Left Brain “Mild” Anxiety During Peak Performance

In a previous post Mounting Evidence of Peak Performance, we established how mild anxiety affects your left hemisphere and how panic affects your right hemisphere. Today, we’re going to look exclusively at how social “mild” anxiety is processed in the left hemisphere of your brain and how it affects peak performance.

Imagine the following situation. You’re nearly ready to perform (take a test, swing a golf club, give a presentation, etc.). You sir or madam are ready, but your brain has an issue. There are two mental processes competing for left brain resources.  First, you have the mental processes associated with what you’re doing.

Left Brain is Past Experience - Right Brain is New

In the post The Mounting Evidence of Peak Performance, you can read a summary on the work of Dr. Elkhonon Goldberg of NYU School of Medicine. He has determined that left brain processes are more closely aligned to past experience and right brain processes are more closely aligned with new concepts and ideas and inputs.

The Left Brain

Today we’re looking at the left side. For example:

• If you’re playing golf your left brain remembers how to swing; it guides your alignment; it remembers how hard to swing the club.
• If you’re giving a presentation, your left brain knows the order of topics and what you want to say and when.
• If you’re playing the piano, your left brain remembers when to get ready to turn the page, when to play loudly and when to play softly.

The fact that you’re performing means that people are watching. It means that someone is keeping a score or at least assessing you. It means you are competing. You’re on stage baby. You’re in your own reality show and you’re probably a little bit nervous. Nothing intense mind you - just enough to make you edgy. Your left brain is activated.

The Left Brain Thinks It’s in Total Control

Can your left brain really do two things at once? The problem is that the left brain thinks it’s in total control. It thinks it doesn’t need any help from your right brain, but that isn’t what happens to the peak performers. The people who step up and are the best are the ones using both sides of their brain.

How The Brain Works For Peak Performers

To address how the brains of peak performers function we’re going to look at a study by Dr. Debbie Crews and Dan Landers - “Electroencephalographic Measures of Attentional Patterns Prior to the Golf Putt,” Med. & Sci. in Sports & Exercise, Vol. 25, #1, Jan 1993, pages 116-126). Isn’t that’s a mouthful! This study found that the very best golf putters used the following brain pattern:

• At first when the golfer is setting up over the ball the left side of their brain was the most active. (Doesn’t this sound familiar. This is the left brain process described by Dr. Goldberg. This elevated activity is the left hemisphere mental recall from all the hours of practice.)
• Then (and this is the cool part),  just before the putt, activity in the left hemisphere subsides and gives way to a more active right hemisphere. Somehow these people are able to put aside their nervous anxiety and use their entire mind. They use their left and right brain.

What Happens to the Rest of Us?

For example, what happens to those golfers who choke and are less successful? Just before the moment of impact, they are unable to move the dominant processes to their right brain. They are stuck in left brain mode. They’ve choked. Their anxiety is activating left brain activity and the anxiety is not letting go. You’ve probably seen people in this mode in everyday life.

Let’s use presentations as another example. Have you ever seen someone say something embarrassing in the middle of a presentation and suddenly they turn red? Their brain locks up. They lose their way as they are consumed by the thoughts going on in their mind - thinking things like”I’m so stupid,” ”Why did I say that” or “Why can’t I edit what I say.” These people are engaged in negative self talk - Doubt has crept into their presentation and they’ll probably never recover.

On the other hand a confident speaker will allow himself to speak extemporaneously and if something odd does come out, they’ll simply shrug it off and move onto the next topic. The confident speaker doesn’t feel any nervousness and lets it all flow.

Left Brain - Right Brain Balance

Yes, you need some alignment between the two hemispheres. You need a method. You need a way to stay focused and on task even when you know you’re going to be a little bit nervous. You need a way to activate your right brain during critical moments.

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