Your Drive to Strive, Thrive, and Survive Keeps You Alive

We can get very good at pushing ourselves to our true 100% when there truly isn’t any other choice. Most of us have to be forced into it, with good reason. We have evolved multiple systemic protective mechanisms to keep us safe. These can involve protecting our essential functions like having enough food or simple things like keeping us safe from damage by avoiding stepping on something painful.

In a way, we can think of how our brains work to help us safely regulate our intensity of behaviour using a mechanical metaphor. Engines are meant to run best within a certain operating range of “revolutions per minute,” or RPMs. In any car, truck, or boat equipped with a tachometer, there will be an indicator of where things begin to become unsafe, where the engine will “redline” (usually helpfully indicated on analogue gauges by an actual red line). But this redline usually has a “red zone” before the true redline. And the true redline is usually a bit less than the true maximum RPM. The point is, if you want to, you can go to and beyond the redline. But if you do, your engine may be damaged, possibly irreparable. As a result, most engines have a “governor” or “regulator” that stops the engine from revving too high, despite what you are trying to do.

Essentially, that is how you and I work too. You work within a certain operating range and various mechanisms within help keep you regulated within a safe range. We have hunger and thirst cues to let us know that we need to eat and drink before we are starving and dehydrated. We also have faster reactions that usually do things automatically for us. We have nociceptors in the skin to tell us that the hot stovetop we accidentally put our hand, or the hot rocks at the beach, will cause tissue damage unless we pull away. In these situations, we essentially act automatically and only see that we did after the fact.

There is something important to note, though. We can override almost all our safety cues if we really, really want to. In psychiatric disorders like anorexia nervosa, folks are able to override extreme hunger cues despite the warning from the brain and body. Even something like the foot on burning hot rocks can be overridden if you force yourself to keep it there. I don’t suggest you do this, but if something happened where it was more critical to go over that surface, like rushing to keep your toddler away from a tidal surge, you could do it.

We have all heard stories about the mother who pulled a car door off or the father who lifted a car to save a child from death. These anecdotes fall under the heading of what is sometimes called “hysterical strength” — namely, the ability to do seemingly superhuman and extraordinary feats in extreme situations. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of scientific evidence to rely on when trying to establish what these extreme performances might be based on. This is largely due to the fact that trying to see if a person can do something extreme when they are faced with, for example, death of themselves or a beloved family member would require putting folks in such a situation. This is massively dangerous and clearly unethical.

There are some reports, though, in the older literature where the idea of “hysterical strength” was addressed indirectly by triggering reactions that would occur in normal human responses to danger and the need to act when in danger. Back in 1961, a seemingly simple paper, entitled “Some factors modifying the expression of human strength,” was published in the Journal of Applied Physiology by Michio Ikai from the University of Tokyo and Arthur Steinhaus from George Williams College. With no disrespect to these authors, their study explored muscle strength using methods that would not be possible to replicate in modern times due to danger and related ethical considerations.

Ikai and Steinhaus wrote that their purpose was “... to throw light on the mechanism that determines the psychologic limit and how this limit is changed” in human force production. They asked their participants to produce maximum muscle force of the elbow flexor muscles, which many studies did and have done. The difference is that they then explored the effect that loud noise (from a gunshot or being shouted at or both), depressants (alcohol), stimulants (adrenaline and amphetamines), and decreased attention (hypnosis) might have on maximal strength. Amphetamines and hypnosis (both to induce weakness and enhanced strength) had the largest effects. The bottom line results were that maximal strength could be modulated by around 5-30% by factors that affected the mindset of the participants. This is despite the fact that all participants alleged to be doing their best during all contractions. The idea of "best" is indeed plastic and fluid.

Numerous studies have shown the ability of research study participants to exceed limits in muscle force tasks by such various approaches as verbal encouragement, subliminal reward priming, and sensory stimulation. In my own laboratory, Greg Pearcey, Steve Noble, Bridget Munro and I showed that enhanced sensory stimulation from the skin of the foot could postpone fatigue in a challenging cycling task. This effect certainly had contributions at the spinal cord level but also likely a background effect related to a sense of effort and distraction in the brain. Something related has recently been shown for isolated strength tasks as well.

Taken together, the point of all of this is that for much of the time, most of us are able to do more than we think we can. It often comes down to choices, either free (e.g. in exercise) or forced (e.g. in danger), that we make. At a cognitive level, some of this may be related to the idea that self-regulation of our behaviors has to do with perceptions of the availability of resources. This perception can often be false, and scenarios where we don’t achieve our best might be related to the motivation to reduce discomfort rather than to deplete resources. This concept of "ego depletion" and our related perceptions may have more to do with our belief about capacity rather than true capacity.

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If we put aside the applications in crisis and boil all of this down to some advice for daily living, there is something useful that emerges. We are all different and we all lack control over many things we wish we could control. Something we can all work on, though, is our reactions and our willingness to endure. The power of your will, just like that of your muscles, can be strengthened by use. Like former World Champion boxer Sugar Ray Leonard has said, "When you have the guts and the desire to go beyond the physical limits...and when you do that...you're a fighter."

The upshot of all this is that you are stronger than you typically know. But accessing your true 100% usually requires extreme necessity, reward, or consistent practice and training. You can do more than you think you can. The confidence of that knowledge alone should inspire. The famous football coach Vince Lombardi (1913-1970) maybe put it best when he said, "The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will."

How much of the willpower that we use daily and keep in reserve depends on many factors and is not the same for each of us. The most effective approach is combining skill with will. In my own practice, this is something I think deeply about in relation to my daily martial arts training. Martial arts are the method I use to train my mind, but many other practices of mindfulness also apply. The bottom line is, paraphrasing Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), always try to do your best with what you have where you are. With reflection, doing your best can take on new meaning and can be practiced every day.

© E. Paul Zehr (2020)