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

by Brad Stulberg

Studies have found that over 57 percent of medical residents and up to 46 percent of bona fide physicians meet the criteria for burnout. Other research shows that over 30 percent of teachers suffer from burnout as well.

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.

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. Sure, immediate assistance can be highly satisfying. But when we succumb to the impulse for instant resolution, we miss out on a special kind of deep learning that only a challenge can spawn.

Expertise is not about a certain number of hours practiced. Rather, it’s about the type of work that fills those hours. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.

compartmentalizes his day down to the hour. Each compartment has a concrete objective. These objectives range from, for example: write 500 words for a paper; learn enough about a company to make an investment decision; have a free-flowing conversation with an interesting person; keep his heart rate at 80 percent of its maximum in a fitness class; influence a decision maker in a highly political meeting; enjoy dinner with his wife and kids. This type of compartmentalization ensures he follows his governing rule: “Do only one thing at a time.” Dr. Bob’s secret to doing so much is doing so little. He is the ultimate single-tasker.

Mischel has found that one of the best methods for self-control is to move the object of desire out of view. (Or in the case of vibrating phones, perhaps “out of feel.”) Mischel’s findings explain why recovering gamblers are prohibited from being near casinos and why dieters have long been told to keep unhealthy foods hidden in hard-to-access places or outside the house altogether. The mere sight of a desirable object triggers dopamine, which is like the devil on our shoulder that says, “Are you sure you don’t want to have just one?”

Great performers, Ericsson found, generally work in chunks of 60 to 90 minutes separated by short breaks.

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.

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). “Compared to those who attempt to calm down,” the authors conclude, “individuals who reappraise their anxious arousal as excitement perform better.”

In a society that glorifies grinding, short-term gains and pushing to extremes, it takes guts to rest.

About 195 million Americans, to be exact. That’s right, a whopping 65 percent of Americans get less than the medically recommended 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night. Forty percent sleep less than 6 hours. This wasn’t always the case. In 1942, the average American slept 7.9 hours every night. Today, that number is down to 6.8 hours.

For a better night’s sleep, follow these tips, consolidated from the world’s leading researchers: Ensure you expose yourself to natural (i.e., non-electric) light throughout the day. This will help you maintain a healthy circadian rhythm. Exercise. Vigorous physical activity makes us tired. When we are tired, we sleep. But don’t exercise too close to bedtime. Limit caffeine intake, and phase it out completely 5 to 6 hours prior to your bedtime. Only use your bed for sleep and sex. Not for eating, watching television, working on your laptop, or anything else. The one exception is reading a paper book prior to bed. Don’t drink alcohol close to bedtime. Although alcohol can hasten the onset of sleep, it often disrupts the later and more important stages. Limit blue light exposure in the evening. Don’t start working on hard, stressful activities—be them mental or physical—after dinner. If you struggle with a racing mind, try inserting a brief mindfulness meditation session prior to

When you feel yourself getting drowsy, don’t fight it. Whatever you are doing can wait until the morning. Keep your room as dark as possible. If feasible, consider black-out blinds. Keep your smartphone OUT of the bedroom entirely. Not on silent. Out.

Shorter wrote, “Consistency was another way to tamp down terror.”

recent study found that physicians make significantly more prescribing errors as the day wears on. Jeffrey Linder, MD, lead author on the study, told the New York Times, “The radical notion here is that doctors are people too, and we may be fatigued and make worse decisions toward the end of our clinic sessions.”

Experiments show that people who were forced to make choices among a range of consumer goods (e.g., color of T-shirt, type of scented candle, brand of shampoo, type of candy, and, yes, even type of sock) performed worse than those who were presented with only one option on tests of everything from physical stamina to persistence to problem-solving. The subjects who were confronted with multiple choices also procrastinated more in other areas of their life later on in the day.

When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at 4 a.m. and work for 5 to 6 hours. In the afternoon, I run 4 kilometers or swim for 1,500 meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9 p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold such repetition for so long—6 months to a year—requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.

when people do completely remove themselves from whatever endeavor led to their burnout, many lose their connection and never return. The good

Helping others activates reward and pleasure centers in the brain. Not only does this make you feel better, but it also helps you re-associate positive emotions with your pursuit. For these reasons, giving back often results in renewed energy and motivation. In his New York Times bestselling book Give and Take, Grant references research from across fields—from teaching to nursing—to show that giving back is a powerful antidote to burnout.

Find opportunities to give back in the context of your work; these can be more intensive, such as coaching and mentoring, or less intensive, such as posting sincere advice in online forums. •The only criteria is that your “giving” is closely linked to your work and that you give without the expectation of getting anything back. •While “giving” is especially powerful for preventing and reversing burnout, you should still aim to avoid burnout by supporting stress with appropriate rest.