15. The neurobiology of grit

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Hi friends,

Welcome to the fifteenth dispatch of How Humans Flourish, a research-informed newsletter on how humans thrive.

For the month of April, we’ve been reading “Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest” by bestselling author, longevity expert, and National Geographic Researcher Dan Buettner.  

If I had to summarize Dan’s nine lessons in a sentence, it’d be this statement from the World Health Organization: Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

This mirrors the resounding beat this newsletter has been drumming since its inception– that if we are open enough, we can envision a health paradigm that moves beyond simply treating sickness, and allows for the flourishing of our physicality, our mentality, and even our relationships*. 

(*Why relationships? Because the opposite of enjoying deeply intimate and robust relationships is experiencing deep and robust loneliness… which increases blood pressure and cholesterol, causes our immune systems to function less efficiently, and increases the risk for cardiovascular disease).  

I’ve been re-reading MacArthur Fellow Angela Duckworth’s fantastic book, Grit, and thinking through the intricacies of why some people find it easier to consistently take care of their health than others.

Of course, priorities are a major factor. 23 year old Melissa throwing back shots of cheap Tequila 3am on a Tuesday would be shocked to see today’s Melissa going to bed at 10pm after having a cup of herbal tea.

But, if we’re honest, you’d be hard pressed to ask a random person on the street if their health is a priority and have them say no. 

Most of us believe we want the best for ourselves… but we don’t always act like it.

This becomes even more prescient when looking at these three Blue Zone lessons:

1. Move naturally– be active without thinking about it:

   1. i.e. Take stairs instead of the elevator, park far from the store so you’re forced to walk longer, sit on the floor more so you have to work your muscles whenever you get up, etc.  

2. Stop eating when 80% full (or cut calories by 20%):

   1. Okinawans have a phrase they repeat every time they are about to eat, kind of like a prayer before a meal: hara hachi bu. Inspired by Confucius’s teachings (though it’s also taught in Zen Buddhism and Ayurvedic Medicine), it’s a mantra to remember to eat mindfully and stop when 80% full.   

   2. i.e. Reflect on when you’re most prone to eat more than intended… while stressed? While watching Netflix? While in the car? All instances where there’s a lack of intentionality or mindfulness.

3. Down shift - take time to consistently relieve stress: 

   1. Being perpetually stressed triggers chronic inflammation in the body. What’s more, perpetually stressed individuals stress the people nearest and dearest to them, impacting their loved one’s health as well.

These three lessons are not necessarily rocket science… but, why can they be so difficult to execute consistently?

Read the following statements below and reflect on how much you agree or disagree with each:

1. Your drive is something very basic about you that you can’t change very much.

2. You can push yourself to try new things, but you really can’t change how much drive you have.

3. No matter how much drive you have, you can always change it quite a bit.

4. You can always substantially change how much drive you have.

According to Angela, “If you found yourself nodding affirmatively to the first two statements but shaking your head in disagreement with the last two, then Carol would say you have more of a fixed mindset. If you had the opposite reaction, then Carol would say you tend toward a growth mindset.” (Duckworth, pg. 180)

The Carol she is referring to is Carol Dweck, Stanford professor and author of award-winning Mindset: the New Psychology of Success. After being curious about the private theories we all hold about how the world works and in particular how it works for us, Carol developed the theory of growth and fixed mindset. 

Angela writes, “I like to think of a growth mindset this way: Some of us believe, deep down, that people really can change. These growth-oriented people assume that it’s possible, for example, to get smarter if you’re given the right opportunities and support and if you try hard enough and if you believe you can do it. Conversely, some people think you can learn skills, like how to ride a bike or do a sales pitch, but your capacity to learn skills–your talent–can’t be trained. The problem with holding the latter fixed-mindset view– and many people who consider themselves talented do– is that no road is without bumps. Eventually, you’re going to hit one. At that point, having a fixed mind-set becomes a tremendous liability. This is when a rejection letter, a disappointing progress review at work, or any other setback can derail you. With a fixed mindset, you’re likely to interpret these setbacks as evidence that, after all, you don’t have ‘the right stuff’ – you’re not good enough. With a growth mindset, you believe you can learn to do better.” (Duckworth, pg. 180)

Carol and Angela asked more than two thousand high school seniors to complete a growth-mindset questionnaire and found students with a growth mindset to be significantly grittier than students with a fixed mindset. Angela then went on to measure growth mindset and grit in younger children and older adults, and in every sample, found that growth mindset and grit go together.

What do growth mindset + grit equal?

Follow-through.

But, as we’ve been learning the last few months, so much of mindset is shaped by adversarial experiences in our childhood and our interpretation of the adversity.

According to neuroscientist Dr. Steve Maier, “You’ve got lots of places in the brain that respond to aversive experiences. Like the amygdala. In fact, there are a whole bunch of limbic areas that respond to stress… These limbic structures are regulated by higher-order brain areas, like the prefrontal cortex. And so, if you have an appraisal, a thought, a belief… that says, ‘Wait a minute, I can do something about this!’ or ‘This really isn’t so bad!’, then these inhibitory structures in the cortex are activated. They send a message: ‘Cool it down there! Don’t get so activated. There’s something we can do…’

If you experience adversity–something pretty potent– that you overcome on your own during your youth, you develop a different way of dealing with adversity later on. It’s important that the adversity be pretty potent because these brain areas really have to wire together in some fashion, and that doesn’t happen with just minor inconveniences… 

Just telling somebody they can overcome adversity isn’t enough. For the rewiring to happen, you have to activate the control circuitry at the same time as those low-level areas. That happens when you experience mastery as the same time as adversity… You need to learn that there’s a contingency between your actions and what happens to you: ‘If I do something, then something will happen.’” (Duckworth, pg. 189-190)

When I first sat with both an instructional curriculum designer and transformational coach to develop break*through’s first curriculum, I thought we had to build something Tony Robbins-esque. Something that would motivate people, leave them feeling motivated to walk on fire if they needed to. 

But, I quickly realized instead of asking, how can I motivate people? It’d be better to create “a creative virtual laboratory” that allows people to motivate themselves. 

What’s that phrase? 

The rewards you’re looking for are in the hard work you’re avoiding.

In order to inconvenience ourselves long enough to change our daily habits, routines, and patterns in a way that creates space for increased physical, mental, and social wellbeing, we have to believe we can do it. 

More so, we have to believe we can do it consistently. 

This consistency cultivates self-worth, which cultivates confidence, which cultivates the ability to bounce back and try again. 

With gratitude,