Finding Peak Performance Through Stress

Stress can increase our ability to perform. It’s indisputable. Everyday you see people (athletes, students, business people) take the stress of the situation and use the stress to build great performances - the extemporaneous speech that brings people to tears, the A+ paper created during a stress laced all-nighter, the tournament winning chip shot two feet from the hole. Stress can help us find the zone. (Stress can also detract from performance which I will discuss this fact another day.) To starts let’s discuss finding peak performance through stress by asking a few questions:

Why does stress help us with peak performance and why do we use stress in the way that we do? Why do people drink lots of coffee when they’re trying to get something done? Why do people procrastinate until the last minute? And more importantly what can stress teach us… so that we can optimize our performances in a less stressful way? 

Basically, what we’re gong to discuss is how intense stress or panic activates the right side of your brain and overrides your analytical left brain. Analysis/paralysis is pushed aside and pure performance takes over.  By the end of this post it will all make sense. Now, let’s work it through.

Everyday Stress

The best way to understand anything is to look at real life. So let’s start with a little survey of stressful situations. Of the following what would cause you personally more stress? (a) A dirty house with clothes and newspapers strewn about and dirty dishes in the kitchen, (b) Ignoring a droning business associate who goes on and on and who makes you want to flee the room. (c) Moving into a new house and all the aggravation that goes with moving. (d) Being stuck in traffic.

It doesn’t matter which answer you chose. My point in asking is to demonstrate that there is such a thing as everyday stress. Stress is a part of life and is not only associated with critical moments (giving a big presentation, hitting the winning golf shot). Life is full of situations that cause us to be uncomfortable and feel stress.

First a Reminder on Stress and the Brain

Before we move on I want to remind you how the brain reacts to stress. I’ll use the example of the dirty house. If you feel stress about a dirty house either you are feeling anxious apprehension and your left brain is more highly activated because you’re embarrassed by how your house looks to others.

Or you are angry and mad that you let the house get so bad or you’re mad at your kids who messed it up. In this case, you have mild anxious arousal and your right brain is more highly activated. This is hard science and is indisputable. For more details on this topic please go to Searching For Peak Performance.

The Ongoing Stress Cycle - Training Your Brain

Everyday you learn. And as you learn you experience a little bit of stress, a little discomfort every step of the way. Think about it.  Think back to your days in school. When a teacher presented a new concept at first you were a little confused. Not baffled mind, just not confident that you knew it all and not sure you could connect all the ideas that your teacher was discussing. You needed to study a little to get it all straight and be prepared for the exam. Connecting the dots and building comprehension is slightly stressful. When you’re learning you’re right brain is being activated more than your left.

Learning is a Right Brain Activity

Know what’s interesting, learning starts out as a right brain activity. I covered this topic in Mounting Evidence of Peak Performance.  Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg confirms that the right brain is more active in learning new information, while the left brain is more active once you’ve mastered a topic. The picture is starting to fit together.

Learning and the Stress Response Cycle

Just to make this clear lets review. Learning induces a little stress that activates your right brain. As you learn you go through this process over and over. I call this the learning stress response cycle. Step 1 is learning and is right brain dominant. Step 2 is being proficient and is left brain dominant.

This is a good point to stop as how people respond to stress kind of depends on the type of activity. In the next three posts we’re going to look at stress in (a) active, aggressive sports like hockey and football, (b) in activities like golf and music that require precision during a performance, (c) in mental activities like work and school.

The mind responds to stress a little differently in all three. Till next time. David

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Why Stress Affects Intelligence

Mental Focus, Stress and the Incredible Shrinking Brain

This post will explain how stress affects your brain and decreases intelligence.

Let’s Start At The Beginning

You see, stress is a part of life. Drive your car - and when a car cuts you off - you feel stress. Get a new assignment that’s due in a few hours - stress. Make a presentation - stress. Talk to a pretty girl - lots of stress.

Life contains stress. Even if you ran away to a remote island to live in a grass hut you would likely feel stress. Remember Tom Hanks in “Castaway”. Every scene is filled with his next stressful challenge – catching fish for dinner, building a hut, coping with his boredom by talking to the volleyball. Look at the hippie communes of the sixties. Supposedly, each member lived together with love and peace and without stress. It didn’t last. Pettiness, selfishness and disillusionment followed; all causes of intense stress.

Fact: We all face stress in some form or another everyday of our lives.

So…some stress in your life is normal. The next obvious question to answer is: what about lots of stress? What does that do to a person?Lots of stress puts people into panic. We’re talking fight or flight for men and friend or befriend for women. Lots of stress bathes your brain in all kinds of naturally occurring chemicals – cortisol, dopamine, endorphins, and more. Why does this happen? Because…to overcome a stressful situation you need to make quick decisions. When you’re running away from an angry bear or preparing to battle the oncoming hordes of enemy fighters you don’t want to spend too long thinking things through. It’s not about logic. It’s about right brained action. We can’t escape thousands of years of evolutionary programming. For this reason, a screaming client sets off the same stresses as an angry bear. (Please note: that there are different levels of stress. In another post I will discuss how psychologists define these levels.)

Long Term Affect of Stress

Over an extended period of time some of these naturally occurring chemicals can have a neurotoxic affect on the hippocampus. Basically, some of these chemicals (including cortisol, which I know you’ve heard of) eat away at the neurons surrounding the hippocampus. This doesn’t mean that a few upsetting days will hurt you. It does mean that over an extended period of time that the brain will start to decay from long term stress. The hippocampus literally shrinks and as a result your brain capacity shrinks. The hippocampus is critical to the processing of memories.

More Than The Hippocampus Is Affected By Stress

The corpus callosum is also affected. The corpos callusm connects your left brain with your right brain. A recent study of children with PTSD looked at the size of the corpus callosum. Turns out that a child with PTSD - a child living with an emotionally abusive parent, a child who doesn’t get the love they need, a homeless child - is likely to have a smaller corpus callosum. The stress and cortisol shrink their corpus callosum. Other studies on adults with PTSD have found similar shrinkage of the corpus callosum.

Does The Size Of Your Corpus Callosum Matter?

A recent study unequivocally confirmed that the size of a persons’ corpus callosum is directly related to intelligence. The study left no doubt. Long term stress makes you dumber. If you have to face stress over many years and you can’t cope or process these stressful emotions, you won’t be as smart. It’s that simple.

Long Term Memories

Long term memories are stored throughout your brain - in the left hemisphere and in the right hemisphere. Using a pencil as an example, in one place you know how to spell pencil. In another place you know how to use it. In another spot of your brain you recognize the shape. Somewhere else you recall that a pencil is made from wood and graphite. If stress has reduced the size of your corpus callosum you might temporarily forget how to spell pencil, but still be able to use it just fine.

Why Focus Stones Helps You Think More Clearly

Focus Stones helps increase the communication between your left hemisphere and your right hemisphere. Focus Stones help you use your corpus callosum more efficiently. Focus Stones help you to be more intelligent.

Searching For Peak Performance

Why Stress, Anxiety and Panic Dominate Knowledge, Understanding and Ability

Now its crunch time. Maybe you have to give a speech, take a test, play a round, perform at a recital, etc. Imagine the challenge that YOU yourself face. It’s time to show the world what you’ve got. You’ve practiced over and over and you’ve gotten really good. You’ve moved the mental processing from your right hemisphere over to your left hemisphere. 

In a previous post titled Mounting Evidence of Peak Performance, the work of Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg (New York University School of Medicine) was discussed. He has documented the learning process. Basically, the right hemisphere is for learning, while the left hemisphere is for processing past experience. The quicker you move processing from the right brain to the left brain, the more rapidly you build competence.

It’s Time to Perform - Can You Handle the Stress?

Now, it’s time to do it. How do you feel? Are you a little nervous? Do you feel anxiety? If you do then you’re like most people - butterflies in the stomach, exaggerated breathing and a little tightness in your body. I need you to think about how you feel. Is your nervousness like being at a party by yourself - more of a mild anxiety? Or is your anxiety more severe? Are you panicked? 

Two Different Types of Stress - Who Knew?

How do we know that anxiety and panic are different? We know because of a recent study done at the University of Illinois. The researchers used an EEG (electroencephalographic - which is an electronics device that measures brain waves) to measure the brainwaves in different types of patients.

General Anxiety - Anxious Apprehension

First, they tested people diagnosed with general anxiety or what they called anxious apprehension. The EEG of these people showed heightened activity in the left hemisphere. This form of anxiety is the result of uncomfortable social situations, like when I embarrass my wife when I open my big mouth. (It never fails.)

Panic - Anxious Arousal

The researchers also measured the brainwaves of people diagnosed with panic or what they called anxious arousal - this is the famous fight or flight response you’ve heard about.  The EEG of these people showed heightened activity in the right hemisphere.

Basically, you’re right brain is activated when you’re in danger of falling, or while you’re  watching a horror movie or when a soldier comes back from a war with PTSD. For an explanation on how the brain reacts when in panic, read The Science Behind Why Anxiety Kills Meditation (Pay attention to the process and ignore the stuff on mediation).

Let me summarize what we’ve just discussed. The left brain handles mild anxiety and the right brain handles outright panic. There’s far more to this story so stay tuned for future posts on this subject.

How Men and Women Deal with Stress

The Stress of It All

I wanted to make you all aware of a recent study carried out by the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine about stress. Men and women deal with stress in different ways.

There is a great writeup at New Men Vs. Women Brain Study: Active Part of Brain During Stress  that gets into all the details. In summary, men go into “fight or flight” mode and women go into “friend or befriend” mode.

The evolutionary explanation would go something like this; men have been the hunters and the warriors and women have been the nurturers who must depend on each other. I’m not trying to present an argument for or against family values here. This is not my opinion. I’m obviously not trying to be politically correct. This is hard science. The brains of men and women react differently to stress.

In a previous post titled The Science Behind Why Anxiety Kills Meditation, I discussed how the brain reacts to stress. The men’s right brain in the front is fired off and doesn’t let the rest of the brain have much control. Remember, its fight or flight. Researchers found that a women’s brain is affected in the limbic system(the amygdale, the hippocampus, the hypothalamus, thalamus and more), which is the emotional seat of the brain. Women are looking to make an emotional connection and soothe each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay tuned for a future post that will discuss how stress affects peak performance.

The Science Behind Why Anxiety Kills Meditation

Have you ever noticed how immediately after a stressful event, meditation is nearly impossible? It’s a well documented fact that even the most experienced yogis struggle to meditate after stressful situations. What we’re going to look here is what physically happens in the brain. Because this is a technical topic, I want you to know where we’re going to end up. Don’t you love going right to the end of story?

What Happens Under Stress?

A stressful situation effectively prevents the logical, rational, left side of your brain from overriding the stress that you are feeling. A part of your right brain is blocking it. Basically, your brain is out of balance. Now, let’s get into the details.

First, the stressful event occurs. A part of your brain called the amygdala (a-mig-dala) sounds the alarm and sends urgent messages to every other part of the brain. The amygdala is the emotional watch dog in your mind. When something upsets you, it is the amygdala that reacts. So what does the amygdala effect?

The hypothalamus (which is right next to the amygdala) reacts to the amygdala and tells the pituitary gland to start producing something called corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF). This controls the amount of cortisol in your body. Cortisol helps your body become even more effective at producing glucose from proteins, and is designed to quickly help increase the body’s energy in times of stress. Basically, cortisol tells your body to be more efficient because it’s going to be a long winter, it’s a time of war, etc.

Remember, its fight or flight. If you’re always under stress and you have weight control issues, this is the argument you commonly hear. You’ve probably heard late night TV ads refer to controlling your weigh by controlling your cortisol levels. This is what they are telling you.

The amygdala also tells the cerebellum to get going. Until now, we’ve been talking about parts of your brain that are deep inside. The cerebellum is located just above the back of your neck. The cerebellum tells your body to get ready to move. It controls your limbs.

The amygdala tells the medulla (which is another name for your spine) to activate your cardiovascular system, muscles, and more. You know all those involuntary things you do like breathing and having a beating heart. They are now getting ready to go into overdrive to support the stress you just experienced.

Let’s be logical. Everything is ready to react except for one, your brain. The rest of the brain doesn’t have any idea that it needs to start thinking quickly and pay very close attention. The hypothalamus (remember this was activated by the amygdala) signals something called the locus coeruleus (locus, co-rul-e-us) to secrete something called norepinephrine (no-ree-pine-frine) to heighten response throughout the rest of the brain. The locus coeruleus is deep inside the brain with the amygdala and hypothalamus.

As an interesting side note, what part of the brain do you think heroin effects? You got it, the locus coeruleus. Heroin kind of represses the locus coeruleus, providing a great escape to the stress of life and totally messing with the cycle of things. The norepinephrine spreads thoughout the brain, telling every part of the brain to pay attention, including the hippo-campus. The hippo-campus, which is also deep inside the brain, steps things up another notch and releases a substance called dopamine, which increases your ability to pay attention.

You’ve probably heard of dopamine. Typically, people with ADHD have lower levels of dopamine, while people with schizophrenia have too much dopamine. It’s really an interesting little chemical. What I found the most fascinating is how dopamine can lead to increased creativity and problem solving. More on this another day.

Now, back to our stressful situation. All these parts of the brain are driving a important processes - CRF or cortisol is streaming out, dopamine is in abundant supply and through another process endorphins (which I know you’ve heard of) are making you feel good, just in case you get hurt. Endorphins are little like morphine and will protect you from the pain.

Truthfully, there is some discussion on how the following happens. We just know that it does happens. First a little detail on the pre-frontal cortex. This area is basically your forehead, the area of the brain that separates man from animals. The pre-frontal cortex is where you access your working memory.

Working memory is where you store critical bits of information that you deem important for thinking. The left side of the pre-frontal cortex is for logical and rational thinking. It remembers that a pencil is spelled with a p-e-n-c-i-l. The right side of the pre-frontal cortex is more for mental images and remembers what a pencil does, write on a piece of paper.

Under stress, the right pre-frontal cortex is activated. You’re fighting for survival and the best way to survive is to run and react. Images are important. The meaning of things are important. Remembering how to spell the word pencil and other analytical skills are less critical. The left side of the pre-frontal cortex is ignored.

To meditate effectively you need some balance. You need to be able to focus. You need to be able to ignore the desire to get up and move around. Remember, the fight or flight syndrome has been activated. It’s not so easy to turn off. Interestingly, after a stressful day at work, it’s the right frontal cortex just behind the right eye that gets the biggest workout. To read more about this, visit TheWhyFiles -Stress on the Brain. This is the point when you start to favor one way of thinking over another and this is when the imbalance occurs.

In a nutshell, you’re brain is out of balance during stress. For survival reasons, your right side becomes dominant. This is why anxiety and stress wreak havoc on meditation.

Learn how Focus Stones can enhance your mental balance and ability to concentrate during meditation.

The Ultimate Meditation Killer - Anxiety

Did you know that even the most skilled mediators’ (I’m not even sure this is a word, but what else do you call someone who meditates) struggle to meditate when they face anxiety and stress? Studies have confirmed that when practiced meditators face stress, they also struggle to concentrate and reach a meditative state. We we are talking about short term stress. It’s been well documented that meditation over a long period of time has an extremely positive affect on one’s ability to focus, concentrate and overcome stress.

Today, I want to delve more into short term stress. The following probably sounds familiar.  You’ve just experienced something stressful and you need to relax. You’ve meditated before and you felt better. You need some relief right now. So here is the question - How can you reach a meditative state and overcome the stress that you’re feeling? 

This is an interesting question because it’s such a western attitude. Would someone from India or the Far East even ask the question? Probably not. They would likely preach patience. They would likely be very pragmatic and say, if you continue to practice meditation every day the stress and anxietywill decrease. I imagine one of the scenes from the old Kung Fu TV shows with David Carradine, when he’s a young boy. His master advises him to “Be patient grasshopper.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m not from the Far East and I’m not really that patient, especially when there is a better alternative.

Why Does Stress and Anxiety Keep You From Meditating?

Before we get into how to overcome stress and reach a meditative state, let’s answer another set of questions on the why and what, Why is it that stress and anxiety keep you from meditating and what does stress do to your ability to focus?

When you’re under stress, your mind is preoccupied with another set of issues. Maybe something happened to you at work or you didn’t pay a bill on time. Perhaps you had a fight with your spouse. This dominant stressor is the focal point; it has captured your attention.  

Meditating successfully means dragging your attention away from this focal point, it means overcoming this stessor or at least it means observing the stressor. (If you’ve meditated a great deal you know what it’s like to observe emotions inside yourself. This mindfulness and awareness is the objective. It means you’ve successfully meditated.

Basically, you have a conflict. Your stressor is screaming like a crying baby to be heard while you want to ignore it and go meditate. No wonder it’s so difficult.

Solders, Stress and Bilateral Stimulation

First, let’s look at soldiers who suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  Because soldiers have PTSD they can hardly function. They often struggle to hold a job, to maintain relationships with loved one. Often their lives are a mess. The stress of someone with PTSD is more severe and more lasting than what you deal with, however, it’s effectively similar in that the focal point is pulling them another direction. It’s just really severe.

Soldiers with PTSD use bilateral stimulation as a part of EMDR therapy to more easily achieve a meditative state and work on their emotional issues. There’s far more to it than this, but today we’re going to keep it simple.

In the book “Walking Your Blues Away,” by Thom Hartman, it talks about the healing power of walking. Hartman discusses the healing power of applying bilateral stimulation. Basically, when you walk there are mental exercises you can do to find relief. On the surface, this sounds absurd and frankly if hadn’t had background in this concept I would have laughed it off. Go for a walk and heal yourself, spare me. My father the doctor would laugh and probably call me an idiot for even considering the idea.

I believe there is power in what Hartman has to say and power in how soldiers overcome their PTSD - the ultimate type of stress and anxiety. I know this to be true because I’ve personally gone through my own stress and anxiety and cured myself of ADHD. I know bilateral stimulation works because I practice it every day.

Benefits of Bilateral Stimulation and How it Works

In these cases and many others - EFT, pranayama yoga, davening, hemispheric kinesiology, budhist meditation walking, to name a few - bilateral stimulation brings people relief and helps them to overcome the stress and negative emotion in their lives. The question is - what is happening? What is the common thread between all these different disciplines? Somehow they’ve all connected the dots in different ways to reach the same conclusion. There is healing power in bilateral stimulation.

Bilateral stimulation helps you focus by stimulating your left and right  brain. When you move your left leg, or turn your body to the left, your right brain is activated. All the thoughts and ideas in your left brain can be accessed. When you move your left leg, your right brain is activated and all the emotions and anxiety can be connected to those thoughts. As you meditate, you look inside yourself and start to become aware of what’s happening to you and why you are stressed.  BUT…why does this work? Because the anxiety and stress has made you unbalanced. 

BALANCE is the key. Without balance you can’t stand up without falling  down. Without mental balance you can’t be clear headed and achieve your objective. Without balance your left brain and right brain can’t work together to bring you into the present. Without balance you can’t meditate.

If you have an emotional issue that you need to deal with, bilateral stimulation can help. This is not to downplay the methodology. Each of these different disciplines utilizes different methodologies to achieve their ends.

In another post, we’ll discuss the details. For now, I want to focus on the power of bilateral stimulation.