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

by Brad Stulberg

In a study cleverly titled Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creative Thinking, researchers from Stanford University examined the effects of a short walking break. They instructed subjects to take short walking breaks outdoors, indoors, or not at all. Following their walk, they assessed participants’ creativity. They asked them to generate as many nontraditional uses as possible for common items. For example, a tire could be used as a floatation device, as a basketball hoop, or as a swing. (This is called a Guilford’s Alternate Uses Test and is a commonly used method for measuring creativity.) Those who took as brief as a 6-minute walk outdoors increased creativity by more than 60 percent versus those who had remained seated at their desks. Although walking outdoors yielded the most pronounced benefits, those who walked indoors still generated about 40 percent more creative ideas than those who didn’t walk at all. This suggests that even if you can’t walk outside (e.g., it’s winter, there are no sidewalks nearby, etc.), taking a few laps around the office or hopping on a treadmill is still highly beneficial.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Have the courage to takes breaks throughout the day, especially when you are stuck or feeling unbearable stress; the more intense the work, the more frequent the breaks. •Take a walk lasting at least 6 minutes to increase creativity and decrease the ill effects of sitting. If you can, walk outdoors, but even taking a few laps around the office provides big benefits. •Put yourself in the way of beauty. Being in nature, or even just looking at pictures of nature, helps with the transition from stress to rest and promotes creative thinking. •Meditate. Begin with a few mindful breaths, focusing only on the breath. Then, consider shifting to open-monitoring meditation, scanning your body and shifting your awareness to all of its sensations. •Hang out with friends! At the end of hard work—be it with your body or your mind—surrounding yourself with friends in a laid-back environment fundamentally alters your biology from stress to rest.

As you learned in Chapter 2, when we stress our bodies, they enter into something called a “catabolic” state. Our muscles, and even our bones, break down on a micro scale. The hormone cortisol is released, telling our body, “Help! We can’t handle this stress.” We become tired and sore, which is the body’s natural way of informing us it’s time to take a rest. If we neglect rest and keep pushing, the breakdown continues and, eventually, our health and performance suffer. But if we listen and allow the body to rest, it shifts from a catabolic state to an anabolic one, in which the body repairs and rebuilds so that it can come back stronger. This is to say that the stress of hard physical training breaks us down, and it is only when we follow stress with rest that adaptation and growth occurs. This is especially true with sleeping, which is a catalyst for physical growth. Just as the brain is actively processing the work we’ve done throughout the day, when we sleep the body is doing the same.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Sleep is productive. •Aim for at least 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night. For those doing intense physical activity, 10 hours is not too much. •The best way to figure out the right amount of sleep for you is to spend 10 to 14 days going to sleep when you are tired and waking up without an alarm clock. Take the average sleep time. That’s what you need. •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 bed. When you feel yourself getting drowsy, don’t fight it. Whatever you are doing can wait until the morning. Keep your room as...

Unfortunately, we’ve lost the notion of smart work at the expense of hard work, which somehow almost always gets confused with more work.

We are not suggesting that you haphazardly take off-days and extended vacations. Rather, in the same spirit that Lagat does, we are recommending that you strategically insert longer periods of rest to follow longer periods of stress. The modern Monday through Friday workweek was, in essence, founded upon that premise. The concept of a “weekend” was devised in the early 1900s to accommodate both the Christian and Jewish Sabbaths, the religious versions of rest days. Today, however, too few of us observe the Sabbath—either religiously or symbolically. Alternatively, we continue working on the same projects we were working on during the week or add additional stressors in other dimensions of our lives. Few of us rest on the weekends.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Regardless of the work you do, take at least 1 off-day every week. •Time your off-days strategically to follow periods of accumulated stress. •The more stress, the more rest that is needed. •To the extent that you can, time your vacations strategically to follow longer periods of stress. •On both single off-days and extended vacations, truly disconnect from work. Unplug both physically and mentally and engage in activities that you find relaxing and restorative.

The benefits of rest are clear, and they are supported by a large body of scientific evidence. Still, far too few of us get enough of it. It’s not that people want to wear themselves down. It’s just that we live in a culture that glorifies grinding and nonstop work, even if science says it doesn’t make sense. We praise the athlete who stays after practice to pound out additional reps in the weight room, and we lionize the businessperson who sleeps in his office. Now this isn’t to suggest that hard work is not paramount to growth. As you saw in Chapter 3, it is. But hopefully by now you also realize that hard work only becomes smart and sustainable work when it’s supported by rest. The irony is that resting hard often takes more guts than working hard. Just ask an author like Stephen King (“For me, not working is the real work”) or a runner like Deena Kastor (“My workouts are the easy part”). Feelings of guilt and anxiety creep in when we step away from our work, especially if we perceive that our competition is still going at it.

It’s not surprising, then, that when researchers proposed a series of experiments to test the effects of required rest on BCG consultants, employees reacted with not just shock but also disdain. The Harvard Business Review reported, “The concept was so foreign that [BCG leaders] had to practically force some consultants to take time off, especially when it coincided with periods of peak work intensity.” Some consultants legitimately questioned whether being assigned to the experiment was putting their entire careers in jeopardy.

Chade-Meng Tan (aka a Jolly Good Fellow, the mindfulness pioneer who you met in Chapter 4) is known for his unique way of entering conference rooms. When Tan first walks into a meeting, he quickly glances around and makes a silent comment to himself about each individual in the room. Unlike the stereotypical corporate operative, Tan isn’t sizing everyone up in preparation for white-collar battle. Rather, he’s taking a brief moment to say something nice about each person, even if he hasn’t yet met them. Melissa is wonderful to work with . . . Jim is a great marketing manager . . . That lady with red hair looks like she is filled with positive energy . . . In doing so, Tan is overriding a common instinctive reaction of seeing each person as a potential threat or obstacle. By uttering just a few simple words in his head, Tan primes himself into a positive, cooperative mood.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Reflect upon the activities in your life that are most important to you. •Determine what state of mind and/or body they demand. •Prime yourself for performance by readying your mind and/or body prior to key activities. •Test and refine various priming techniques, eventually developing customized routines. •Be consistent: Use the same routine each and every time you engage in the activity to which it is linked (more on the importance of consistency in a bit). •Remember the impact of mood on performance; positivity goes a long way.

Ecological psychology suggests that the objects that surround us are not static; rather, they influence and invite specific behaviors. Experiments show that the mere sight of an object elicits brain activity associated with particular actions. For example, when we see an image of a chair, the parts of our brain responsible for coordinating the act of sitting (i.e., motor programs) start firing, even if we haven’t physically moved at all. It’s as if the chair is speaking to us, saying, “Hey, come have a seat,” and our brains are listening and responding accordingly. This phenomenon helps explain why athletes in action sports, like football, often report that they don’t “think” about which direction to run; the linear process of reasoning would take far too long. Rather, when a gap opens up on the football field it literally invites players, on a level far deeper than what they experience in their consciousness, to run through it.

This concept may seem a bit esoteric, but the practical implications are down to earth and simple. When we create a space in which to practice our craft, it is beneficial to surround ourselves with objects that invite desired actions and eliminate ones that do not. In his book The Evolving Self, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, PhD, writes that being intentional about our surroundings is essential to eliciting our best performance. The things we work among, he writes, become “expansions of the self . . . things the mind can use to create harmony in experience.”

Daniel Levitin, PhD, supports Brad’s use of a writing-only computer. According to Levitin, when an object, like a computer, is isolated for a specific task, like writing, the link between subject (writer) and object (computer) strengthens. Over time, the mere sight of that specific computer invites writing, literally nudging Brad’s brain to think about the book/story/article he is working on.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Create “a place of your own” in which you do your most important work. •Surround yourself with objects that invite your desired behaviors. •Consistently work in that same place, using the same materials. •Over time, your environment will enhance your productivity on a deep neurological level.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Link key behaviors to specific cues and/or routines. •Be consistent and frequent; execute the same cue/routine every time prior to the behavior to which it is paired. •If possible, link key activities to the same context (e.g., time of day, physical environment, etc.). •If your pursuit requires variable settings, develop portable cues/routines that can be executed anywhere (e.g., a deep-breathing routine, self-talk, etc.). •Consistency is king. The best routine means nothing if you don’t regularly practice it.

If stress + rest = growth is the foundation upon which our talent is built, then our routines and environments help us to fully express that talent.

“I block off between 60 and 90 minutes every day to read outside of my domain,” he told us. “This helps me generate new ideas.” But Joyner only does this extensive reading because he identified creativity as something integral to his research, and reading broadly is one of his conduits to creativity.

In order to do great work, he told us, “You need to say no to a lot of things so that when it’s time to say yes, you can do so with all your energy.” Joyner will be the first to tell you that saying no isn’t easy. “I could have lived in New York, Boston, or Washington DC,” he explained, “but I was attracted to Rochester, Minnesota, because it was a place where I could most easily focus on what is most important to me: my research and family.” And since Joyner loves both his research and family, he’s extremely happy.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Become a minimalist to be a maximalist. •Reflect on all the decisions that you make throughout a day. •Identify ones that are unimportant, that don’t really matter to you. •Automate as many of the decisions that don’t really matter as you can. Common examples include decisions about: Clothing What to eat at meals When to complete daily activities (e.g., always exercise at the same time of the day so you literally don’t need to think about it) Whether to attend social gatherings (It’s not always a good idea, but during important periods of work, many great performers adopt a strict policy of saying no to social events.) •In addition to eliminating as many decisions as possible, don’t devote brainpower to gossip, politics, or worrying about what others think of you. (Unless, of course, your core mission is to be an elected official—then these things are, in fact, critically important.) •In addition to reflecting upon daily decisions, think about the second- and third-order effects (e.g., commute time, financial pressures, etc.) of larger life decisions, like where to live.

These individuals were optimizing around their respective chronotypes, which is the scientific term for the unique ebb and flow of energy that everyone experiences over the course of 24 hours.

alert in the morning as “larks” and those who are most alert in the evening as “owls.” Numerous studies confirm that these categories are indeed very real. Whether they be physically or cognitively demanding tasks, most people tend to perform their best either in the earlier part of the day (i.e., larks) or in the later part of the day (i.e., owls). These individual differences are rooted in our bodies’ unique biological rhythms—when various hormones associated with energy and focus are released, and when our body temperatures rise and fall. While some of us get pulses of energizing hormones earlier in the day, they come later on for others.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Determine your chronotype using the previous tools and suggestions. •Design your day accordingly—be very intentional about when you schedule certain activities, matching the demands of the activity with your energy level. Protect the time during which you are most alert and use it for your most important work. Schedule less demanding tasks during periods in which you are less alert. Don’t fight fatigue! Rather, use this time for recovery and to generate creative ideas that you can act on during your next cycle of high energy and focus. •Work in alignment with your chronotype—it not only maximizes performance, but it also helps to ensure an appropriate balance between stress and rest.

It turns out the determining factor as to whether the 30 cadets within a squadron improved was the motivation of the least fit person in the group. If the least fit person was motivated to improve, then his enthusiasm spread and everyone improved. If, on the other hand, the least fit person was apathetic or, worse, negative, he dragged everyone down. Just like diseases easily spread through tight-knit groups, so does motivation. And it’s quite contagious.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Recognize the enormous power of the people with whom you surround yourself. •Positive energy, motivation, and drive are all contagious. Do what you can to cultivate your own village of support, to surround yourself with a culture of performance. •Remember that by being positive and showing motivation, you are not only helping yourself, but you are also helping everyone else in your life. •Unfortunately, negativity and pessimism are also contagious. Don’t put up with too much of either. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •Our “ego” or “self” or “central governor” serves as a protective mechanism that holds us back from reaching our true limits. •When faced with great challenges, our ego is biologically programmed to shut us down, telling us to turn in the other direction. •By focusing on a self-transcending purpose, or a reason for doing something beyond our “self,” we can override our ego and break through our self-imposed limits. •To the extent you can, link your activities to a greater purpose (more on how to do this in Chapter 9). This way, when you are faced with formidable challenges and your mind is telling you to quit, you can ask yourself why you are undertaking them. If the answer is “for someone or something greater than myself,” you’ll be more likely to push onward. •Thinking less about your “self” is one of the best ways to improve yourself.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •We are constantly balancing perception of effort, or how hard something feels, with motivation. •If we want to endure more effort, which often leads to better performance, we may need to increase our motivation. •The best way to increase motivation is to link our work to a greater purpose or cause. •Not only will focusing on activities that help others make the world a better place, it will also make you a better performer. •Especially when we are feeling tired or worn out, we should think about why we are doing what we are doing.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •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.

Self-talk is most effective when what we tell ourselves is short, specific, and, most important, consistent.

“Expressive writing”—a type of journaling that involves exploring issues that are integral and foundational to our lives—has been shown to strengthen the cells in our immune systems. In addition, expressive writing is associated with declines in depression and anxiety, reduced blood pressure, fewer visits to the doctor, improved lung and liver function, and increases in positivity and social connectedness. Scientists speculate that expressive writing yields such profound results because it gives us a safe space to reflect on the issues that are most important to us. Many of us otherwise inhibit these thoughts and feelings, keeping them to ourselves.

While reminding yourself of your purpose yields big benefits, what we really want is for you to act on it. There is nothing that enhances performance, vitality, and health like living on purpose. If you get only one thing out of this book, we hope it is this.

All of the great performers you heard from in this book share the inability to be content. Even though they may be atop their respective fields, they remain fiercely driven to improve. We hope that you are inspired to adopt a similar mindset in your own pursuits.

Take note: None of the great performers that you heard from in this book followed an exact prescription. Rather, they took the performance principles and related practices and made them their own, adapting them to fit their unique styles and the specific demands of their activities. We encourage you to do the same. To help get you started, we’ve summarized on the following pages the key practices that fall under each principle.

experience. Please send us your stories and learnings at info@peakperformance.email. We’ll share these stories, along with the latest findings in performance science, in our newsletter, which you can subscribe to by visiting www.peakperformancebook.net.