Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success

by Brad Stulberg

Seiler tracked the training of elite athletes across a variety of endurance sports including running, skiing, swimming, and cycling. He found that, irrespective of sport or nationality, their training followed roughly the same distribution. The best athletes in the world weren’t adhering to a “no pain, no gain” model, nor were they doing fitness-magazine popularized high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or random “workouts of the day.” Rather, they were systematically alternating between bouts of very intense work and periods of easy training and recovery, even if that meant walking up hills. The ongoing progression and development of elite competitors, Seiler found, was an exercise in stress and rest.

Csikszentmihalyi documented a common process across almost all great intellectual and creative performers, regardless of their field: 1.Immersion: total engagement in their work with deep, unremitting focus 2.Incubation: a period of rest and recovery when they are not at all thinking about their work 3.Insight: the occurrence of “aha” or “eureka” moments—the emergence of new ideas and growth in their thinking

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Alternate between cycles of stress and rest in your most important pursuits. •Insert short breaks throughout your work over the course of a day. •Strategically time your “off-days,” long weekends, and vacations to follow periods of heavy stress. •Determine when your work regularly starts to suffer. When you find that point, insert a recovery break just prior to it.

It seems we have a single reservoir of brainpower for all acts of cognition and self-control, even those that are unrelated.

Research shows that even if their bodies are fresh, the physical performance of people who are mentally fatigued suffers. Put differently, the boundaries between mental and physical fatigue are not nearly as defined as we think.

whether it is the result of willpower, ego-depletion, or some other mechanism, we cannot continuously use our mind (at least not effectively) without at some point experiencing fatigue. And we cannot take on more sizeable psychological challenges without first building strength through smaller ones. All of this takes us back to where we started: stress + rest = growth.

•Remember that “stress is stress”: fatigue on one task spills over into the next, even if the two are completely unrelated. •Only take on a few challenges at once. Otherwise you’ll literally run out of energy. •Tweak your environment to support your goals. This is especially important at times when you know you’ll be depleted. It’s incredible how much our surroundings impact our behavior, especially when we are fatigued. fatigue—be it to resist temptation, make tough decisions, or work on challenging cognitive tasks—it, too, won’t function very well. This fatigue might lead you to eat cookies, give up on solving a tough intellectual problem, or even prematurely give in during physical challenges.

They learned that stress isn’t just harmful; it can also serve as a stimulus for growth and adaptation. We now know our adaptive stress response is rooted in molecules called inflammatory proteins and a hormone called cortisol. Inflammatory proteins and cortisol are activated by stress and serve as biological messengers, telling the body, “We’re not strong enough to withstand this attack!” As a result, the body marshals an army of biochemical building blocks and directs them to the area under stress, making the body stronger and more resilient. This is the body’s incredible, preprogrammed way of better preparing itself to face future threats.

Lifting a heavy weight to the point of exhaustion causes micro-tears in the muscle’s tissue and triggers the stress response. The body becomes aware that it’s currently not strong enough to tolerate the stress it is under. Consequently, once we cease lifting weights, the body transitions into something called an anabolic state, in which the muscle is built up so it can withstand more stress in the future.

If the amount of stress is too large or lasts too long, however, the body fails to adapt. It actually does the opposite of growing stronger: it deteriorates.

Rather than signaling for repair and then subsiding, elevated inflammation and cortisol linger at toxic levels. The adrenal system, constantly on guard, becomes overworked and fatigued.

Put all this together, and a paradox emerges. Stress can be positive, triggering desirable adaptations in the body; or stress can be negative, causing grave damage and harm. The effects of stress depend almost entirely on the dose.

Growth comes at the point of resistance; we learn by pushing ourselves to the outer reaches of our abilities.

Skills come from struggle.

the greatest gains often follow immense struggle and discomfort.

“productive failure.” There is broad scientific consensus that the most profound learning occurs when we experience this sort of failure. Rather than simply answering a specific question, it is beneficial to be challenged and even to fail. Failure provides an opportunity to analyze a problem from different angles, pushing us to understand its deep underlying structure and to hone the transferrable skill of problem-solving itself.

System 1 operates automatically and quickly. It is often driven by instinct and intuition. System 2, on the other hand, is more thoughtful and analytical and addresses effortful mental activities.

True learning requires System 2.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Stress stimulates growth. •As the chess prodigy turned martial arts champion Josh Waitzkin says, “growth comes at the point of resistance.” •Developing a new capability requires effort: Skills come from struggle. •When you struggle, System 2 is activated and true development is underway; myelin is accumulating and neural connections are strengthening. •Fail productively: Only seek out support after you’ve allowed yourself to struggle.

The best kind of stress, what we like to call “just-manageable challenges,” lies in the upper right corner of the “flow” section.

The little voice inside your head saying, “I can’t possibly do this,” is actually a sign that you’re on the right track. It’s your mind trying to pull you back to the familiar path that represents your comfort zone. Just-manageable challenges are about venturing off a known path and going down a slightly more demanding one.

We aren’t suggesting that you spend all of your time immersed in just-manageable challenges. Doing so is probably not very practical. Plus, you still need to recover in between bouts of stress for the effort to be beneficial. What we are suggesting, however, is that for the capabilities you wish to grow—whether they be financial modeling, portrait painting, distance running, or anything in between—you should regularly seek out just-manageable challenges: activities that take you out of your comfort zone and force you to push at the point of resistance for growth.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Think of a skill/capability that you want to grow. •Assess your current ability to perform this skill/capability. •Actively seek out challenges that just barely exceed your ability. •If you feel fully in control, make the next challenge a bit harder. •If you feel anxious or so aroused that you can’t focus, dial things down a notch.

It isn’t experience that sets top performers apart but the amount of deliberate practice they put in.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES Apply the components of perfect practice each time you set out to do meaningful work: •Define a purpose and concrete objectives for each working session. •Ask yourself: What do I want to learn or get done? •Focus and concentrate deeply, even if doing so isn’t always enjoyable. •Single-task: The next time you feel like multitasking, remind yourself that research shows it’s not effective. Keep in mind Dr. Bob’s secret: “Do only one thing at a time.” •Remember that quality trumps quantity.

In his years of studying experts, Ericsson found that top performers across all fields are unable to sustain intense work and deep concentration for more than 2 hours. Outside of rare, short-term situations, once this threshold is passed, neither the body nor the mind can sustain the workload. Great performers, Ericsson found, generally work in chunks of 60 to 90 minutes separated by short breaks.

While the exact work-to-rest ratio depends on the demands of the job and individual preferences, the overall theme is clear: alternating between blocks of 50 to 90 minutes of intense work and recovery breaks of 7 to 20 minutes enables people to sustain the physical, cognitive, and emotional energy required for peak performance.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Divide your work into chunks of 50 to 90 minutes (this may vary by task). Start even smaller if you find yourself struggling to maintain attention. •As you develop “fitness” in whatever it is you are doing, you’ll likely find that you can work longer and harder. •For most activities and most situations, 2 hours should be the uppermost limit for a working block.

Dweck’s work proved that the way we think about the world has a profound effect on what we do in it. If we cultivate a growth mindset and believe that skills come from struggle, then we are more likely to expose ourselves to the good kind of growth-promoting stress. But the power of mindsets doesn’t stop there. It turns out that our mindset toward stress not only determines if we’ll expose ourselves to it, but also how we’ll respond.

a large body of evidence showing that how we view stress weighs heavily on how stress influences us.

Some individuals learn to assess stressors as challenges rather than threats. This outlook, which researchers call a “challenge response,” is characterized by viewing stress as something productive, and, much like we’ve written, as a stimulus for growth. In the midst of stress, those who demonstrate a challenge response proactively focus on what they can control. With this outlook, negative emotions like fear and anxiety decrease. This response better enables these individuals to manage and even thrive under stress.

When under stress, you want to release more DHEA than cortisol. This ratio is aptly named the “growth index of stress.” Sure enough, studies show that people who react to stress with a challenge response have a higher growth index of stress versus those who perceive stress as a threat. In other words, if you frame stressors as challenges, you’ll release more DHEA than cortisol. As a result your growth index of stress will be higher, and you’ll actually experience health benefits instead of health detriments.

When you try to suppress pre-event nerves, you are inherently telling yourself that something is wrong. Not only does this make the situation worse, but it also takes emotional and physical energy to fight off the feeling of anxiety—energy that could be better spent on the task at hand. Fortunately, according to the authors of this paper, simply telling yourself “I am excited” shifts your demeanor from what they call a threat mindset (stressed out and apprehensive) to an opportunity mindset (revved up and ready to go).

Mindset research doesn’t suggest that innate ability doesn’t matter, but it does suggest that how we nurture our nature matters, too. By pushing us toward just-manageable challenges and enhancing how we’ll respond to them, the right mindset opens up the possibility for growth to occur.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Remember the power of mindset: How you view something fundamentally changes how your body responds to it. •In situations when you feel the sensation of stress, remind yourself this is your body’s natural way of preparing for a challenge; take a deep breath and channel the heightened arousal and sharper perception toward the task at hand. •Challenge yourself to view stress productively, and even to welcome it. You’ll not only perform better, you’ll also improve your health.

Having a well-developed prefrontal cortex is especially important when it comes to transitioning out of stress and into rest.

By strengthening our prefrontal cortex, mindfulness allows us to recognize that we are having a stress response rather than automatically being overcome by it. It’s as if we are viewing our thoughts and feelings as a neutral observer and then choosing what to do next. A weak prefrontal cortex gets overpowered by a strong stress response. But a strong prefrontal cortex lets us choose how we want to respond to stress.

It’s not that elite runners don’t feel pain and discomfort during their hard workouts, it’s just that they react differently. Rather than panicking, they have in their minds what Steve calls a “calm conversation.” The calm conversation goes something like this: “This is starting to hurt now. It should. I’m running hard. But I am separate from this pain. It is going to be okay.” Just like the expert meditators, Steve’s best runners choose how they respond to the stress of a workout.

Being mindful doesn’t just help the best athletes get through hard workouts, it also helps them recover.

Developing your mindful muscle creates space for you to choose how you want to respond to stress. In the middle of a challenge, mindfulness helps you remain calm and collected. It lets you devote all your physical and psychological energy to completing the task at hand, not to worrying about it. After a challenge, mindfulness lets you choose to turn off stress and transition to a more restful state.

•Realize when you want to “turn it off” and then choose to leave stress behind. Pausing to take a few deep breaths helps to activate the prefrontal cortex, your brain’s command and control center.

This body of research shows that even when it feels like our brains are “off,” a powerful system, the default-mode network, is running in the background, completely unnoticed by our conscious awareness. And as we’re about to see, it’s this system—one that is “on” when we are “off”—that is often responsible for creative insight and breakthrough.

Our most profound ideas often come from the small spaces in between otherwise deliberate thinking: when our brains are at rest.

Often, if we step away from intentional and active thinking and let our minds rest instead, the missing piece mysteriously appears.

Our subconscious mind functions in an entirely different manner than our conscious mind. It breaks from the pattern of linear thinking and works much more randomly, pulling information from parts of our brain that are inaccessible when we’re consciously working on something.

Exposure to nature not only helps with creativity, but it may also lower levels of Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a molecule associated with inflammation in the body. Lower levels of IL-6 can prevent the harmful, chronic type of inflammation that often sidelines serious athletes.

The ratio of the hormones testosterone to cortisol acts as a good indicator of systemic recovery (the higher this ratio, the better). A study out of Bangor University in the UK found this ratio was higher in athletes who went through their post-game analysis in a social environment with friends than in athletes who went through it in a neutral environment with strangers. What’s more is that the group in the social environment actually performed better in competition a week later.

surprised. “The basic biology of feeling connected to others has profound effects on stress physiology,”

The positive effects of social connection include increasing heart rate variability (HRV), shifting the nervous system into recovery mode, and releasing hormones such as oxytocin and vasopressin that have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. “What’s even crazier,” says McGonigal, “is that oxytocin helps your heart repair. It’s pretty poetic that feeling connected to others literally fixes a broken heart.”