Most people are not consciously living their lives. They are running a program. And not just part of the time. Almost all of the time.
The Science: Your Brain Is Mostly Automatic
A recent paper in Psychology & Health confirms what neuroscience has been pointing toward for years: (1)
- Human behavior is largely driven by implicit (unconscious) processes
- Daily actions are governed by automatic patterns, not conscious decisions
- Conscious awareness plays only a very small role in moment-to-moment life
Less than 1% is conscious. More than 99% is automatic. That means:
- Your reactions are pre-set
- Your emotions are patterned
- Your habits are running
- Your perception is filtered
You are not responding to reality in real time. You are running a neurological program.
Why the Brain Works This Way: Energy Efficiency
This is not a flaw. This is design. The brain’s number one priority is not truth — it is efficiency.
Your brain consumes about 20% of your body’s total energy, despite being only ~2% of your body weight. Because energy is limited, the brain must conserve it wherever possible. So it developed a solution: Autopilot (Predictive Programming).
Instead of processing everything consciously, the brain:
- Stores past experiences
- Builds predictive models
- Runs those models automatically
This allows it to operate using minimal energy.
The Energy Gap: Autopilot vs Conscious Change
Here is where it becomes critical. Research in neuroscience and cognitive energetics shows: (2)
- Automatic (habitual) brain activity uses very little energy
- Conscious, effortful thinking requires dramatically more energy
Studies on brain metabolism and task demand (prefrontal cortex activation) show that:
- Effortful, conscious processing can increase energy demand up to 100x compared to automated patterns, depending on task complexity and novelty
- The brain will avoid this high-energy state whenever possible
In simple terms: Autopilot = low energy, sustainable while conscious change = high energy, costly. This is why:
- Habits are easy to repeat
- Change feels difficult
- New behaviors feel exhausting
Research:
Psychology & Health (1)
- Behavior is largely automatic and subconscious/unconscious
- Conscious awareness contributes minimally to daily actions
Brain Energy and Default Mode (PNAS / Nature Reviews) (2)
- The brain is constantly running baseline activity (default mode)
- This baseline reflects internal predictions and stored programs
- Task-based conscious effort significantly increases metabolic demand
Key insight: the brain conserves energy by relying on intrinsic activity rather than constant new computation.
Cognitive Effort and Cost (Annual Review of Neuroscience) (3)
- The brain treats effort as a cost
- High-effort (conscious) thinking is metabolically expensive
- The brain biases toward low-effort, habitual processing
Key insight: cognitive control is deployed only when necessary due to its high energetic cost.
Why You Feel “Stuck”
Now you can see why change is so hard. It’s not lack of willpower. It’s biology. Your brain is designed to:
- Stay with the known (low energy)
- Avoid the new (high energy)
So even if you consciously want to change, your brain pulls you back to: the program.
The Deeper Truth
Your life is not being created in the moment. It is being:
- Predicted…
- Filtered…
- Replayed…
From stored programs. And those programs were largely written early in life.
The Way Forward
You don’t break autopilot by force. You override it by:
- Increasing awareness
- Creating new patterns
- Repeating them enough to become automatic
Because once a new pattern becomes efficient, the brain will adopt it.
Dr. Nemec’s Review
A very important point to understand is that the brain conserves energy. It cannot afford to expend the energy unless it’s of the upmost importance. How does the brain determine what’s most important? Three major factors:
- Survival based — it will rewrite a new program when your life depends upon it. If the brain is program for survival first and foremost then it is going to put out the most energy to write programs for survival to ensure that life goes on.
- Fear based — this is one of the highest energy emotions that drives speedy neuron growth.
- Greatly desired choice of change — when it is so strongly wanted in you that you will do anything for it. This energy rises high enough to grow new neurons, new neural pathways. This only occurs when the energy is strong enough. The desire is powerful enough to sacrifice your time, your comfort, your pleasure for months because you absolutely must have the change and you will not settle for anything less. This is not your average “I want to lose weight” desire, or “I want to get in shape” desire. No, this has to have much stronger energy.
The key concept is this: everything is energy at the brain level, and the energy of change will only be as strong as the desire and belief — and not just believed 99%, but 100%. Because if it is believed 99%, one in 100 times you will talk yourself out of it. You will not build the new neural program and pathway, because the only way to build the pathway is to consistently stay in that repetitive program for between three and six months without choosing the other option once in that three to six month period. You are writing a new neural program. You don’t achieve this when you re-stimulate the old neural program.
Let us give you an example: two different patients come in to see us at Revolution New Medicine:
- The first patient wants to lose weight very strongly, is tired of being overweight, and they say they’ll do whatever it takes to drop the 50 pounds permanently.
- The second patient was just diagnosed with stage four metastatic cancer with a prognosis of six months to live. This patient knows if they do not do something very fast, they are going to lose their life.
Which patient do you think would be the closest to 100% choice to change their diet, instead of 99%? What’s the difference the drives the energy? How strongly they desired and believed it.
What’s the take-home message?
You are not living moment to moment in full awareness. You are living from a program designed to conserve energy.
- Autopilot dominates your life
- It exists because it is efficient
- Conscious change is costly — but possible
Conscious effort takes 100X more energy at the cellular level than subconscious unconscious programming.
So the real question is not: “Why can’t I change?” Rather, it is: “Is the desire and belief strong enough to be able to drive the energy to create a new program?”
Because once you do, that new program becomes your new autopilot. And that is where real transformation happens.
Dr. Nemec posts daily teachings on Revolution New Medicine’s YouTube channel so make sure to subscribe and listen to the teachings. They will give you a deeper understanding of your journey into total health and longevity.
Here are the ways we can help you in your health journey:
1. Outpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-has the most benefit of teaching, treatment, live classes and personalized coaching. This program has the most contact with Dr. Nemec with 3- 6 month programs that can be turned into a regular checking and support program for life. This is our core program that has helped so many restore their health and maintain that restoration for years.
2. Inpatient Comprehensive Teaching and Treatment Program-is our four-week intensive inpatient program for those that are not in driving distance, usually over 4-hour drive. This is the program that is an intensive jumpstart with treatment, teaching, live classes and coaching designed for all our international patients along with those in the US that do not live in Illinois. This program is very effective especially when combined with our new membership program support.
3. Stay at Home Program-is offered to continental US patients who cannot come to Revolution Health & Fitness but still want a more personal, customized plan to restore their health. This program also includes our Learn Membership Program.
4. Membership Program is our program offered for those that want to work on their health at a high level and want access to the teaching at Revolution New Medicine along with the Forums: both Dr. Nemec’s posts and other members’ postings. And also to have the chance to get personalized questions answered on the member calls, which are all archived in case you miss the call. The Membership Program has 3 levels to choose from: Learn, Overcome and Master. The difference is at the Overcome and Master levels you receive one on one calls with Dr. Nemec personalizing your program for your areas of focus.
References (Full Links)
1. Psychology & Health (2025)
Implicit processes and health behavior
https://doi.org 10.1080/08870446.2025.2561149
2. Raichle, M. E., & Gusnard, D. A. (2002; foundational, expanded in later reviews)
Appraising the brain’s energy budget
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
3. Shenhav, A., Botvinick, M. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2017)
The expected value of control: An integrative theory of cognitive control
Annual Review of Neuroscience
