Ice baths, 4 AM wake-up calls, fasts and more are garnering big-time attention on social media and elsewhere as paths to mental toughness, personal success and more. Beyond the 15 minutes of fame garnered by the post, is there any legitimate science behind these and other less dramatic ways to step into and through discomfort? And why, in the midst of the growing popularity of these strategies, do most of us often find it difficult – not to step into an ice bath - but to simply get off the couch and get moving?

What does the science – the evidence - tell us? Is an ability to do hard things due to genetics? Habit? A combination of the two? Are there ways to enhance our ability to step into challenges with purpose? Or are we just stuck with the way we are, with no practical ways in which to enhance our skill set in this realm? In this episode, we’ll dig into these questions and more as we explore the part of the brain that appears to play a significant role in the process of moving outside our veritable comfort zones, and why it’s so important to both our current and future lives.

Bibliography

Feldman Barrett, Lisa. How Emotions Are Made. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.

Baumeister, Roy F., Ellen Bratslavsky, Mark Muraven, and Dianne M. Tice. “Ego Depletion: Is the Active Self a Limited Resource?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74, no. 5 (1998): 1252–65. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1252.

Chen, Ying‐Chun, Yun‐Hsin Huang, and Nai‐Shing Yen. “Role of Anterior Midcingulate Cortex in Representation and Reward Allocation Judgments within Social Context.” Human Brain Mapping 43, no. 7 (May 2022): 2377–90. https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.25793.

Touroutoglou, Alexandra, Joseph Andreano, Bradford C. Dickerson, and Lisa Feldman Barrett. “The Tenacious Brain: How the Anterior Mid-Cingulate Contributes to Achieving Goals.” Cortex 123 (February 2020): 12–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2019.09.011.

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How to Embrace Discomfort and Challenges (roll of the aMCC)

The Coaching Lab: Evidence-Based High Performance & Wellbeing