Susan Britton MCCICF Award-Winning Coach Educator, Neuroscience-Informed ICF/SHRM Coach Training, INSEAD Executive Masters in Change, Advocate for Evolutionary Shift from “Red Zone” to “Blue Zone” for Leaders, Coaches & Fellow Humans

Neuro Coaching Tip: Anterior MidCingulate Cortex - Challenge Your Client

Name: Neuro Coaching Tip: Anterior MidCingulate Cortex - Challenge Your Client
Uploaded: 2025-02-05T06:00:05+00:00
Duration: 1 min 32 s
Channel: Susan Britton MCC
Description: In this brief coaching tip, Susan Britton MCC explains the role of the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) in self‑regulation and its association with…

5 Feb 2025 · 2 min

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1:32

In this brief coaching tip, Susan Britton MCC explains the role of the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) in self‑regulation and its association with "super‑agers"—individuals whose aMCC remains healthy into old age. The aMCC signals when a person is being asked to undertake actions that are uncomfortable yet beneficial, such as extra exercise reps, dietary changes, or difficult conversations. Britton outlines how coaches can deliberately activate this brain region by asking clients about tasks they are avoiding or postponing, then exploring the conscious and unconscious reasons behind the avoidance (e.g., fear of pain, energy cost, relational threat). By surfacing and challenging these barriers, the coach helps the client align their behavior with their deeper goals, leveraging the aMCC’s motivational function to drive meaningful change.

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Susan with the Academies and a neuroscience coaching tip. So I was learning the other day about a part of the brain called the anterior midcingulate cortex. And apparently this is a part of the brain that is found to be healthy in super agers. And the reason it's healthy is because it's the part of the brain that says, hey, you're asking me to do something that I don't want to do, but I know it's going to be good for me. So that could be doing extra reps for exercise. It could be diet. It could be having difficult conversations that normally you might avoid. So those kinds of things that the brain says, oh, I'm being asked to do something that I don't love doing, and I know it's gonna be healthy for me. That's the kind of thing that we need to be kind of tapping into and thinking about with our clients. So questions that you could ask as a coach to a client to make sure that that anterior insulate cortex is getting activated would be things like, so what is it that you are avoiding doing that you think really could be helpful in this situation? Or what are you putting off that could be quite valuable? And then once you ask a question like that, now you can open it up and kind of explore what are the unconscious or conscious awarenesses that people have about why they don't want to take that risk. It's either going to hurt, it's going to take extra energy, it's going to threaten some part of their relationships or something like that. But now you can have that conversation, and in doing so, you are challenging the client in the best possible way towards the things that are going to really align with what they want out of the coaching relationship.