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

by Brad Stulberg

experts believe the naturally occurring rate of ADHD is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 to 6 percent of the population, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the diagnosis is being made at twofold rates, or in about 11 percent of American youth.

that 27 percent of Americans regularly work between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., and 29 percent of Americans do at least some work on the weekends.

In overtraining syndrome, the central nervous system is thrown out of whack, yielding a cascade of negative biological effects.

The key to strengthening your biceps—and, as we’ll learn, any muscle, be it physical, cognitive, or emotional—is balancing the right amount of stress with the right amount of rest. Stress + rest = growth. This equation holds true regardless of what it is that you are trying to grow.

In the world of exercise science, this cycle of stress and rest is often referred to as periodization.

Over time, the cycle looks like this: 1.Isolate the muscle or capability you want to grow 2.Stress it 3.Rest and recover, allowing for adaptation to occur 4.Repeat—this time stressing the muscle or capability a bit more than you did the last time

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.

When shown a tempting image, such as a juicy cheeseburger, or asked to solve a hard problem, activity in parts of the brain associated with emotional response (the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex) supersede activity in the part of the brain tasked with thoughtful, rational thinking (the prefrontal cortex). Other experiments show that after someone is forced to exert self-control, activity in the prefrontal cortex diminishes altogether.

Scientists have discovered that the more we resist temptation, think deeply, or focus intensely, the better we become at doing so. A new line of research contests that willpower in particular is not as limited as scientists once thought, and suggests that by successfully completing smaller productive changes we can build the strength to complete larger ones in the future.

stress + rest = growth.

PERFORMANCE PRACTICES •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. In the worst case, you might even cheat on your significant other.

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.

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. Selye called this the “exhaustion stage.” Today, many refer to the exhaustion stage as being under “chronic stress.” The body rebels and enters something called a catabolic process, or a state of persistent breakdown.

when applied in the right dose, stress does more than stimulate physiological adaptations. It stimulates psychological ones, too.

science shows that learning demands open-ended exploration that allows students to reach beyond their individual limits.

students who were forced to struggle on complex problems before receiving help from teachers outperformed students who received immediate assistance. The authors of these studies summarized their findings in a simple yet elegant statement: Skills come from struggle.

“It’s only when you step outside your comfort zone that you grow. Being uncomfortable is the path to personal development and growth. It is the opposite of complacency.

“productive failure.” There is broad scientific consensus that the most profound learning occurs when we experience this sort of failure.

Our actual web of knowledge consists of brain cells called neurons that are linked by axons, which function like fine electrical wires in the brain. When we learn something new, electrical activity travels between neurons along these axons. At first, the connections are weak (both figuratively and literally) and we struggle with the new skill, whether it’s properly using grammar or using our nondominant hand on the basketball court.

if we endure the struggle and keep working at the new skill, the connections between neurons strengthen. This occurs partially thanks to a substance called myelin. Myelin is like the brain’s version of insulation, wrapping around our axons. As we work more at something, more myelin is generated, and that enables electrical activity to travel more fluidly between neurons.

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.

Just-manageable challenges manifest when you take on something that makes you feel a little out of control but not quite anxious or overly aroused.

A little doubt and uncertainty is actually a good thing: It signals that a growth opportunity has emerged.

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.

many physicians actually got worse at making diagnoses from radiographic scans as they gained more experience.

experience and expertise did not necessarily go hand in hand.

The best violinists were practicing, as Ericsson and his team coined it, far more “deliberately” than everyone else.

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

Ericsson found that top performers actively seek out just-manageable challenges, setting goals for practice sessions that just barely exceed their current capabilities. But that is only half the story. What really differentiates deliberate practice is deep concentration.

By doing one thing at a time and devoting his full concentration to that one thing, Dr. Bob is able to do many things well

For 99 percent of us,1 effective multitasking is nothing more than effective delusional thinking.

Although it may feel like we are getting twice as much done when multitasking, we’re actually getting close to half as much done.

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.

Dopamine excites and arouses us. Under the influence of dopamine, we feel revved up and alive. Unlike other neurochemicals that are released when we’ve achieved something, the far more potent dopamine is released prior to the payoff of an event, when we are longing for or desiring something deeply. In other words, we don’t become addicted to winning; we become addicted to the chase.

Identify what interrupts your deep focus. Common intruders, many of which are enabled by smartphones, include: Text messages Social media The internet Television •Remove distractors: Remember that only out

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.

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.

Ghrelin is the hormone associated with hunger,

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.

Of the many hormones at play when we are stressed, two are particularly important: cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). While neither is categorically “good” or “bad” and both are necessary, chronically elevated cortisol levels are associated with lingering inflammation, impaired immune function, and depression. By contrast, DHEA has been linked to a reduced risk of anxiety, depression, heart disease, neurodegeneration, and a range of other diseases and conditions.

instead of trying to calm yourself down, “reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement” is often advantageous.

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.

Researchers are finding that starting at just a few minutes every day, mindfulness meditation increases gray matter in the part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is one of the most evolved parts of our brains; its complexity separates us from more primitive animals. In addition to performing higher-order thinking, the prefrontal cortex serves as the brain’s command and control center. It allows us to respond thoughtfully to situations instead of instinctively reacting. 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.

The amygdala is one of the less evolved structures in our brain. We share it in common with even the most primitive animals, like rodents. Often referred to as the “emotional center” of the brain, the amygdala controls our most basic instincts, such as hunger and fear.

HRV is commonly used as a global indicator of physiological recovery. The faster someone’s HRV returns to its pre-exercise value (baseline), the better.