和第二个需要意志力的艰巨任务之间以及在一些实验中，第三个需要意志力的艰巨任务之间给予受试者葡萄糖时，他们的意志力水平从一个任务到下一个任务都保持一致，并且在某些情况下，如果他们因为喝了这种葡萄糖饮料而有更多的可用葡萄糖，那么从一个任务到下一个任务的意志力水平会增加。

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.

因此，这些研究真正有趣且坦率地说非常好的地方在于，他们试图在坚韧和意志力等心理结构之间架起桥梁，并检验意志力是一种消耗性资源的论点，但它是一种消耗性资源，可以通过将其与生理变量联系起来来补充。

And the physiological variable they linked it to was glucose availability in the brain Now, this set the field of psychology, and in fact, the field of pop psychology, that is the discussion about formal findings in the field of formal psychological research, ablaze.

他们将其与生理变量联系起来，是大脑中葡萄糖的可用性。现在，这引起了心理学领域，事实上，流行心理学领域的关注，即关于正式心理学研究领域中正式发现的讨论。

People were so excited about this.

人们对此非常兴奋。

This set of findings really pointed to the argument that if you could just keep levels of brain glucose elevated across your day, or at least stable across the day, that you would have more willpower and tenacity, this thing that humans have been seeking more of since the beginning of time.

这组发现确实指出了这样一个论点：如果你能在一天中保持大脑葡萄糖水平升高，或者至少在一天中保持稳定，你就会拥有更多的意志力和坚韧，这是人类从一开始就一直在寻求的东西。

Now, all of that seemed fine and good, and in fact, a lot of products and courses were born out of that literature.

现在，所有这些看起来都很好，事实上，很多产品和课程都是从这些文献中诞生的。

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.

人们争论说，你应该在做任何艰苦任务时喝一杯葡萄糖饮料，你应该在任务之间喝一杯葡萄糖饮料，你应该考虑将摄入体内的燃料作为大脑心理过程的燃料，让你在工作、学校、体育、人际关系以及生活的所有领域表现得更好。

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 Baumeister 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.

但当然，任何时候，任何时候，在任何科学领域，特别是在心理学领域，特别是在心理学领域，它感觉非常适用，就像鲍迈斯特的结果一样，你就会得到其他团体，他们将尝试复制这些发现，并深入研究这些发现本身，查看统计数据，看看这些研究的效果如何。

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 conclusions 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.

我们现在不想就动力研究进行全面讨论，但动力研究与解决这样的问题有很大关系：研究中是否有足够的受试者来真正得出人们得出的结论，或者统计数据是否表明，是的，葡萄糖摄入对意志力和坚韧有显着影响。

But if there weren't enough subjects, well, then there are other variables that could potentially explain those results.

但如果没有足够的受试者，那么还有其他变量可以解释这些结果。

So there were a lot of meta-analyses and other studies trying to replicate the work of Baumeister, and that's where things got controversial.

因此，有很多荟萃分析和其他研究试图复制鲍迈斯特的工作，这就是事情引起争议的地方。

Now, we can take a step back from all of that controversy.

现在，我们可以从所有这些争议中退一步。

After all, we don't want to spend too much time on the controversy itself.

毕竟，我们不想在争议本身上花费太多时间。

Rather, we want to know what the counter-interpretation of the Baumeister results was.

相反，我们想知道鲍迈斯特结果的反解释是什么。

And I want to be very clear, there was no real dispute as to whether or not Baumeister got the results that he and his colleagues claimed to have obtained.

我想非常明确的是，对于鲍迈斯特是否获得了他和他的同事声称获得的结果，并没有真正的争议。

They did get those results.

他们确实得到了这些结果。

The question really was about the interpretation.

问题实际上是关于解释的。

Is willpower a limited resource?

意志力是一种有限的资源吗？

And if it is, is the physiological resource itself glucose availability to the brain?

如果是的话，生理资源本身葡萄糖对大脑有用吗？

So in 2013, a colleague of mine at Stanford, Dr. Carol Dweck, in our Department of Psychology, did a study in which she examined this idea that willpower is a limited resource and the idea that the resource that's limited is glucose availability for the brain.

因此，2013 年，我在斯坦福大学心理学系的同事卡罗尔·德韦克 (Carol Dweck) 博士做了一项研究，她检验了“意志力是一种有限资源”这一观点，以及“有限资源是大脑可用的葡萄糖”这一观点。

So Dweck and colleagues did an experiment that in many ways mirrored the overall organization of the experiments done by Baumeister and colleagues.

因此，德韦克和他的同事做了一个实验，该实验在很多方面反映了鲍迈斯特和他的同事所做的实验的整体组织。

There was a difficult task.

这是一项艰巨的任务。

In some cases, the difficult task was that crossing out of particular Es within a passage task, followed by another difficult task.

在某些情况下，困难的任务是在一篇文章任务中划掉特定的E，然后是另一个困难的任务。

And the difficult task that came second was the Stroop task.

排在第二位的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.

这是我之前在这个播客上讨论过的一项任务，尽管是在几集之前。

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 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.

因此，对于那些不熟悉斯特鲁普任务的人来说，斯特鲁普任务是向受试者呈现不同颜色的单词，并指示他们要么阅读该单词，以注意单词的内容，要么注意单词字体的颜色。

Now, this might seem pretty easy to most of you.

现在，这对你们大多数人来说似乎很容易。

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 just say green.

如果我放一张卡片，上面写着“苹果”，而“苹果”是用绿色写的，如果有人指示你告诉我这个词是什么颜色，让你直接说“绿色”，那么你可能不会遇到什么困难。

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.

但如果我举起一张写着红色的卡片，但字体实际上是绿色的，那就有点困难了。

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.

如果我对 100 张或 300 张卡片这样做，并让你承受时间压力，如果你犯了错误，你肯定会损失金钱，或者如果你得到正确的答案，你将在实验结束时赚钱，那么你就会开始犯更多的错误。

That's just the way these experiments work.

这就是这些实验的工作方式。

So they did a variation on the Stroop task that isn't exactly the way I just described it.

因此，他们对斯特鲁普任务做了一个变体，这与我刚才描述的方式并不完全相同。

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.

顺便说一句，斯特鲁普任务是用于探测前额皮质功能的任务，前额皮质是我们大脑中位于额头后面的区域，负责许多事情，但部分负责给定一组特定规则的背景和策略设置。

So if you get onto the bus or get onto the subway versus walk into a black-tie dinner, the context and rules are very, very different as to what you would say or not say, how you would behave, how you would dress.

因此，如果你乘坐公共汽车或地铁，与走进正装晚宴，无论你会说什么或不说什么、你的行为方式、你的着装，背景和规则都非常非常不同。

Your prefrontal cortex, although not entirely, is largely responsible for a lot of the context setting and rule setting from one situation to the next.

你的前额皮质虽然不是全部，但在很大程度上负责从一种情况到另一种情况的许多上下文设置和规则设置。

And if you think about the Stroop task, it's really just a context-dependent strategy task.

如果你考虑一下斯特鲁普任务，它实际上只是一个依赖于上下文的策略任务。

You either have to pay attention to the meaning of the words or the colors in which those words are written.

您要么必须注意单词的含义，要么注意这些单词的书写颜色。

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.

你会犯的错误数量取决于你承受的时间压力有多大，你可能面临或不面临什么样的神经或精神挑战，等等。

But it's a very robust task that's existed in the scientific literature for a long period of time.

但这是一项非常艰巨的任务，在科学文献中已经存在很长一段时间了。

So the Dweck experiment, and by the way, there were actually three experiments in this paper.

那么德韦克实验，顺便说一句，这篇论文实际上有三个实验。

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.

由于时间原因，我不会详细介绍所有这些内容，但我会在演示说明标题中提供论文的链接。

But the major focus of the study was to have people engage in one hard task and then in another hard task, both of which draw on willpower, testing the idea that willpower is a limited resource, and then providing some of those subjects with a glucose-rich drink or other subjects with a drink that was artificially sweetened, so it had no glucose, no calories.

但这项研究的主要重点是让人们先完成一项艰巨的任务，然后再完成另一项艰巨的任务，这两项任务都需要意志力，测试意志力是有限资源的观点，然后为其中一些受试者提供富含葡萄糖的饮料，或为其他受试者提供人工加糖的饮料，因此它不含葡萄糖，不含卡路里。

Yes, they matched them for taste.

是的，他们的口味很匹配。

I know 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.

我知道你们中的一些不喜欢人造甜味剂的人会说，“它们的味道并不完全像真正的糖”，但他们设法将这些饮料的味道与它们相匹配。

But in one case, the drink would clearly increase blood glucose.

但在一种情况下，这种饮料会明显增加血糖。

In the other case, the drink would not raise blood glucose.

在另一种情况下，饮料不会升高血糖。

So the results of this study are really spectacular in my mind because what this study found was that, yes, indeed, ingesting glucose can improve performance on these multiple Challenging, willpower requiring tasks.

因此，这项研究的结果在我看来确实非常引人注目，因为这项研究发现，是的，确实，摄入葡萄糖可以提高这些具有挑战性、需要意志力的任务的表现。

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 believe that resource was glucose.

然而，含葡萄糖饮料能够提高表现的程度取决于你是否相信意志力是一种有限的资源，以及你是否相信这种资源是葡萄糖。

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.

换句话说，如果你听说并相信意志力是一种有限的资源，那么事实上，当你随后从事的每一项任务，或者你从事的任何类型的生活事件都需要意志力和坚韧时，你可以利用的意志力和坚韧就会减少。

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.

然而，如果你相信意志力和坚韧是无限的，而且事实上与血糖作为意志力和坚韧的生理来源无关，那么你可以从事一项具有挑战性的任务，另一项具有挑战性的任务，又一项具有挑战性的任务，而不会降低任何表现。

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?

当然，现在这让我们所有人都处于非常艰难的境地，因为如果我们知道意志力可以是有限的资源，或者意志力不能是有限的资源，我们如何决定相信什么？

Ah.

啊。

Well, the results of the Dweck study, and by the way, I should share with you the title of the study.

好吧，这是德韦克研究的结果，顺便说一句，我应该与大家分享一下这项研究的标题。

The title of the study, not surprisingly, is "Beliefs about willpower determine the impact of glucose on self-control." And this was a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

毫不奇怪，这项研究的标题是“对意志力的信念决定了葡萄糖对自我控制的影响”。这是发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上的一项研究。

Again, I'll provide a link to this study in the show note captions.

再次，我将在节目注释标题中提供该研究的链接。

There are three major experiments in this study, as I mentioned before.

正如我之前提到的，这项研究中有三个主要实验。

I just gave you the major conclusion of all of them, sort of woven together.

我刚刚给了你们所有这些的主要结论，有点编织在一起。

And if it wasn't clear already, the major conclusions are that, yes, ingesting glucose can improve your ability to engage tenacity and willpower, AKA self-control, from one task to the next, provided that you believe that glucose is the limiting resource for engaging tenacity and willpower.

如果还不清楚的话，主要结论是，是的，摄入葡萄糖可以提高你从一项任务到下一项任务的韧性和意志力的能力，也就是自我控制能力，前提是你相信葡萄糖是发挥韧性和意志力的限制资源。

If you don't believe that, well then you can engage tenacity and willpower without ingesting glucose, and that's where the artificially flavored drink comes in.

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韧和意志力，这就是人工调味饮料的用武之地。

I'll leave it to you to kind of unpack what that means experimentally, but it's a very clever experimental design that Dweck and colleagues came up with because it argues that yes indeed, it's hard to do a challenging thing right after another challenging thing, but there's no reason to think that you can't do both of those things while engaging the utmost tenacity and willpower if you believe that tenacity and willpower exist within you as a single mechanism that can be harnessed, and that it's not a single mechanism that has a reservoir that runs down as you engage in one hard thing to the next.

我会让你通过实验来解释这意味着什么，但这是德韦克和他的同事们提出的一个非常聪明的实验设计，因为它认为，是的，确实很难在另一件具有挑战性的事情之后做一件具有挑战性的事情，但如果你相信坚韧和意志力作为一种可以利用的单一机制存在于你体内，那么没有理由认为你不能在发挥最大的坚韧和意志力的同时做这两件事。单一机制，有一个水库，当你从事一件困难的事情到下一件困难的事情时，水库就会耗尽。

Now, this is very important because we are about to transition into our discussion of the physiological, that is the neural underpinnings of tenacity and willpower, which as it turns out is one major set of brain circuits.

现在，这非常重要，因为我们即将转向生理学的讨论，即坚韧和意志力的神经基础，事实证明这是一组主要的大脑回路。

Now, there could be others that are yet to be discovered, but we know that there is one major set of brain circuits, in particular one brain area, believe it or not, that an entire collection of more than two dozen studies really points to as the seat, the origin of what we call tenacity and willpower.

现在，可能还有其他尚未被发现的东西，但我们知道，无论你相信与否，有一组主要的大脑回路，特别是一个大脑区域，一整套超过两打的研究确实表明它是我们所说的坚韧和意志力的起源。

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 Baumeister wasn't about to hear these results from Dweck and colleagues and just say, "Okay, willpower is not a limited resource.

但在我们转向这一点以及生理神经理解为我们所有人使用和应用的工具和协议之前，如果我没有提到鲍迈斯特不会从德韦克和同事那里听到这些结果，而只是说：“好吧，意志力不是一种有限的资源，那就是我的失职。

It's not blood glucose.

这不是血糖。

It's all what you believe about willpower.

这就是你对意志力的信念。

It's all what you believe about blood glucose." Rather, Baumeister himself went back to the lab and did subsequent experiments that in some ways, not all, counter the Dweck results.

这就是你对血糖的看法。”相反，鲍迈斯特本人回到实验室并进行了后续实验，这些实验在某些方面（并非全部）与德韦克的结果相反。

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.

所以我并不是想迷惑任何人，但如果我不向你们提供故事的两面，我就没有做好我的工作。

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 Baumeister camp or the Dweck camp.

现在好消息是，无论您身处哪个心理阵营，鲍迈斯特阵营还是德韦克阵营，我们将要使用的工具和协议都将发挥作用。

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.

现在我不想给人留下这些是交战阵营的印象，我也不想给人留下这样的印象：这是坚韧和意志力领域内仅有的两个思想和实验阵营。

There are many groups working on these subjects.

有许多团体致力于这些主题。

Indeed, there have been meta-analyses that have confirmed the major theories of Baumeister, and there are meta-analyses that have refuted the major findings of Baumeister.

事实上，已经有荟萃分析证实了鲍迈斯特的主要理论，也有荟萃分析反驳了鲍迈斯特的主要发现。

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.

我将在显示注释标题中提供每个示例的链接，以便您可以根据需要仔细阅读。

But let's discuss for a moment what Baumeister 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.

但是，让我们暂时讨论一下鲍迈斯特在回去重新研究时发现了什么，我想这就是一个词，重新研究了意志力是有限资源而葡萄糖是有限资源的想法。

Baumeister and colleagues looked at the Dweck data and said, "Okay, fine, the data look 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.

Baumeister 和同事查看了 Dweck 的数据并说：“好吧，数据看起来很棒”，但事实上，在现实生活中以及他们和其他人之前所做的许多实验中，这不仅仅是两个背靠背的艰巨挑战，而且通常是两个、三个或四个挑战。

And what Baumeister 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, or sometimes even during the tasks, that their performance, that is their willpower and tenacity to engage in challenges, was maintained across those multiple challenges.

鲍迈斯特和其他人发现，当受试者面临的不仅仅是两个背靠背的挑战，而是三个或更多的挑战，所以是背靠背的挑战，这些挑战必须投入大量的神经能量、大量的意志力、坚韧、对做某些事情的抵抗力、以及努力参与某些类型的行为和认知过程，当受试者通过摄入这些葡萄糖饮料、在任务之间、有时甚至在任务期间喝这些葡萄糖饮料时，大脑中可以得到葡萄糖，他们的表现，即他们应对挑战的意志力和坚韧，在这些多重挑战中得以保持。

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.

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资源，以及葡萄糖是否会增强一个人运用意志力的能力。

But they argued that if one confronts multiple challenging circumstances, as is very naturalistic, as we say, it's very typical of everyday real life, then the availability of glucose during and between tasks, the ability for the brain to engage in its external environment and take reads of its internal environment How we feel inside relative to what's expected of us was very valuable in allowing people to engage this thing that psychologically we describe as tenacity and willpower.

但他们认为，如果一个人面临多种具有挑战性的环境，正如我们所说，这是非常自然的，这是日常生活中非常典型的情况，那么在任务期间和任务之间葡萄糖的可用性，大脑参与外部环境并读取其内部环境的能力，我们的内心感受相对于我们的期望，对于让人们参与这一我们在心理上称之为坚韧和意志力的东西来说是非常有价值的。

Let's talk about the physiology of tenacity and willpower.

我们来谈谈坚韧和意志力的生理学。

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.

我向你们保证，我们即将进行的对话将不仅仅是对坚韧和意志力起源的一堆术语和机械理解。

Rather, it argues that tenacity and willpower have a unified source.

相反，它认为坚韧和意志力有一个统一的来源。

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.

也就是说，一组特定的大脑区域在活跃时，会产生坚韧和意志力的感觉，无论我们面对什么，无论我们是否试图从事本能地不想参与的事情，无论我们是否面临我们必须抵制的事情。

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.

对我来说，这非常令人放心，因为无论你是否相信血糖是意志力的限制资源，无论你是否相信你对意志力和血糖的信念会影响你的意志力水平，我们可以肯定的是，存在一组大脑回路。

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.

事实上，有一个大脑区域似乎能够在很大程度上（如果不能完全）解释这种我们称之为坚韧和意志力的现象。

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.

这应该让人放心，因为这意味着坚韧和意志力是神经回路功能的反映，而神经回路功能是一种技能。

It's an expression of something that we all have within us.

这是我们内心所拥有的某种东西的表达。

We all have this particular brain area.

我们都有这个特殊的大脑区域。

And quite excitingly, this is the third point, this brain area is highly subject to plasticity.

令人兴奋的是，这是第三点，这个大脑区域具有很强的可塑性。

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.

我们可以做一些具体的事情，我们可以采用一些特定的心态，让我们能够增加这个特定大脑区域的活动，实际上是增加这个特定大脑区域的大小，这样我们就可以召唤坚韧和意志力，不仅仅是在学校、音乐学习、体育运动或人际关系努力等一种情况下，而是我们可以在任何需要意志力和坚韧的情况下召唤这个大脑区域。

Now, we talk about neuroscience a lot on this podcast.

现在，我们在这个播客上谈论了很多神经科学。

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.

但我很少会指出某个特定的大脑区域并可以自信地说，这个特定的大脑区域在坚韧和意志力等高水平心理方面具有绝对不可或缺的作用。

But today we can do that.

但今天我们可以做到。

And that's because there's a collection of more than two dozen studies that point to one particular brain area, and of course, its connections with other brain areas, because no single brain area operates in isolation.

这是因为有超过两打的研究都指向某个特定的大脑区域，当然还有它与其他大脑区域的联系，因为没有一个大脑区域是孤立运作的。

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.

每个大脑区域都在神经回路的背景下运行，它从其他大脑区域接收输入并向其提供输入，等等。

But this one particular brain area really does seem to underlie what we call tenacity and willpower.

但这一特定的大脑区域似乎确实是我们所说的坚韧和意志力的基础。

And we know that through several lines of evidence.

我们通过多方面的证据知道这一点。

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.

首先，我将告诉您大脑区域的名称，尽管名称本身不会告诉您太多信息，除非您是神经科学家或解剖学家。

So I'll give a little bit of background about it.

因此，我将介绍一些有关它的背景知识。

The name of the brain area is the anterior midcingulate cortex.

大脑区域的名称是前中扣带皮层。

The anterior midcingulate cortex is part of a larger brain area called the cingulate cortex.

前中扣带皮层是称为扣带皮层的较大大脑区域的一部分。

And in humans versus animals, it goes by slightly different names, unfortunately.

不幸的是，在人类与动物中，它的名称略有不同。

It's just one of the consequences of different researchers in different labs calling the same thing different things.

这只是不同实验室的不同研究人员将同一事物称为不同事物的后果之一。

It'd be really frustrating, but we'll make it very simple because today, we will refer to this area as the anterior midcingulate cortex, which is a subdivision of a larger brain area simply called the cingulate cortex.

这真的很令人沮丧，但我们会让它变得非常简单，因为今天，我们将这个区域称为前中扣带皮层，它是一个更大的大脑区域的细分，简称为扣带皮层。

The anterior midcingulate cortex resides in the frontal lobes.

前中扣带皮层位于额叶。

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.

所以它在你的前额后面，尽管这并不能告诉你任何事情，因为如果你仔细想想，你的整个大脑都在你的前额后面。

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 midcingulate cortices, one on each side of the brain, and they receive a lot of inputs from a lot of different areas.

它大约是你后脑勺的三分之一，你实际上有两个这样的结构，两个前扣带皮层，大脑的每一侧都有一个，它们从很多不同的区域接收大量的输入。

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.

我们将讨论这些领域是什么，因为在考虑可以利用哪些不同的心理和生理资源来发挥坚韧和意志力时，这是极其重要的。

But for the time being, let me just go through the evidence in list format of why we feel so confident that the anterior midcingulate cortex is such a vital hub for engaging tenacity and willpower.

但现在，让我以列表的形式回顾一下为什么我们如此自信地认为前中扣带皮层是发挥坚韧和意志力的重要枢纽。

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.

对于我即将提出的每一点，确实存在至少一项（如果不是多项的话）高质量的同行评审人类研究。

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.

因此，有很多来自动物的数据，包括啮齿类动物和灵长类动物模型等，我们今天不讨论这些数据，但我应该提到所有这些数据都支持人类数据，反之亦然。

The data I'm going to describe now come from humans and from a variety of different types of studies.

我现在要描述的数据来自人类和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.

因此，如果大脑区域与特定的心理或生理现象（例如动机、悲伤或视觉感知）有关，人们可以通过多种不同的方式来考虑。

And those include, for instance, if a brain area is active during a given phenomenon.

例如，这些包括在特定现象期间大脑区域是否活跃。

So one way to explore this is to put literally wire electrodes down below the skull, record the electric activity of neurons, and assess whether or not the electrical activity of those neurons changes when a person is, say, viewing faces or feeling a particular way, like feeling tenacious or feeling bored or feeling aggressive, and so on.

因此，探索这一问题的一种方法是将电极丝放置在头骨下方，记录神经元的电活动，并评估当一个人观看面孔或以某种特定方式（例如感到坚韧、感到无聊或感到攻击性等）时，这些神经元的电活动是否会发生变化。

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.

评估特定大脑区域在给定生理或心理现象中的作用的另一种方法是在该特定大脑区域受伤的个体中进行评估。

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.

你可能会期望像意志力这样的特定现象，比如感知面孔的能力，存在或不存在，无论它是否加剧或是否减弱。

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.

评估特定大脑区域是否参与特定现象的其他方法是，在某种训练过程中，该大脑区域的大小是否确实发生变化，体积是否发生变化。

So for instance, if somebody is not able to play a musical instrument, such as myself, and then I or a subject in one of these experiments learns a musical instrument, and the volume, the size of 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 involved in the process of learning a musical instrument.

举例来说，如果有人不会演奏乐器，比如我自己，然后我或这些实验中的一个受试者学习一种乐器，并且在整个学习过程中或在音乐学习之前和之后评估特定大脑区域的音量和大小，并且它会增长，或者即使它缩小或改变形状，人们也可能会确定它以某种方式参与了学习乐器的过程。

You couldn't unequivocally conclude that, but along with other types of evidence, one could perhaps conclude that.

你不能明确地得出这样的结论，但与其他类型的证据一起，人们也许可以得出这样的结论。

So that's just a partial list of ways to assess brain area function.

这只是评估大脑区域功能的部分方法。

Other ways include assessing what other areas a given brain area gets input from.

其他方法包括评估特定大脑区域从哪些其他区域获取输入。

So for instance, in the case of the anterior midcingulate cortex, we will soon discuss the fact that it gets robust input from the autonomic nervous system, which you already learned about.

例如，就前中扣带皮层而言，我们很快将讨论它从自主神经系统获得强大输入的事实，您已经了解了这一点。

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.

它从大脑的奖励系统获得强大的输入，例如大脑的多巴胺和基于血清素的奖励系统，并且它还从大脑的背景和策略设定区域以及许多其他不同的大脑区域获得强大的输入。

So there's a structural logic as to why the anterior midcingulate cortex would be involved in tenacity and willpower.

因此，有一个结构逻辑可以解释为什么前中扣带皮层会涉及坚韧和意志力。

But no single anatomical or physiological or lesion-based finding is as compelling as when we consider all of the results about the anterior midcingulate cortex together and side by side.

但是，当我们并排考虑有关前中扣带皮层的所有结果时，没有任何一个解剖学、生理学或基于病变的发现如此引人注目。

So for instance, recordings by neural imaging of the anterior midcingulate cortex in an unbiased way, meaning people are put into a brain scanner and brain activity is examined en masse, 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 midcingulate cortex shows elevated levels of activity in the hard versus the easy task.

例如，以公正的方式对前中扣带皮层进行神经成像记录，这意味着人们被放入脑部扫描仪中，对大脑活动进行整体检查，所有的大脑区域都受到观察，并向人们呈现一项困难的任务或一项简单的任务，结果表明，与简单的任务相比，前中扣带皮层显示出更高的活动水平。

And again, I want to point out that the researchers were not looking for that result.

我想再次指出，研究人员并不是在寻找这个结果。

They simply observed that result.

他们只是观察了这个结果。

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 as they're just sitting in the scanner looking at a blank screen, the resting or spontaneous levels of activity in the anterior midcingulate cortex of high-achieving individuals is higher relative to those of lower-achieving individuals.

此外，如果在许多不同科目上表现出高水平学习成绩的人被放入大脑扫描仪中，评估所谓的静息状态连接性，所以不是任务，而是只是坐在扫描仪中看着空白屏幕时不同大脑区域自发发生的活动水平，那么高成就个体的前中扣带皮层的静息或自发活动水平相对于低成就个体而言更高。

In addition, people that have lesions or disruptions of anterior midcingulate cortical function show increased apathy and depression and reduced levels of tenacity and motivation across the board, regardless of what domain of life one is asking about, whether or not it's athletic or academic, et cetera.

此外，前扣带回皮质功能损伤或破坏的人表现出冷漠和抑郁的增加，以及全面降低坚韧和积极性的水平，无论人们询问的是生活的哪个领域，无论是运动还是学术，等等。

Indeed, successful dieters show elevated spontaneous and what's called evoked levels of activity in the anterior midcingulate cortex.

事实上，成功的节食者表现出前扣带皮层的自发活动和所谓的诱发活动水平升高。

So spontaneous, again, just at rest, they have higher levels of activity in the anterior midcingulate cortex.

同样，在休息时，它们的前中扣带皮层的活动水平也较高。

And for those that are presented with food and they have to resist that food, and they have to resist the smell of that food and the potential taste of that food, the activity of the anterior midcingulate cortex goes up even further, especially in those individuals who can resist.

对于那些被提供食物的人来说，他们必须抵制那种食物，他们必须抵制那种食物的气味和那种食物的潜在味道，前中扣带皮层的活动会进一步增强，尤其是那些能够抵抗的人。

That is, who can engage willpower to not eat the delicious food item.

也就是说，谁能用意志力不去吃美味的食物。

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 midcingulate cortex.

相反，那些未能发挥足够意志力来减轻体重的人（这是出于与试图实现医疗健康相关的医学原因），以及肥胖的人似乎前扣带皮层的活动水平降低。

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 midcingulate cortex.

此外，表现出很多冷漠的抑郁症患者，这里我们谈论的是临床诊断的重度抑郁症，他们的前中扣带皮层活动水平降低。

Humans that express a lot of what's called learned helplessness, that is, they've adopted the belief and the actions associated with the belief that no matter what they do, the outcomes are not going to be what they desire, express lower levels of neural activity in the anterior midcingulate cortex.

表现出很多所谓的习得性无助的人类，也就是说，他们已经采取了一种信念以及与这种信念相关的行动，即无论他们做什么，结果都不会是他们想要的，表现出前中扣带皮层的神经活动水平较低。

So you can see this list goes on and on, but it in fact gets even more interesting.

所以你可以看到这个列表一直在继续，但实际上它变得更加有趣。

Remember earlier I mentioned that successful dieters have elevated levels of neural activity in the anterior midcingulate cortex.

还记得之前我提到过，成功的节食者的前中扣带皮层神经活动水平升高。

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.

现在，这似乎是一件好事，而且确实可能​​是一件好事，但有一种病理状况与节食和一个人运用意志力和抵制食物的能力有关，这就是神经性厌食症等饮食失调的情况。

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，我制作了一个关于神经性厌食症的胡伯曼实验室播客独播节目，在该播客上，我提出了现在要再次强调的观点，即神经性厌食症是所有精神疾病中最致命的，导致很大一部分患有该病的人死亡。

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.

幸运的是，现在有治疗方法，而且更多的治疗方法一直在出现，但这是一种非常严重的心理和生理状况，极其致命。

Individuals with anorexia nervosa exhibit heightened levels of activity in their anterior midcingulate cortex, both at rest and when presented with food.

患有神经性厌食症的人，无论是在休息时还是在进食时，前中扣带皮层的活动水平都会升高。

And I don't want to go on a full tangent about anorexia because we covered anorexia on the previous podcast episode about anorexia.

我不想对厌食症进行完全切题，因为我们在上一集有关厌食症的播客中报道了厌食症。

Which, by the way, you can find at hubermanlab.com.

顺便说一下，您可以在 hubermanlab.com 上找到它。

Simply search anorexia or eating disorders within the search function.

只需在搜索功能中搜索厌食症或饮食失调即可。

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 midcingulate cortex, seem to be activated under conditions in which people with anorexia avoid food as opposed to eat food.

但神经性厌食症的明显症状之一是，我们知道大脑的奖赏通路（即直接连接到前扣带皮层）似乎在厌食症患者避免食物而不是吃食物的情况下被激活。

And then there's a very interesting and positive literature about so-called superagers.

还有一些关于所谓的超级老人的非常有趣且积极的文献。

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 midcingulate cortex in particular, unless certain things are done to offset that, and we are going to talk about what those particular things are in just a few minutes.

所以我们可以肯定的是，随着人们年龄的增长，特别是在 60 岁到 90 岁之间，许多大脑区域的大小都会减小，尤其是前中扣带皮层，除非采取某些措施来抵消这种情况，我们将在几分钟内讨论这些特定的东西是什么。

But there's a particular category of humans that's alive now and that live a very long time.

但有一类特殊的人类现在还活着，而且寿命很长。

These are the people that stand the greatest chance of becoming centenarians, and many of them are centenarians, so-called superagers.

这些人最有可能成为百岁老人，其中许多人都是百岁老人，即所谓的超级老人。

But also within the category of superagers are people who are 60 years old or more, because not all of them have reached 80, 90 yet, and have the cognition of 40-year-olds, 30-year-olds, and often even of people in their mid-20s.

但60岁或以上的人也属于超级老人的范畴，因为他们中的一些人还没有达到80岁、90岁，他们的认知能力相当于40岁、30岁，甚至常常是20多岁的人。

Now, there are a lot of things that are different about these superagers, superagers in the sense that they are maintaining very youthful levels of cognition.

现在，这些超级老人有很多不同之处，从某种意义上说，他们保持着非常年轻的认知水平。

But one of the things that's become very apparent from the neuroimaging data is that superagers maintain a volume, a size, of the anterior midcingulate cortex that is significantly greater than their age-matched cohorts.

但从神经影像学数据中变得非常明显的一件事是，超级老人的前中扣带皮层的体积和大小明显大于同龄人。

So the exciting thing is that there are many, many lines of evidence pointing to the fact that the anterior midcingulate 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.

因此，令人兴奋的是，有很多很多证据表明，前中扣带皮层至少与我们产生坚韧和意志力的能力有关，并且当它活跃时，可以使我们从冷漠和抑郁走向能够参与或抵制特定类型行为的状态。

So what I just described is a bunch of neuroimaging, structural volume data, blood uptake data, lesion studies, and so on and so forth.

所以我刚才描述的是一堆神经影像、结构体积数据、血液摄取数据、病变研究等等。

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.

但我们可以简化所有这些，事实上，解决一些我可能应该早点说的事情，那就是，当我们谈论坚韧和意志力时，我们实际上谈论的是两件事之一。

We are either talking about that sense within us that has us saying, "I will.

我们要么在谈论我们内心的那种感觉，让我们说：“我会的。

No matter what you tell me, no matter what you put in front of me, no matter what is rolled my way, I will blank." Now, the other expression of tenacity and willpower is that within us, within you, within me, when tenacity and willpower are active, we have that sense within us, that feeling in our body, and that thought pattern, AKA feeling in our brain that no matter what you say, no matter what you do, no matter what you put in front of me, I won't.

无论你告诉我什么，无论你在我面前放什么，无论我遇到什么，我都会一片空白。”现在，坚韧和意志力的另一种表达是，在我们内部，在你内部，在我内部，当坚韧和意志力活跃时，我们内部就有那种感觉，我们身体中的感觉，以及思维模式，也就是我们大脑中的感觉，无论你说什么，无论你做什么，无论你在我面前放什么，我都不会。

So really, willpower is either an expression of I will or I absolutely will, is perhaps a better way to state it, or I absolutely won't.

所以实际上，意志力要么是我意志的表达，要么是我绝对意志的表达，也许是更好的表达方式，或者我绝对不会。

Now, that might seem like just a simple subjective reordering of a bunch of physiological data and psychology studies, but it's not.

现在，这似乎只是对一堆生理数据和心理学研究的简单主观重新排序，但事实并非如此。

It's actually far more important for us to understand this I absolutely will and I absolutely won't aspect of willpower because if indeed there is a single brain area that can govern willpower, and willpower is not one, but is at least two things, the sense of I absolutely will, no matter what you say, do, et cetera, or I absolutely won't, no matter what you say, do, et cetera, well then this brain area can't be a simple switch.

事实上，对我们来说更重要的是要理解“我绝对会”和“我绝对不会”的意志力方面，因为如果确实有一个大脑区域可以控制意志力，而意志力不是一个，而是至少是两个东西，“我绝对会，无论你说什么，做等等”的感觉，或者我绝对不会，无论你说什么，做等等，那么这个大脑区域就不可能是一个简单的切换。

It can't be willpower on, willpower off, willpower on, willpower off.

不可能是意志力开启、意志力关闭、意志力开启、意志力关闭。

It can't be absolute, as we say.

正如我们所说，它不可能是绝对的。

It must be graded.

必须对其进行分级。

It must have levels.

一定是有层次的。

So it's more like a slider on a light switch than an on versus off light switch.

因此，它更像是灯开关上的滑块，而不是开关灯开关。

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.

除此之外，如果确实有一个大脑区域在产生坚韧和意志力方面发挥着关键作用，而坚韧和意志力是我们在许多不同情况下所需要的，我们必须说，“我绝对会的。

Yes, this.

是的，这个。

I absolutely won't.

我绝对不会。

No, that.

不，那个。

I absolutely will.

我绝对会的。

Also, yes, this," et cetera.

还有，是的，这个，”等等。

Because life is complex.

因为生活是复杂的。

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.

即使只是简单的事情，比如节食或试图获得特定学位，或者试图克服一种简单的疾病，比如，“尽管感觉很糟糕，我还是会度过这周。

I'm going to take good care of myself." All of these things, in some sense, require tenacity and willpower, and the behaviors we need to engage in and avoid engaging in is very dynamic, depending not just on who we are and what we're trying to do or not do, but also where we are that day, that moment.

我会好好照顾自己的。”从某种意义上说，所有这些事情都需要坚韧和意志力，而我们需要参与和避免参与的行为是非常动态的，不仅取决于我们是谁以及我们试图做什么或不做什么，还取决于我们那天、那一刻所处的位置。

Well, that means that the anterior midcingulate cortex also needs access to information about context.

嗯，这意味着前中扣带皮层也需要获取有关上下文的信息。

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.

它需要了解在我们想要完成的事情的背景下什么是有回报的或无回报的，而不仅仅是当下感觉良好的事情。

Now, fortunately, there have been a number of studies exploring not just the activity levels of the anterior midcingulate cortex or the size of the anterior midcingulate cortex in the various conditions we talked about before, depression, obesity, successful dieters, successful students, successful athletes, et cetera, but a lot of anatomical tracing studies, both from fixed, that is from dead brain tissue, so postmortem brain tissue in humans.

现在，幸运的是，已经有许多研究不仅探索了我们之前讨论过的各种条件下的前中扣带皮层的活动水平或前中扣带皮层的大小，抑郁症、肥胖、成功的节食者、成功的学生、成功的运动员等等，而且还有大量的解剖追踪研究，都是来自固定的，即来自死亡的脑组织，即人类死后的脑组织。

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 tracts.

而且，如今，存在某些类型的神经成像，特别是所谓的扩散张量成像，它允许人们通过所谓的白质束检查进出不同大脑区域的信息流。

Tracts meaning T-R-A-C-T-S, tracts.

Tracts 的意思是 T-R-A-C-T-S，大片。

So these are the wires that connect neurons are called axons, and those axons are in sheaths with a fatty substance called myelin, and that ensheathment with myelin allows them to transmit information very quickly.

因此，这些连接神经元的电线称为轴突，这些轴突位于含有称为髓磷脂的脂肪物质的鞘中，髓磷脂的鞘允许它们非常快速地传递信息。

You'll see where I'm going with all this in just a moment.

一会儿你就会明白我要讲的内容。

And what we know is that the anterior midcingulate 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 tracts that connects the two sides of the brain.

我们所知道的是，前中扣带皮层在大脑的每一侧都有一个，大约位于从前额到大脑后部的三分之一处，大约位于所谓的胼胝体的正上方，胼胝体是连接大脑两侧的非常强大的白质束集合。

Well, it gets input and sends input to a number of different brain areas, including but not limited to the following.

嗯，它获取输入并将输入发送到许多不同的大脑区域，包括但不限于以下区域。

Autonomic centers that control, for instance- Cardiovascular function, increases or decreases in heart rate.

例如，控制心血管功能的自主神经中心可以增加或减少心率。

Respiration, how fast and how deeply you breathe, or how shallowly and slowly you breathe.

呼吸，即呼吸的速度和深度，或者呼吸的浅度和缓慢程度。

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.

免疫系统不是直接通过脾脏进行输入和输出，而是通过几个不同的站点与您体内的器官一起释放 B 细胞和 T 细胞以及免疫分子，这些分子可以对抗细菌、病毒和真菌感染，并可以修复身体伤口。

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.

它与内分泌系统、大脑和身体系统进行沟通，释放雌激素和睾酮等激素，顺便说一下，男性和女性体内都存在雌激素和睾酮。

And on a previous episode of the Huberman 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.

在休伯曼实验室播客的前一集中，罗伯特·萨波尔斯基作为我的嘉宾，我们谈到了睾酮的作用，很多人认为，哦，睾酮与攻击有关，睾酮与攻击有关，睾酮与交配有关。

That is completely false.

那是完全错误的。

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.

虽然它可能参与这些不同的过程，但萨波尔斯基博士和我讨论的是，睾酮在大脑中的主要功能之一是让努力感觉良好。

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.

你可以看到，我们将更多地讨论这如何与坚韧和意志力的概念直接联系起来。

So the first point is that the anterior midcingulate cortex is in direct communication with all of the areas of the brain and, through a couple of other stations, the body, that modulate our sense of tenacity and willpower, which we talked about earlier, the need for sleep, the need for pain or lack of pain, or emotional comfort or discomfort to modulate our level of tenacity and willpower.

所以第一点是，前中扣带皮层与大脑的所有区域直接沟通，并通过其他几个站与身体直接沟通，调节我们的坚韧和意志力感，我们之前谈到过，睡眠的需要，疼痛或缺乏疼痛的需要，或情绪舒适或不适来调节我们的坚韧和意志力水平。

The anterior midcingulate cortex is also directly linked up with premotor centers.

前中扣带皮层也与运动前中心直接相连。

These are the centers of the brain that organize particular patterns of behavior, and indeed, that can suppress particular patterns of behavior.

这些是组织特定行为模式的大脑中心，实际上，它们可以抑制特定的行为模式。

As I tell you that, you're probably filling in the blanks.

正如我告诉你的那样，你可能正在填补空白。

This is engaging in a behavior or resisting a behavior.

这是参与某种行为或抵制某种行为。

The anterior midcingulate cortex is also directly wired in with the reward pathways of the brain.

前中扣带皮层也直接与大脑的奖励通路相连。

It can trigger the release of dopamine.

它可以触发多巴胺的释放。

It can also respond to the release of dopamine, and that dopamine release could be generated behaviorally, it could be generated through some sort of food reward, it could be pharmacologic.

它还可以对多巴胺的释放做出反应，并且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，也可以通过药理学产生。

There are a number of different ways that the dopamine system can communicate with the anterior midcingulate cortex.

多巴胺系统可以通过多种不同的方式与前扣带皮层进行通信。

The point here is that it is in direct communication with the anterior midcingulate cortex, and the anterior midcingulate cortex is in direct communication with the dopamine system.

这里的要点是，它与前中扣带皮层直接沟通，而前中扣带皮层与多巴胺系统直接沟通。

And what I just gave you is frankly just a partial list of the different areas of the brain that are communicating robustly with the anterior midcingulate cortex.

坦率地说，我刚刚给你的只是与前中扣带皮层强有力沟通的大脑不同区域的部分列表。

It gets information about interoception, our readout of how we feel in our body.

它获取有关内感受的信息，即我们对身体感受的读出。

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.

它还与与外感受（我们对周围事物的感知）相关的大脑区域有强大的输入和输出。

So all of that provides a logical basis for the neuroimaging data, the lesion data, the volumetric data that we talked about a few minutes ago in the context of depression, anxiety, high performance, anorexia, and so on.

因此，所有这些都为我们几分钟前在抑郁、焦虑、高性能、厌食症等背景下讨论的神经影像数据、病变数据和体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 anterior midcingulate 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.

但支持前中扣带皮层是坚韧和意志力的主要场所的最重要论据之一来自丽莎·费尔德曼·巴雷特博士，她即将成为胡伯曼实验室播客的嘉宾。

We've actually recorded that episode already, and it should be out very soon.

实际上我们已经录制了该集，应该很快就会发布。

Lisa's laboratory is well-known for pioneering research on emotion and affect.

丽莎的实验室因情感和情感的开创性研究而闻名。

I strongly encourage you to listen to that episode once it comes out.

我强烈建议您在该剧集播出后立即收听。

And it was actually Lisa herself that cued me to the importance of the anterior midcingulate cortex.

实际上是丽莎本人让我认识到前中扣带皮层的重要性。

And Lisa and colleagues have written several spectacular reviews about the anterior midcingulate cortex and its role in tenacity and motivation.

丽莎和同事撰写了几篇关于前中扣带皮层及其在坚韧和动力方面的作用的精彩评论。

I will provide links to a few of those in the show note captions.

我将在节目注释标题中提供其中一些链接。

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 Anterior Midcingulate Cortex Contributes to Achieving Goals." So if you have a background in biology, even if you don't, I think you'll find that review to be very interesting, and it further substantiates a lot of the points that I made a few moments ago about the different scenarios and types of individuals that seem to be able to engage their anterior midcingulate cortex under different conditions and to a greater or lesser extent than others.

我特别兴奋的一本书的标题是“顽强的大脑：前中扣带皮层如何有助于实现目标”。因此，如果你有生物学背景，即使你没有，我想你也会发现这篇评论非常有趣，它进一步证实了我刚才提出的关于不同场景和类型的个体的许多观点，这些个体似乎能够在不同条件下比其他人或多或少地参与前扣带皮层。

So hats off to Lisa for cuing me to this incredibly interesting brain structure.

所以，向丽莎致敬，她让我了​​解了这个非常有趣的大脑结构。

I had known that it existed.

我早就知道它的存在。

After all, I teach neuroanatomy to medical students at Stanford, and I taught neuroanatomy for many, many years.

毕竟，我在斯坦福大学向医学生教授神经解剖学，而且我教授神经解剖学很多年了。

But I don't think enough people, and indeed very few professional neuroscientists, could tell you what the anterior midcingulate cortex does, but it has this apparently incredible function in generating tenacity and motivation.

但我认为没有足够多的人，甚至很少有专业的神经科学家，可以告诉你前中扣带皮层的作用，但它在产生坚韧和动力方面具有明显令人难以置信的功能。

Along those lines, one of the most incredible and important studies about the anterior midcingulate 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.

沿着这些思路，关于前中扣带皮层及其产生坚韧和意志力的能力的最令人难以置信和最重要的研究之一来自我在斯坦福大学的一位同事乔·帕尔维兹（Joe Parvizi），他主要研究了因其他原因需要进行脑部手术的人类，并以非常高的精度刺激了特定的大脑区域。

The title of the paper that I'm referring to was published in 2013 in the journal Neuron, Cell Press journal, excellent journal, and it's entitled "The Will to Persevere Induced by Electrical Stimulation of the Human Cingulate Gyrus."

我指的这篇论文的标题是2013年发表在Neuron杂志上的，Cell Press杂志，优秀杂志，它的标题是“The Will to Persevere Induced by Electrical Stimulation of the Human Cingulate Gyrus”。

Now, you'll notice the title said human cingulate gyrus, not anterior midcingulate gyrus.

现在，您会注意到标题说的是人类扣带回，而不是前扣带回。

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 subregions of the cingulate gyrus of humans while those people were awake, and then ask those people, "How do you feel?

但因为他们有电极和刺激技术，可以在非常小的区域进行刺激，延伸小至五毫米，但距离刺激部位不远，所以他们能够在人们醒着的时候，在人类扣带回的不同分区周围进行刺激，然后问那些人，“你感觉怎么样？

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 brainwave activity.

此时此刻你正在经历什么？”除此之外，他们还记录了这些人的各种自主参数，例如心率、呼吸以及脑电波活动。

So what the subjects report when their anterior midcingulate cortex was stimulated is that, in their words Something was about to happen.

因此，当受试者的前中扣带皮层受到刺激时，受试者报告的内容是，用他们的话来说，有些事情即将发生。

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.

他们感觉好像有某种来自外界的压力，不是肉体上的压力，而是有什么事情即将发生。

In fact, one of the subjects described the sensation as, it's as if there's a storm off in the distance, but I know I need to go into the storm, and I know I can make it through the storm.

事实上，其中一个受试者将这种感觉描述为，就好像远处有一场风暴，但我知道我需要进入风暴，而且我知道我可以度过风暴。

Another subject described the experience of having their anterior midcingulate cortex stimulated as, okay, 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.

另一位受试者描述了他们的前中扣带皮层受到刺激的经历，因为，好吧，一些不一定好的事情会发生，但我知道我需要调动资源并抵抗，而且我有信心我可以坚持下去。

Now, because Parvizi and 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.

现在，因为帕尔维兹和他的同事都是优秀的科学家，所以他们当然做了控制实验，他们会告诉人们，“好吧，我们正在刺激你刚才告诉我的同一个大脑区域，它给你带来了一种必须抵抗的压力感，一种战斗感或紧迫感。”但实际上，在某些控制条件下，他们没有刺激这些大脑区域，然后受试者报告说：“我不觉得有什么事情会发生。

Yeah, I don't feel anything at all." In other words, it was the stimulation of the anterior midcingulate cortex, and only the anterior midcingulate cortex, that created the sensation within people that there was something to resist, that there was something putting pressure on them.

是的，我什么感觉都没有。”换句话说，正是对前中扣带皮层的刺激，而且只有前中扣带皮层的刺激，使人们产生了一种感觉，即有某种东西在抵抗，有某种东西对他们施加压力。

Again, not physical pressure, but psychological pressure, and that they were going to have to marshal resources in order to push back upon.

再说一次，不是身体上的压力，而是心理上的压力，他们将不得不调动资源来反击。

In fact, they reported feeling as if their body was getting ready to do something.

事实上，他们报告说感觉自己的身体正准备做某事。

One subject said something along the lines of, "I feel like I'm about to do something.

一名受试者说了这样的话：“我觉得我要做某事。

I'm about to go someplace or do something to resist this foreboding sense that's now coming over me." So this is very interesting, and of course, is in line with all of the data that we discussed before about neural activity patterns, both spontaneous and evoked, about brain volume changes in the anterior midcingulate cortex, so on and so forth.

我正要去某个地方或者做点什么来抵抗现在笼罩在我身上的这种不祥的预感。”所以这非常有趣，当然，这与我们之前讨论的关于神经活动模式（自发的和诱发的）、关于前中扣带皮层的脑容量变化等等的所有数据是一致的。

And it really points to the idea that the anterior midcingulate cortex is a hub.

它确实表明了前中扣带皮层是一个枢纽的想法。

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.

这个中枢接收来自我们几分钟前讨论过的不同大脑区域的信息，并在我们体内产生一种特殊的感觉，即我们将成为前进的质心，我们将抵制某些东西，也许我们将以某种特定的方式移动或行动，或者，正如我们一直在讨论的那样，以某种特定的方式抵制行动，但这需要我们调动资源。

Which takes us back, of course, to the studies of Baumeister and indeed of Dweck, where they explored willpower as a limited resource, perhaps, glucose perhaps as that limited resource.

当然，这让我们回到了鲍迈斯特和德韦克的研究，他们探索了意志力作为一种有限的资源，也许葡萄糖也作为这种有限的资源。

Beliefs about willpower and glucose probably, with a high degree of certainty, are going to be involved there too.

关于意志力和葡萄糖的信念很可能也与此有关，并且具有高度的确定性。

But regardless of that controversy, it's clear that there's an energy required.

但尽管存在争议，很明显需要能量。

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.

对特定行为或思维模式有一种参与或抵抗的激活状态，我们都将这种行为或思维模式与这种坚韧和意志力的现象联系起来。

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.

作为一名神经科学家，我们现在普遍被告知，单个大脑区域并不会真正触发大脑的单个功能和感知，这是一种神奇的方式。

There are a few exceptions to that.

但也有一些例外。

You have a fusiform face area that really does seem to be involved in the perception of faces, and when lesioned, you can't recognize faces.

你有一个梭形的面部区域，它似乎确实与面部感知有关，当受损时，你就无法识别面部。

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.

但除了少数有限的背景之外，很少有人会遇到这样的文献：在所有涉及的研究中，都指出单一的大脑结构及其网络能够产生像坚韧和意志力这样复杂而灵活的东西。

But in the case of the anterior midcingulate cortex, it really does seem to meet those criteria as the brain hub responsible for tenacity and willpower.

但就前中扣带皮层而言，它似乎确实符合作为负责坚韧和意志力的大脑中枢的这些标准。

Now, a key idea that Dr. Feldman Barrett has contributed to studies of the anterior midcingulate 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（Feldman Barrett）博士对前中扣带皮层的研究做出了贡献，它是一种帮助我们产生所谓的坚韧和意志力以帮助我们实现不同类型目标的结构，这就是动态平衡的概念。

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.

你们中的大多数人可能听说过体内平衡，即我们所有的细胞、我们所有的器官，实际上，我们的整个身体和心理都在不断寻求体内平衡，即睡眠和活动、食物和燃烧燃料、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.

虽然稳态确实存在并且是一种有效的现象，但还有一个我们很少听到但同样重要的概念，那就是动态平衡的概念。

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.

动态平衡是指我们的大脑和身体，尤其是我们的大脑，需要做的大部分事情是根据我们的动机目标和面临的挑战来分配、正确的动态平衡，将资源分配给特定的功能。

And in every way, what we understand about the structure and function of the anterior midcingulate cortex is that it is doing just that.

从各个方面来说，我们对前中扣带皮层的结构和功能的理解就是它就是这样做的。

It is deciding how much glucose should a given brain area consume.

它决定给定的大脑区域应该消耗多少葡萄糖。

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.

也许是涉及视觉感知的大脑区域，因为您正在参与一项激励性任务，为了成功，您需要对特定事物进行仔细的视觉注意，或者您正在参与一项您必须聆听特定事物的任务，或者您可能正在参加一场身体竞走，除非有必要，否则您不想分配大量精力来思考您的步幅或步伐，并且您实际上希望尽可能地关闭您的大脑活动，除了需要获得信息的大脑区域之外。你继续跑。

In that sense, the anterior midcingulate cortex, as a sort of a dial on how much fuel is consumed, not by the brain and body as a whole, but by individual brain and body parts, meets all the criteria of what you would want for a brain area that controls things like tenacity and willpower.

从这个意义上说，前中扣带皮层作为一种衡量燃料消耗量的刻度盘，不是由整个大脑和身体消耗的，而是由各个大脑和身体部位消耗的，它满足了你想要的控制坚韧和意志力等大脑区域的所有标准。

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.

因为即使对于那些看似拥有无穷无尽的坚韧和意志力的人来说，他们也必须养成习惯性的行为。

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, et cetera, on a constant basis.

他们不能简单地以来自外部的抵抗和对外部力量的抵抗，甚至对内部力量、头脑中的声音等等的抵抗来不断地依赖于生活的各个方面。

They still need to sleep.

他们还需要睡觉。

They still need to be functional in that expression of tenacity and willpower.

他们仍然需要表现出坚韧和意志力。

They need to be able to strategy switch, and they need to be able to come off the gas, as we say.

正如我们所说，他们需要能够切换策略，并且需要能够摆脱困境。

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.

并不是因为坚韧和意志力必然是有限的资源，而是因为对于生活的许多方面来说，投入坚韧和意志力并不是有利的。

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.

因此，我之前举的关于饮食失调的例子是，我们大脑的一种明显的硬连线功能能够为抵制特定行为而产生某种奖励，但这种功能走得太远，实际上会威胁到一个人自己的健康甚至生命。

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.

因此，我们在与 Feldman Barrett 博士的讨论中详细介绍了非稳态负荷、非稳态平衡和非稳态功能的概念，这一集即将发布。

But in the meantime, if you are to think about the anterior midcingulate 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 jives with all the anatomical data about the anterior midcingulate cortex as well.

但与此同时，如果你认为前中扣带皮层具有单一功能，费尔德曼·巴雷特博士将其归因于控制不同大脑和身体区域在给定背景下应该获得多少能量，那么这对我来说很有意义，而且我认为它是最能描述所有功能数据的功能，实际上也包含或与有关前中扣带皮层的所有解剖数据相吻合。

One of the really important twists in all of this is that the anterior midcingulate cortex is not just sitting there to allocate and dole out different amounts of energy and activation to different brain areas.

所有这一切中真正重要的转折之一是，前中扣带皮层不仅仅是坐在那里向不同的大脑区域分配和发放不同数量的能量和激活。

It is also receiving input from both the brain and body.

它还接收来自大脑和身体的输入。

And in sort of a beautiful twist on the whole story of what the anterior midcingulate cortex does, we know that when we move our body, we are activating the anterior midcingulate cortex.

前中扣带皮层的作用的整个故事有一个美丽的转折，我们知道当我们移动身体时，我们正在激活前中扣带皮层。

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 midcingulate cortex more.

我们知道，当我们以某种方式强迫自己或鼓励自己移动身体时，我们会更多地激活前扣带皮层。

Similarly, and because the anterior midcingulate 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 midcingulate 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.

同样，由于前中扣带皮层在不同的环境中都可以被激活，所以如果我们只是在阅读或正在听一些我们应该学习的东西，或者试图学习一段音乐或尝试做任何事情，就这一点而言，前中扣带皮层，是的，将会被激活，但是当我们经历很多我们必须克服的阻力时，它的激活水平要高得多。

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.

请记住之前的结果，顺便说一句，我将在显示注释标题中提供指向此特定研究或一组研究的链接。

There are about two, one really spectacular one and a couple of others that tangentially point to the same finding.

大约有两个，一个是非常引人注目的一个，还有几个其他的则与同一个发现无关。

That when people engage in a hard task, not an easy task, but a hard task, that the anterior midcingulate cortex activity is elevated.

当人们从事一项艰巨的任务时，不是一项简单的任务，而是一项艰巨的任务，前中扣带皮层的活动就会升高。

So the way to think about the anterior midcingulate cortex is that it's not just sitting there as a hub that you have to reach into and activate.

因此，思考前中扣带皮层的方法是，它不仅仅是作为一个你必须触及并激活的枢纽。

It's also receiving inputs that can activate it.

它还接收可以激活它的输入。

And that's what allows us to now talk about the tools and protocols that don't just allow us to engage our anterior midcingulate 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, but to exercise our anterior midcingulate cortices' ability to engage, not just in that challenging context, but in other challenging contexts as well.

这就是让我们现在谈论工具和协议的原因，它们不仅让我们能够调动我们的前中扣带皮层并获得更多的坚韧和意志力，而且还让我们能够锻炼，不一定是在体育锻炼的背景下，尽管也可能是这样，而是锻炼我们的前中扣带皮层的参与能力，不仅在那种具有挑战性的环境中，而且在其他具有挑战性的环境中也是如此。

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 midcingulate cortex is chock-a-block full of the expression of molecules such as kinase 2, receptors to various neurotrophins, particular types of NMDA, N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors.

事实上，我现在就告诉你，对非人类灵长类动物和有限程度的人类研究，但我们认为非人类灵长类动物数据和人类数据之间有很强的相似性，前中扣带皮层充满了诸如激酶2、各种神经营养素受体、特定类型的NMDA、N-甲基-D-天冬氨酸受体等分子的表达。

All of which, if none of those names mean anything to you, just know that all of them refer to different aspects of and a capacity for synaptic plasticity, which is the ability for connections in the brain to change.

所有这些，如果这些名字对你来说没有任何意义，只要知道它们都指的是突触可塑性的不同方面和能力，即大脑中连接改变的能力。

They can get stronger.

他们可以变得更强。

You can actually grow new connections.

您实际上可以发展新的联系。

In other words, the anterior midcingulate 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.

换句话说，前中扣带皮层可以通过一种或有限数量的不同类型的行为来激活它，从而成为一种参与坚韧和意志力的结构，这意味着参与坦率地说，我们宁愿不参与的行为，以及不参与本能地我们真正想要参与的行为，我们有点被吸引去参与。

Both of those contexts, the I absolutely will, even though frankly I don't want to, or you're telling me I can't, as well as the 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.

这两种情况下，“我绝对会”，即使坦率地说我不想这样做，或者你告诉我我不能这样做，以及“我绝对不会”，即使你在诱惑我这样做，或者那在诱惑我这样做，甚至我很想这样做。

That buildup of the anterior midcingulate 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.

前中扣带皮层的形成已广泛延续到生活的其他领域，因为它的结构与随后用于需要坚韧和意志力的其他类型的行为和学习的结构相同。

So that's incredibly reassuring.

所以这令人非常放心。

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.

事实上，这非常令人兴奋，因为正如我之前提到的，虽然在几乎无数种不同的情况下我们每个人都需要坚韧和意志力，但似乎有一种非常通用的机制可以产生坚韧和意志力。

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.

这意味着，如果我们能够通过参与特定类型的行为和抵制特定类型的行为来增强坚韧和意志力的能力，那么它将以一种非常实用的方式延续到我们认为具有挑战性以及将来可能会遇到挑战的生活其他方面。

Okay, so by now, I like to think that I've convinced you, because frankly, the data are very convincing, that the anterior midcingulate cortex is a vital hub within your brain for allocating energy and resources to generating tenacity and willpower.

好吧，到目前为止，我想我已经说服了你，因为坦率地说，数据非常有说服力，前中扣带皮层是你大脑中分配能量和资源以产生坚韧和意志力的重要枢纽。

And perhaps it's taken you a lot of tenacity and willpower to get this far through the episode, waiting with bated breath, presumably, to learn how exactly you can improve the functioning of your anterior midcingulate cortex.

也许你需要很大的毅力和意志力才能完成这一集，屏住呼吸等待，大概是为了了解如何准确地改善你的前中扣带皮层的功能。

Now, fortunately, there are published peer-reviewed data that explain how to do that.

幸运的是，现在已经发布了经过同行评审的数据来解释如何做到这一点。

In fact, there's a study that was published in 2006 by Kolome- and colleagues, entitled Aerobic Exercise Training Increases Brain Volume in Aging Humans.

事实上，Kolome 及其同事于 2006 年发表了一项研究，题为“有氧运动训练增加老年人的脑容量”。

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.

在你真正开始进行心血管锻炼之前，我将向你描述这项研究的概况以及具体做了什么，以便你可以最好地针对你的具体情况实施最佳方案。

This was a study exploring why and how certain brain areas and brain volume generally decreases as we age.

这是一项研究，探讨为什么某些大脑区域和大脑体积通常会随着年龄的增长而减少以及如何减少。

It's well known, as I mentioned earlier, that individuals aged 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.

众所周知，正如我之前提到的，年龄在 50 岁及以上，甚至可能早在 30 岁及以上的人，大脑容量就会减少，其中特定的大脑区域比其他区域萎缩得更快。

But of course, there are other people that include the SuperAgers that we talked about earlier, and many other people who are not SuperAgers who don't experience the same decrease in brain volume.

当然，还有其他人，包括我们之前讨论过的超级老年人，以及许多其他不是超级老年人的人，他们的脑容量没有经历同样的减少。

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?

那么，为什么他们的大脑大小与年轻时相同，或者大脑大小的减少幅度较小呢？

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.

这就是这项研究的研究人员最初有兴趣了解的内容，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.

这项研究将 60 至 79 岁的个体分为两组。

One group did cardiovascular exercise.

一组进行心血管锻炼。

The other group did more calisthenics/stretching type exercise.

另一组进行更多的健美操/伸展运动。

Both groups did one hour of exercise, three times per week.

两组都进行一小时的锻炼，每周三次。

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.

进行心血管训练的小组最初是从做开始的，顺便说一句，他们只是简单地称之为有氧训练，但这可能是划船，这可能是跑步，这可能是骑自行车。

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.

我认为为了理解工具和协议的应用，您会想要选择任何可以持续进行而不会伤害自己的活动。

That's what's really important.

这才是真正重要的。

And that gets your heart rate elevated.

这会让你的心率升高。

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.

他们开始让这些人在那一小时内进行相对较低强度的心血管训练，让他们的心率达到最大心率的 50% 左右，但很快就让这些人增加了心血管训练的强度。

So they were doing, again, three one-hour sessions per week, getting their heart rate up to about 75% of their maximum heart rate.

因此，他们每周再次进行 3 次每次一小时的训练，让心率达到最大心率的 75% 左右。

Sometimes a little less, 60%, sometimes a little bit more, but in that general range.

有时少一点，60%，有时多一点，但都在这个大致范围内。

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.

因此，对于那些考虑不同有氧运动区域的人来说，这可能是在第三区域，而不是第二区域有氧运动，也许是第三区域有氧运动。

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.

因此，人们不能很容易地进行对话，但也不能像达到最大心率或接近最大心率时那样完全喘气。

Okay, so three one-hour episodes of cardiovascular training per week at a moderately high intensity.

好的，每周进行 3 次每次一小时的中等强度的心血管训练。

The other group simply doing calisthenics and stretching for the equivalent amount of time.

另一组则只是进行相同时间的健美操和伸展运动。

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.

研究中还有另一组年轻得多的人进行类似的活动或不进行任何活动，只是作为大脑成像数据的对照。

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 peruse in more detail if you like.

现在，我以相当广泛的方式总结了这项研究，这既是为了节省时间，当然，我会在显示说明标题中提供该研究的链接，以便您可以访问它并根据需要更详细地阅读。

But I wouldn't be talking about this study if it were simply a study about cardiovascular training and brain volume.

但如果这项研究只是一项关于心血管训练和脑容量的研究，我就不会谈论它。

I'm talking about this study because the specific brain areas that maintained or in some cases increased in volume as a consequence of doing these three hours per week of moderate intensity cardiovascular training included, of course, the anterior midcingulate cortex.

我之所以谈论这项研究，是因为每周进行三小时中等强度心血管训练后，特定的大脑区域的体积得以维持或在某些情况下有所增加，其中当然包括前扣带皮层。

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.

这实际上是观察到脑容量维持的主要位置，并且在某些情况下，观察到脑容量增加。

Right?

正确的？

This is a group of people who normally would be losing volume size of their anterior midcingulate cortex, but for which three hours a week of moderate intensity cardiovascular training maintained the volume, the size of that anterior midcingulate cortex, and in some cases increased the volume, the size of anterior midcingulate cortex.

这群人通常会失去前中扣带皮层的体积大小，但每周三小时的中等强度心血管训练可以维持前中扣带皮层的体积（大小），并且在某些情况下增加前中扣带皮层的体积（大小）。

And they also observed a maintenance or increase in the size of the anterior white matter tracts.

他们还观察到前白质束大小的维持或增加。

Remember, T-R-A-C-T-S?

还记得吗，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.

我之前没有把它拼出来只是为了好玩，尽管我可能会这么做。

Those white matter tracts are the communication routes by which different brain areas communicate, and this anterior white matter tract that maintained size in the people that did cardiovascular training as compared to those that simply did the calisthenics training and stretching, is the very white matter tracts that connects the two sides of the brain, the frontal lobes, that allows the anterior midcingulate cortex on one side of the brain and the anterior midcingulate cortex on the other side of the brain as well as other brain structures to communicate with one another.

这些白质束是不同大脑区域进行交流的通讯路线，与那些只进行体操训练和伸展运动的人相比，进行心血管训练的人的前白质束保持了大小，正是连接大脑两侧额叶的白质束，允许大脑一侧的前中扣带皮层和大脑另一侧的前中扣带皮层以及其他大脑结构相互沟通。

So this is really spectacular.

所以这真的很壮观。

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 midcingulate cortex and the communication routes in and out of the anterior midcingulate cortex.

我的意思是，该研究的作者开始这项研究并不是为了发现甚至寻找前中扣带皮层体积的增加或维持以及进出前中扣带皮层的通讯路线。

It just so happened that cardiovascular training done three times per week for an hour at a time at moderate intensity increased the size of the anterior midcingulate cortex.

碰巧的是，每周进行三次、每次一小时、中等强度的心血管训练会增加前中扣带皮层的大小。

And as I mentioned, the white matter tracts which allow information to go in and out of the anterior midcingulate cortex.

正如我提到的，白质束允许信息进出前扣带皮层。

Now we should all be asking ourselves, why would that be the case?

现在我们都应该问自己，为什么会这样？

I mean, somebody gets on a stationary bike and pedals or goes out on a road bike or runs.

我的意思是，有人骑上固定自行车并踩踏板，或者骑公路自行车出去或跑步。

Is there something inherent to running or cycling or rowing or swimming or an aerobics class, dancing, et cetera, that gets the heart rate up that directly feeds into the anterior midcingulate cortex?

跑步、骑自行车、划船、游泳、健美操课、跳舞等是否有某种固有的东西可以使心率升高，直接反馈到前扣带皮层？

After all, is the anterior midcingulate cortex responsible for generating the activity of running or cycling or swimming?

毕竟，前中扣带皮层负责产生跑步、骑自行车或游泳的活动吗？

No. Rather, the interpretation is that in order to engage in this one hour, three times per week set of sessions of cardiovascular training, they had to allocate resources.

不。相反，我们的解释是，为了参加每周 3 次、一小时的心血管训练课程，他们必须分配资源。

They had to get up out of a chair.

他们不得不从椅子上站起来。

They had to get off the couch.

他们不得不离开沙发。

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.

他们必须对其他潜在的义务、社交活动、膳食等说“不”，并参加他们与他人或单独进行的锻炼课程或课程。

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.

现在，这项研究的一个有趣且实际上很重要的方面是，每周三小时的心血管训练的依从性非常高。

Eighty-five percent of individuals engaged in these sessions across the six-month period of the study.

在六个月的研究期间，百分之八十五的人参加了这些课程。

I should have mentioned that earlier.

我应该早点提到这一点。

The study was carried out over the course of six months.

该研究进行了六个月。

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.

他们没有机会在一周或两周后进行神经成像，因此他们之前对这些人的大脑进行了成像，并在六个月后对这些人的大脑进行了成像。

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.

任何人都猜测他们是否会在一个月的时间间隔内观察到相同甚至更大的增长，等等。

We simply don't know.

我们根本不知道。

There's a great cost, both energetic and financial, to doing these kinds of studies, so they looked at a six-month period.

进行此类研究需要付出巨大的精力和经济成本，因此他们研究了六个月的时间。

But setting all of that aside, this is a very important study in the context of today's discussion, because what it means is that if we acknowledge that the anterior midcingulate cortex and the volume of anterior midcingulate 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 anterior midcingulate cortex is going to be extremely valuable.

但抛开所有这些，在今天讨论的背景下，这是一项非常重要的研究，因为它意味着，如果我们承认前中扣带皮层和前中扣带皮层的体积与一个人为任何数量的不同努力产生坚韧和意志力的能力有关，那么获得可以增加一个人的前中扣带皮层大小的工具或方案将是非常有价值的。

So what's the takeaway from this study?

那么这项研究的结论是什么？

The takeaway from this study is not necessarily that you should be doing three one-hour bouts of cardiovascular training per week for six months to maintain or increase the size of your anterior midcingulate cortex.

这项研究的结论是，您不一定应该在六个月内每周进行 3 次每次一小时的心血管训练，以维持或增加前中扣带皮层的大小。

I do think that's the case if you're not already doing sufficient amounts of cardiovascular training.

我确实认为，如果您还没有进行足够的心血管训练，就会出现这种情况。

And what constitutes sufficient amounts?

什么才算足够的金额？

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 Attia.

嗯，我认为现在无论是我在我们的基础健身协议中、在与安迪·加尔平博士的运动生理学系列中以及在与彼得·阿提亚博士的各种讨论中所涵盖的材料之间，都达成了普遍共识。

The general agreement is that everyone should be getting somewhere between 150 to 200 minutes of so-called Zone 2 low intensity cardiovascular exercise per week.

人们普遍认为，每个人每周都应该进行 150 至 200 分钟所谓的 2 区低强度心血管运动。

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.

但这项研究的结果确实表明我们都应该做大约三个小时的运动，但当然我们都应该进行某种形式的体育锻炼。

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.

但对于我们任何一个有兴趣在各个领域增强坚韧和意志力的人来说，无论是在认知方面、身体方面还是情感方面，我们都应该进行一些锻炼。

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.

再说一次，我们稍后将讨论认知锻炼，但我们应该进行一些我们尚未进行的锻炼。

Now, that of course, will lead many people to think, wait, I'm already doing 200 minutes per week of Zone 2 cardio.

现在，这当然会让很多人想，等等，我已经每周进行 200 分钟的 2 区有氧运动。

How can I add three hours more of cardio?

如何再增加三个小时的有氧运动？

That's not what I'm saying.

我不是这个意思。

What's important to understand about this whole discussion about tenacity and willpower is that the ability to engage the anterior midcingulate 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.

关于坚韧和意志力的整个讨论，重要的是要理解，调动前中扣带皮层、增加其体积并增加其活动的能力依赖于一个关键特征，即你必须处于某种程度的抵抗、某种程度的缺乏欲望，或者我应该说缺乏反射性欲望或参与该行为的能力。

Okay?

好的？

This is super important if you're thinking about tools and protocols to increase your level of tenacity and willpower.

如果您正在考虑使用工具和协议来提高您的坚韧和意志力水平，那么这一点非常重要。

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.

例如，如果您喜欢冷水淋浴和冰浴，那么洗冷水澡或进入冰浴不太可能进一步提高您的坚韧和意志力水平。

It might reinforce the tenacity and willpower that you've already built, but it's not going to increase it further.

它可能会增强你已经建立的坚韧和意志力，但不会进一步增强。

You need to add something or subtract something that makes it harder, not easier, to engage in or resist a behavior.

你需要添加或减少一些东西，使参与或抵制某种行为变得更困难，而不是更容易。

Okay?

好的？

I want to be really clear about this.

我想澄清这一点。

In the study that I just described from Cole 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.

在我刚刚描述的科尔和同事的研究中，他们选取了在研究之前没有锻炼的人，因此这些人必须产生大量的动力才能定期参加这三轮每周一小时的心血管训练。

Okay, now, the fact that there was no comparable increase in the volume of the anterior midcingulate cortex or anterior white matter tracts 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.

好吧，现在，在进行健美操和伸展运动的组中，前中扣带皮层或前白质束的体积没有类似的增加，这一事实也很重要，因为这意味着更容易进行的活动，不会使心率升高那么多，不会对与坚韧和意志力相关的大脑结构产生变化。

And 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.

事实上，这项研究很好地证实了这一点，因为正如人们所期望的那样，他们观察到，被分配到进行心血管训练的组的个体的最大摄氧量显着增加，但他们没有观察到在六个月期间每周进行 3 次每次一小时的健美操和伸展运动的个体的最大摄氧量显着增加。

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.

好吧，这里重要的一点是，如果您已经每周进行一小时的中高强度心血管训练或阻力训练，那么您将需要添加一些东西，以便进一步激活这个大脑中枢，以增强坚韧和意志力。

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 midcingulate cortex would then be applicable to other endeavors.

当然，这里的想法，或者我们不会谈论它，是前中扣带皮层的激活和体积的增加将适用于其他努力。

For instance, academics or some aspect of your professional life or relationship life.

例如，学术或职业生活或人际关系生活的某些方面。

That you can build up tenacity and willpower as a capacity within you, or we should say within your anterior midcingulate cortices, but that the route to activating and increasing the robustness of your anterior midcingulate 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.

你可以在你的内在，或者我们应该说在你的前中扣带皮层中建立坚韧和意志力，但是激活和增强你的前中扣带皮层的稳健性的途径要求你从事一些你并不真正想做的事情，当然不是你已经经常从事的事情。

Remember way back at the beginning of today's episode, we compared willpower and tenacity to habit execution, right?

还记得在今天节目开始时，我们将意志力和坚韧与习惯执行进行了比较，对吧？

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.

嗯，这是一个简单的例子，如果你已经在做某件事，仅仅继续做可能会保持你已经拥有的东西，但它不会进一步增强你的韧性和意志力。

So along those lines, I don't want you to simply take the three one-hour cardiovascular sessions per week protocol that they used within the 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.

因此，沿着这些思路，我不希望你简单地参加他们在研究中使用的每周三次一小时的心血管训练计划，并期望它能提高你的坚韧和意志力水平，当然，除非你目前每周只进行一小时的中等到高强度的心血管训练。

In which case, increasing to two hours may very well increase your anterior midcingulate cortex and overall level of tenacity and willpower.

在这种情况下，增加到两个小时很可能会提高你的前扣带皮层以及韧性和意志力的整体水平。

And certainly doing three hours per week would be expected to do it even further.

当然，每周锻炼三个小时预计会更进一步。

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.

我应该提到的是，我们可以以一种有意义的方式从这项研究中推断出来，我认为这是一种与机制有关的方式，好吧，如果你像我一样不会演奏乐器或不会双语，那就接受挑战，如果这确实是一个挑战，对我来说这将是一个挑战，也许对你来说也是一个挑战，作为一个成年人学习乐器或学习第二或第三语言。

If that's challenging and, in fact, that's something that you're resisting doing, well then great.

如果这很有挑战性，而且事实上，这是你拒绝做的事情，那就太好了。

It's going to provide an even greater opportunity to engage the activity of the anterior midcingulate cortex.

这将为参与前中扣带皮层的活动提供更大的机会。

Remember that study that showed that hard tasks, hard challenges are what activate the anterior midcingulate cortex.

请记住，这项研究表明，艰巨的任务、艰巨的挑战可以激活前扣带皮层。

Easy challenges don't.

简单的挑战则不然。

Okay?

好的？

Habits that are reflexive simply do not.

条件反射的习惯则不然。

So you have to pick something hard.

所以你必须选择一些硬的东西。

You have to pick something that's either physically and/or psychologically hard.

你必须选择一些在身体和/或心理上困难的东西。

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?

当然，我们想强调这样一个事实：你永远不想从事任何对你的身体或认知、情感或其他方面对你造成心理或身体伤害的事情，对吧？

Because this is something that you're going to want to maintain or carry out for some period of time.

因为这是您想要维持或执行一段时间的事情。

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.

现在，沿着这些思路，我们可以想象人们可以参与大量不同的协议，但我认为有一些关键的事情可以延伸到所有这些机会。

First of all, it's clear now, based on our understanding of the anatomical inputs to the anterior midcingulate cortex, that while exercise is great, and certainly movement of the body when we don't want to move our body, AKA running, AKA weightlifting, AKA 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 midcingulate cortex.

首先，现在很清楚，根据我们对前中扣带皮层的解剖学输入的理解，虽然运动很棒，当然当我们不想移动身体时身体的运动，又名跑步，又名举重，又名学习舞蹈或体操或类似的东西，将会调动这个坚韧和意志力的枢纽，即前中扣带皮层。

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 that is both playful and highly functional and applicable.

但还有很多其他机会可以做到这一点，我们可以在一种有趣的环境中考虑这些机会，但既有趣又具有高度的功能性和适用性。

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 hard working sets per muscle group per week in order to maintain or build muscle size and strength.

举例来说，如果你已经进行了阻力训练，并且你正在做我们现在普遍认为的领域，那就是每个肌肉群每周至少进行六组艰苦的训练，以维持或增强肌肉的大小和力量。

Some of you don't want to build muscle size, but everyone should be trying to maintain muscle strength.

有些人不想增加肌肉尺寸，但每个人都应该努力保持肌肉力量。

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.

我们现在知道，肌肉力量和认知功能之间存在非常高的相关性，尤其是当一个人过了 40 岁，甚至更年轻的时候。

So maintaining neuromuscular function and strength is very, very important.

所以维持神经肌肉功能和力量是非常非常重要的。

Even if you don't want to increase muscle size.

即使你不想增加肌肉大小。

You can learn how to do that, by the way.

顺便说一句，您可以学习如何做到这一点。

We have zero cost protocols.

我们有零成本协议。

They're all listed out by going to hubermanlab.com.

访问 hubermanlab.com 即可列出所有这些信息。

Check out the series I did with Dr. Andy Galpin.

看看我和安迪·加尔平博士一起做的系列。

Check out the key toolkit takeaways from that series, also available at hubermanlab.com.

查看该系列的主要工具包要点，也可在 hubermanlab.com 上获取。

Just put exercise protocols into the search function.

只需将锻炼方案放入搜索功能即可。

But let's say you're already resistance training.

但假设您已经在进行阻力训练。

You're already doing cardiovascular training.

您已经在进行心血管训练了。

What can you do to build up your tenacity and willpower for application in not just that endeavor but other endeavors?

你可以做些什么来增强你的坚韧和意志力，不仅可以应用于这项工作，还可以应用于其他工作？

Well, pick something that you don't want to do.

好吧，选择一些你不想做的事情。

These are what I call, in a very non-scientific way, micro sucks.

这就是我所说的，以一种非常不科学的方式，微烂。

These things suck, but they suck a little bit and they're safe, right?

这些东西很糟糕，但它们有点糟糕而且很安全，对吧？

You have to pick things that are safe for you.

你必须选择对你来说安全的东西。

But they suck enough that they require some effort.

但它们太糟糕了，需要一些努力。

They require getting over some friction, engaging in something that you don't reflexively want to do.

他们需要克服一些摩擦，从事一些你本能地不想做的事情。

So for instance, that might be one extra set at the end of a round of three to five sets of a given exercise.

举例来说，这可能是在一轮三到五组的给定练习结束时额外的一组。

Or it could be, for instance, 100 jumping jacks at the end of what you consider a hard run.

或者，例如，在您认为的艰苦跑步结束时进行 100 次开合跳。

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?

例如，可能是完成语言课，然后决定静坐五分钟，思考当你非常想跳上手机时学到的材料，对吗？

Pick circumstances where the degree of resistance is very high, where the degree of impulse to do something else than the thing that you know you need to do is very high, and then start applying those on a regular basis.

选择阻力程度非常高的情况，以及做你知道自己需要做的事情之外的事情的冲动程度非常高的情况，然后开始定期应用这些情况。

It could be after every workout.

可能是在每次锻炼之后。

It could be in the middle of the workout.

它可能是在锻炼的中间。

For instance, some people have a really hard time not looking at their phone during a workout.

例如，有些人在锻炼时很难不看手机。

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.

我喜欢在锻炼时听播客或音乐，但我在锻炼时确实尝试抵制发短信和阅读电子邮件之类的事情。

So the harder that becomes, the more I think about it and the more I resist it, the more presumably activation of the anterior midcingulate cortex I'm getting and that you would get as well.

因此，事情变得越困难，我思考得越多，我就越抗拒它，我和你也会得到的前中扣带皮层的激活就越可能。

So these little micro sucks like, "Ah, it sucks not to look at the phone right now.

所以这些小微很糟糕，“啊，现在不看手机真是太糟糕了。

It sucks to do 100 jumping jacks at the end of a run." Of course, if you're excited to do the 100 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 anterior midcingulate cortex.

在跑步结束时做 100 个开合跳真是太糟糕了。”当然，如果您很高兴在跑步结束时做 100 次开合跳，那么这并不是激活和增加前扣带皮层体积的好方法。

Everything we've talked about up until now supports the statement I just made.

到目前为止我们所讨论的一切都支持我刚才的声明。

Easy tasks, desirable tasks, don't do it.

简单的任务，理想的任务，不要做。

It's the thing you don't want to do.

这是你不想做的事情。

So imparting these little micro sucks can be very useful.

因此，传递这些微小的微吸可能非常有用。

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.

你必须考虑一下你将哪些特定的微坏习惯融入到你的锻炼习惯、认知习惯和日常生活中，以及融入的频率。

I don't think you need to go completely berserk on this, doing them all day long.

我认为你不需要为此完全发疯，整天都这样做。

But keep in mind that these are the sorts of behaviors and resistance of behaviors, because again, certain micro sucks might be, if you're somebody who practices intermittent fasting, we don't want to send you into the realm of eating disorder, but maybe you really do wait an extra 15 minutes before your usual first mealtime, which for me would really suck.

但请记住，这些都是行为和行为的阻力，因为，如果你是一个实行间歇性禁食的人，我们不想让你进入饮食失调的领域，因为同样，某些微糟糕可能是，但也许你真的在你通常的第一次进餐前多等了 15 分钟，这对我来说真的很糟糕。

That might even move from micro suck into macro suck because I like to eat when I'm hungry.

这甚至可能从微观吮吸转变为宏观吮吸，因为我喜欢在饿的时候吃东西。

But waiting a few extra minutes for no other reason than allowing oneself to activate that anterior midcingulate cortex circuitry would be one way to try and build up one's tenacity and willpower.

但是，除了让自己激活前中扣带皮层电路之外，多等待几分钟将是尝试增强一个人的坚韧和意志力的一种方法。

So at some level, this should all seem pretty logical.

所以在某种程度上，这一切看起来都应该很合乎逻辑。

It actually doesn't even require a firm understanding of the underlying neuroscience for it to Kind of makes sense, right?

实际上，它甚至不需要对基础神经科学有深入的了解，它就有意义，对吧？

You want to do something, you resist doing it.

你想做某事，却拒绝去做。

That's building up tenacity and willpower.

这就是增强坚韧和意志力。

You don't really want to do something, you do it.

你并不是真的想做某事，你就去做。

That's building up tenacity and willpower.

这就是增强坚韧和意志力。

Well, I do believe, in fact, there is 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.

嗯，我确实相信，事实上，有很多数据支持这样一个事实：当我们尝试执行这些不同类型的行为来增强坚韧和意志力时，我们对坚韧和意志力等事物背后的机制的理解非常有利。

Why?

为什么？

Well, today we learned that there's a huge variety of contexts in which one can activate the anterior midcingulate cortex, which means that it's not cardiovascular exercise per se.

好吧，今天我们了解到，有很多种情况可以激活前中扣带皮层，这意味着它本身不是心血管运动。

It's not resisting the cookie per se, right?

它本身并不抗拒cookie，对吧？

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, even though it really, really sucks to do that.

它不是再等 15 分钟吃饭，也不是在学习结束后确保你安静地坐着，不看手机，而是认真思考你学到的东西，尽管这样做真的非常糟糕。

It's really hard.

真的很难。

It creates a lot of agitation.

它引起了很大的骚动。

It's not about any one of those protocols, if you will, per se.

如果你愿意的话，这本身与这些协议中的任何一个无关。

Rather, it's about deliberate engagement in the behaviors that we least want to do in a given moment.

相反，它是关于在特定时刻故意从事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.

或者，如果你想建立意志力和坚韧不做某些类型的行为，这就是我们抑制行为的能力。

Now, I do want to highlight the potential hazards of this type of approach to building up tenacity and willpower, and indeed, to life.

现在，我确实想强调这种增强坚韧和意志力乃至生活的方法的潜在危险。

And we can call on the earlier example of eating disorders as a very salient one, right?

我们可以将早期饮食失调的例子视为一个非常突出的例子，对吗？

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.

有一种方式可以让所有这些变得疯狂，我们可以如此沉迷于坚忍，我们可以如此沉迷于建立坚韧和意志力的想法，以至于它把我们带入了对我们心理、情感和/或身体不健康的领域。

And that's certainly not the goal here, and I certainly don't want to motivate that type of behavior or resistance of behavior.

这当然不是这里的目标，我当然不想激发这种行为或抵制行为。

We should all be seeking a relationship with life and with goals, et cetera, 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 anterior midcingulate cortex of people, right?

我们都应该寻求与生活和目标等的关系，这涉及到，是的，我相信一定程度的激活坚韧和意志力，真正找到我们内心的斗争，就像帕尔维兹和同事在刺激人们的前扣带皮层时发现的那样，对吗？

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.

突然间，他们会说，“是的，我正在驶入风暴，”或者，“有一些事情即将发生，我将不得不抵抗。

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.

我要么必须做某事，要么拒绝做某事，但我内心有一些东西被激活了。”我认为非常重要的是，我们所有人都能够获得这些资源并自愿激活我们体内的这些状态。

But I also know from experience and from observing others, and indeed from the literature on the anterior midcingulate 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.

但我也从经验和观察他人中了解到，实际上从有关前中扣带皮层的文献中也知道，因为它与饮食失调以及神经和精神挑战的其他方面有关，我们还需要学习如何关闭它。

With that said, the little micro sucks that we discussed, 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.

话虽如此，我们讨论过的小事很糟糕，即在心血管训练课程结束时增加 100 次开合跳，而此时你宁愿直接洗澡回家。

Getting into the cold shower or cold plunge when you absolutely don't want to do it.

当你绝对不想洗冷水澡或冷水浴时。

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, et cetera.

好吧，只要你能安全地做到这一点，如果你的目标是增强坚韧和意志力，那么这将是最好的时机，更不用说刻意的寒冷暴露和开合跳等运动的已知好处了。

There are also entire landscapes of life and academics and sport that afford us the opportunity to build up tenacity and willpower.

还有整个生活、学术和体育领域，为我们提供了增强坚韧和意志力的机会。

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.

例如，我记得在研究生院参加所谓的资格考试时，他们会问你问题，直到你说：“我不知道。”直到你不知道答案。

It's just like that puzzle in the Baumeister study.

这就像鲍迈斯特研究中的谜题一样。

They're taking you to the point where you basically can't win.

他们正在把你带到你基本上无法获胜的地步。

And that turns out to be a very important lesson that extends beyond the information that they're asking you about.

事实证明，这是一个非常重要的教训，它超出了他们向您询问的信息范围。

And of course, every student at the end of their qualifying exam runs off and figures out the answer to the question that they couldn't get the right answer to.

当然，每个学生在资格考试结束时都会跑去寻找他们无法得到正确答案的问题的答案。

Sometimes there is a right answer, sometimes there's not.

有时有正确答案，有时则没有。

If the committee is pretty diabolical, they'll give you an impossible to answer question because there's no answer.

如果委员会非常邪恶，他们会给你一个无法回答的问题，因为没有答案。

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.

但关键是，无论是否武术、体育、音乐、学术、与他人相处，达到无法解决难题的地步都是有价值的。

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 endpoint, right?

我认为这对我们来说是一个重要的信息，需要我们理解并可能将其纳入我们的工具和协议中，即有些努力是没有终点的，对吗？

There's no winning, there's no finish line.

没有胜利，也没有终点线。

And those type of endeavors are extremely important.

这些类型的努力极其重要。

Extremely important for continually building up our tenacity and willpower.

对于不断增强我们的坚韧和意志力极其重要。

So much so that we can even take a somewhat 3,000-mile view from the top down onto everything we've talked about today and think about those SuperAgers.

如此之大，以至于我们甚至可以从上到下以 3,000 英里的视角观察我们今天讨论的一切，并思考那些超级老年人。

Those SuperAgers that somehow are able to maintain the cognitive function of a much younger person.

那些超级老年人能够以某种方式保持年轻人的认知功能。

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.

如果你查看超级老年人和与他们类似的人的数据，你会发现他们总是从事一些对他们来说很难的活动。

They're always trying to learn something, and they have a sort of playfulness about it.

他们总是试图学习一些东西，并且对此有一种顽皮的态度。

But they seek out those friction points, both resistance of certain behaviors, right?

但他们会寻找那些摩擦点，即对某些行为的抵制，对吗？

Trying to not do certain things, but perhaps more often doing certain things.

尝试不做某些事情，但也许更经常做某些事情。

Learning a new skill.

学习一项新技能。

Learning pottery.

学习陶艺。

Learning music.

学习音乐。

Placing themselves into novel environments that are a little uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable, provided that it's safe.

将自己置于有点不舒服或非常不舒服的新环境中，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 anterior midcingulate 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.

因此，从这个角度来看，人们甚至可以接受这样一种想法，因为这些人的寿命比其他人长得多，除了保持年轻得多的人的认知功能之外，也许前中扣带皮层将资源分配给我们大脑和身体的不同部分以满足某些动机目标的能力，实际上与我们所说的生存意愿有关。

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 related somehow to brain energetics and glucose.

现在，对于像我这样的科学家来说，生存意志的概念肯定变得有点模糊，是的，我很高兴接受与坚韧和意志力等心理结构相关的讨论，但正如你可能已经注意到的，我对这个想法感到非常满意和兴奋，好吧，也许它与大脑能量和葡萄糖有关。

Maybe not.

也许不是。

Certainly, I'm on board the idea that beliefs impact our physiology, and physiology impacts our beliefs, a la Dr. Ali Crumb, who was a guest on this podcast previously, talked about belief and mindset effects, which are very powerful.

当然，我同意信念影响我们的生理机能，而生理机能影响我们的信念，阿里·克拉姆博士（Ali Crumb）之前是这个播客的嘉宾，他谈到了信念和心态的影响，这是非常强大的。

They change our physiology literally, and the Dweck data that we talked about today.

它们从字面上改变了我们的生理机能，以及我们今天讨论的德韦克数据。

But Of course, also that there are brain areas and circuits that underlie these things that we call tenacity and willpower.

当然，还有一些大脑区域和回路是我们称之为坚韧和意志力的基础。

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 there are underlying physiological explanations, not the least of which is likely to be the maintenance, if not growth, over the lifespan of this anterior midcingulate cortex.

因此，当我们讨论坚韧和意志力，然后发现自己像现在一样谈论生存意愿时，我认为这样说并不过分：当人们查看有关长寿的数据时，包括身体和心理上的长寿，很明显存在潜在的生理学解释，其中最重要的可能是前中扣带皮层在整个生命周期中的维持（如果不是生长的话）。

But also that the people that are achieving that are continually forging in their environment.

而且那些取得成就的人也在他们的环境中不断进步。

They're continually looking for new environments.

他们不断寻找新的环境。

They're continually exploring.

他们不断探索。

They are not becoming complacent.

他们并没有变得自满。

They are not becoming sedentary.

他们不会变得久坐。

They are not existing down at that end of the continuum that we call apathy and depression.

它们并不存在于我们所说的冷漠和抑郁的连续体的末端。

But that they're not existing down there, 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.

但它们并不存在于下面，而是存在于我们称之为坚韧和意志力的连续体的末端，以及到达那里的参与动机，动机，再次作为动词。

But in doing that, that they're reinforcing the very circuits that give rise to tenacity and willpower.

但在这样做的过程中，他们正在强化产生坚韧和意志力的回路。

This is what, in engineering terms, is referred to as a closed loop.

从工程术语来说，这就是所谓的闭环。

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.

就像你做A，这会导致B，B，B，C，C会反馈到A，使A更有可能发生。

It's like turning the little A into a capital A, and then turning it into a boldface capital underline A.

这就像将小A变成大写A，然后将其变成粗体大写下划线A。

The buildup of neural circuits.

神经回路的建立。

So while today we focused a lot on an individual brain area, anterior midcingulate cortex, and in many ways I presented it as if it's the be-all end-all of tenacity and willpower.

因此，虽然今天我们重点关注单个大脑区域——前中扣带皮层，但我在很多方面都将它呈现为坚韧和意志力的终极目标。

It is not the be-all end-all of tenacity and willpower.

这并不是坚韧和意志力的最终目的。

It's our ability to engage the anterior midcingulate cortex that allows us to express tenacity and willpower.

正是我们调动前扣带皮层的能力使我们能够表现出坚韧和意志力。

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.

但在这种闭环方式中，我们表达坚韧和意志力的能力会反馈到该回路，并使其变得更加强大，并且在未来当我们遇到我们不想做的事情或我们必须非常强烈地抵制以免陷入某种行为或思维模式时更容易接近。

So the big takeaway is that if you want to increase your tenacity and willpower, you absolutely can.

所以最重要的是，如果你想增强你的坚韧和意志力，你绝对可以。

You can do that by triggering activation of this incredible hub within the brain, the anterior midcingulate 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.

你可以通过触发大脑中这个令人难以置信的中枢的激活来做到这一点，即前扣带皮层，现在有大量证据证明它至少是产生坚韧和意志力的整个过程的核心。

The, "I absolutely will do that," and the, "No, I absolutely won't do that." It's the resistance hub.

“我绝对会那样做”，“不，我绝对不会那样做”。这是抵抗中心。

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.

这是分配资源去做我们不想做的事情或者有人试图阻止我们做的事情。

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 us to do when we decide that's not good for us.

当我们认为这对我们不利时，大脑区域也使我们能够抵制做我们想做的事情或别人希望我们做的事情。

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 Kolm 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.

基于心理学文献，基于神经科学文献，基于现在正在出现的美丽文献，包括科尔姆研究，以及其他一些研究，我们确实可以确定，我们真的可以增强我们的坚韧和意志力能力，也许我们会在以后的节目中讨论这些研究。

It's a real thing.

这是真实的事情。

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.

作为最后一点，实际上作为最终协议，我非常高兴能够研究上周 Neuron 早期发布的同行评审论文，并看到有一项研究，尽管是在临床前模型中，在动物模型中，探索了所谓的压力缓解作为一种自然恢复机制。

And I won't go into this study in full detail, especially not now late into a slightly long episode such as this one.

我不会详细讨论这项研究，尤其是现在才进入像本集这样稍长的一集。

But what the study showed is that when an animal is in a state of despair or anhedonia, lack of pleasure, when it's under stress, and then that stress is removed, there's a sense of reward.

但研究表明，当动物处于绝望或快感缺乏、缺乏快乐的状态时，当它处于压力之下，然后压力消除时，就会有一种奖励感。

There's a sense of wellbeing that accompanies that release of stress, and that's pretty obvious.

压力的释放伴随着一种幸福感，这是非常明显的。

And that's something that we've known about for a very long time.

这是我们很长时间以来都知道的事情。

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.

但这项研究的有趣之处在于，他们实际上从其对人类的潜在适用性方面讨论了这一点，即当我们能够承受压力时，也许这种压力是学校，也许这种压力是一种特殊的关系。

Again, you never want to do these things in a way that's unhealthy or dangerous.

再说一次，你永远不想以不健康或危险的方式做这些事情。

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.

但当我们能够做到这一点时，我们随后感受到的轻松感本身就是一种奖励，它有助于强化我们克服压力源的整个过程的坚韧和意志力。

And an interesting thing about this study is that they went on to compound that reward.

这项研究的一个有趣的事情是，他们继续增加这种奖励。

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.

他们表明，在经历了压力事件后奖励自己实际上可以提高未来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'll at least consider, again, provided you do it safely, this seems like a very good thing to do for all of us, especially as we age, and guess what?

换句话说，如果你决定开发某些工具和协议来提高你的坚韧和意志力水平，坦率地说，我希望你至少再次考虑一下，只要你安全地做到这一点，这对我们所有人来说似乎都是一件非常好的事情，尤其是随着我们年龄的增长，你猜怎么着？

We're all aging from the time we're born.

从我们出生的那一刻起，我们就都在衰老。

If you decide to do that, pick something that's challenging, overcome that challenge.

如果你决定这样做，那就选择一些有挑战性的事情，克服这个挑战。

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.

同样，这可能是当您不想或抵制您本来想从事的特定行为时从事特定行为的要求。

But also, when you've successfully completed that resistance, when you've engaged that tenacity and willpower and you've activated that anterior midcingulate 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.

而且，当你成功地完成了这种抵抗，当你投入了坚韧和意志力，并且你激活了前扣带皮层，那么偶尔，不是总是，但偶尔为自己提供一些你喜欢的东西的奖励，这里它是非常主观的，你只需要选择你喜欢的东西，再次，希望能够促进健康而不是损害健康的东西可以进一步强化你刚刚从事的行为，这会增加你的韧性和意志力。

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.

如果你听过我关于多巴胺动机和驱动力或更广泛地关于多巴胺的剧集，你就会知道我不喜欢因为胜利而奖励自己，也不喜欢定期或每次都用坚韧或意志力来奖励自己。

This is the sort of thing that just randomly, every once in a while, when you've done the hard thing or if 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.

这是一种随机的事情，每隔一段时间，当你完成了困难的事情或者你抵制了那些拉扯你的事情时，你应该奖励自己，但当然，以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.

对于那些有兴趣了解更多有关如何奖励坚韧和意志力行为的人。

I'll provide a link to the recently published paper in "Neuron" in the show note captions.

我将在节目注释标题中提供最近在“Neuron”中发表的论文的链接。

I will also be doing a toolkit episode that relates to what we covered today, as well as some additional tools gleaned from other papers and resources in the not-too-distant future.

我还将制作一个与我们今天介绍的内容相关的工具包剧集，以及在不久的将来从其他论文和资源中收集的一些其他工具。

Thank you for joining me for today's discussion all about tenacity and willpower.

感谢您参加今天关于坚韧和意志力的讨论。

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.

我们讨论了从心理学领域的研究中收集到的观点，即坚韧和意志力是有限的资源，也许它们与自我损耗的概念有关，而自我损耗的概念又与这样的观点有关，即我们运用坚韧和意志力的能力被损耗或受到限制的东西在某种程度上与大脑能量和燃料消耗（即葡萄糖）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.

我还谈到了相互矛盾的数据，这些数据认为，如果我们相信坚韧和意志力是有限的，而葡萄糖是限制它们的因素，那么，这正是发生的情况。

So I talked about that controversy and some of the data that actually reconcile a bit of the differences there.

所以我谈到了这个争议以及一些实际上可以调和一些差异的数据。

So in the absence of new data, you'll have to decide for yourself what you believe about tenacity and willpower.

因此，在缺乏新数据的情况下，您必须自己决定对坚韧和意志力的看法。

However, it's very important to acknowledge the universal truth, which is that our tenacity and willpower rides on the tide of autonomic function.

然而，承认一个普遍真理非常重要，那就是我们的坚韧和意志力取决于自主功能的潮流。

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.

也就是说，当我们睡眠不足、感到痛苦、情绪痛苦或心烦意乱时，我们的坚韧和意志力就会减弱，这就要求我们所有人确保通过早晨的阳光、充足的睡眠、充足的营养、社交联系来照顾我们的自主功能，这些都是我在之前的剧集中广泛介绍的。

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 related to reward, executive function, autonomic function, motor planning, goal seeking, et cetera, that we call the anterior midcingulate cortex.

然后我们讨论了坚韧和意志力的神经基础，以及这个绝对令人难以置信的大脑结构，我们将其称为中枢，因为它不是孤立运行的，而是从与奖励、执行功能、自主功能、运动规划、目标寻求等相关的许多不同大脑区域获取输入，我们称之为前中扣带皮层。

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 midcingulate cortex and thereby build up our future capacity to engage the anterior midcingulate cortex when we need to call on tenacity and willpower.

这个非常有趣的大脑区域似乎能够产生我们称之为坚韧和意志力的东西，当我们通过做我们最不想做的事情、不做我们在特定时刻最想做的事情来参与或表达坚韧和意志力时，我们实际上可以建立我们的前中扣带皮层，从而增强我们未来在需要坚韧和意志力时参与前中扣带皮层的能力。

And then we talked about some of the peer-reviewed data that shows how that actually can be done, where these individuals who were not previously exercising did a challenging three one-hour sessions per week of cardiovascular training, and indeed, their anterior midcingulate 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，这些数据显示了如何实际做到这一点，这些以前没有锻炼过的人每周进行三堂具有挑战性的一小时的心血管训练，事实上，他们的前中扣带皮层及其与它的连接和远离它的连接以一种将他们与年龄相关的群体区分开来的方式增加。

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.

也就是说，他们的大脑保持年轻，甚至可能变得更年轻，而那些没有做困难事情、没有投入坚韧和意志力的人，没有经历同样的效果。

And 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.

然后我们讨论了如何将这些数据扩展到许多不同的领域，例如认知学习、学习语言、学习数学、学习艺术、学习任何数量的不同事物，或者在物理领域，进行人们尚未参与的某些类型的锻炼。

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 midcingulate cortex, AKA tenacity and willpower.

添加一点额外的运动，特别是在你最不想做的时候，或者延长你的禁食期（如果你正在做的事情并且你可以健康地做的话），仅仅是因为它可以让你锻炼你的前扣带皮层，也就是坚韧和意志力。

And of course, we highlighted that all of that needs to be done in the context of psychological and physical safety.

当然，我们强调所有这些都需要在心理和身体安全的背景下完成。

We don't want anyone to do things that are going to be physically damaging to themselves.

我们不希望任何人做对自己身体造成伤害的事情。

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?

但如果一个人只是采取这样的立场：好吧，我现在可以做些什么来让我增强坚韧和意志力？

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.

好吧，这将是我在那一刻最不想做的事情，或者是我在那一刻最不想抗拒做的事情。

To periodically add in those little, what I refer to as micro sucks, a very non-scientific, frankly, non-psychological term, but I think we all understand what it means.

定期添加这些小东西，我所说的“微烂”，一个非常不科学、坦率地说、非心理学的术语，但我想我们都明白它的含义。

Little things that we don't want to do, but that if we do them, you can be sure that you are activating the anterior midcingulate 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，但如果我们做了，你可以确定你正在激活前中扣带皮层，从而增加你将来更容易获得坚韧和意志力的可能性。

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.

所以我今天所做的就是解释心理学和神经科学领域的科学研究，解释什么是坚韧和意志力，以及是什么让我们能够随着时间的推移增强坚韧和意志力。

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.

然后，真正取决于我们所有人，你、我和其他人，弄清楚我们将决定在哪些特定领域以及以何种频率来增强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 that 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，坚韧和意志力不仅是我们需要时时调用以克服困难的资源，而且确实调用我们的能力并增强我们的坚韧和意志力能力可以使我们更加丰富地享受生活，甚至可以通过激发生存意志来延长我们的生命。

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.

感谢您与我一起参加今天关于坚韧和意志力的科学以及提高个人获得坚韧和意志力的能力的工具和协议的讨论。

If you're learning from and/or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

如果您正在学习和/或喜欢此播客，请订阅我们的 YouTube 频道。

That's a terrific zero-cost way to support us.

这是支持我们的绝佳零成本方式。

In addition, please subscribe to the podcast on both Spotify and Apple.

此外，请在 Spotify 和 Apple 上订阅该播客。

And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five-star review.

在 Spotify 和 Apple 上，您都可以给我们五星级的评价。

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 comments section on YouTube.

如果您对我有疑问或对您希望我在 Huberman Lab 播客上报道的播客或主题或嘉宾有意见，请将这些意见放入 YouTube 的评论部分。

I do read all the comments.

我确实阅读了所有评论。

In addition, please check out the sponsors mentioned at the beginning and throughout today's episode.

此外，请查看今天节目开头和整个节目中提到的赞助商。

That's the best way to support this podcast.

这是支持这个播客的最佳方式。

Not on today's episode, but on many previous episodes of the Huberman Lab podcast, we discuss supplements.

不是在今天的节目中，而是在 Huberman Lab 播客的许多之前的节目中，我们讨论了补充剂。

While supplements aren't necessary for everybody, many people derive tremendous benefit from them, for things like improving sleep, for hormone support, and for focus.

虽然补充剂并不是每个人都需要的，但许多人都从它们中获得了巨大的好处，例如改善睡眠、支持激素和集中注意力。

To see the supplements discussed on the Huberman Lab podcast, go to Live Momentous, spelled O-U-S, so it's livemomentous.com/huberman.

要查看 Huberman Lab 播客上讨论的补充内容，请访问 Live Momentous，拼写为 O-U-S，即 livemomentous.com/huberman。

If you're not already following me on social media, you can do so by going to Huberman Lab on all social media platforms.

如果您还没有在社交媒体上关注我，您可以通过所有社交媒体平台上的 Huberman Lab 来关注我。

So that's Instagram, Twitter, now called X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Threads.

这就是 Instagram、Twitter（现在称为 X）、LinkedIn、Facebook 和 Threads。

On all of those platforms, I cover science and science-related tools, some of which overlaps with the content of the Huberman Lab podcast, but much of which is distinct from the content covered on the Huberman Lab podcast.

在所有这些平台上，我介绍了科学和科学相关的工具，其中一些与胡伯曼实验室播客的内容重叠，但其中大部分与胡伯曼实验室播客所涵盖的内容不同。

Again, that's Huberman Lab on all social media platforms.

再说一次，这就是所有社交媒体平台上的 Huberman Lab。

If you haven't already subscribed to our Neural Network Newsletter, the Neural Network Newsletter is a zero-cost monthly newsletter that includes podcast summaries as well as toolkits.

如果您尚未订阅我们的神经网络新闻通讯，神经网络新闻通讯是一份零成本的每月新闻通讯，其中包括播客摘要和工具包。

So toolkits for sleep, toolkits for learning and plasticity, toolkits related to dopamine regulation, and much more.

因此，睡眠工具包、学习和可塑性工具包、与多巴胺调节相关的工具包等等。

Again, it's all zero cost.

再说一次，这一切都是零成本。

You simply go to hubermanlab.com, go to the Menu tab, scroll down to Newsletter, and simply enter your email, and we do not share your email with anybody.

您只需访问 hubermanlab.com，转到菜单选项卡，向下滚动到时事通讯，然后输入您的电子邮件，我们不会与任何人共享您的电子邮件。

Thank you once again for joining me for today's discussion about tenacity and willpower.

再次感谢您参加今天关于坚韧和意志力的讨论。

And last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in science.

最后但并非最不重要的一点是，感谢您对科学的兴趣。