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.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Enter your email address to receive updates to our blog: