Art and science of High Performance
Petra:
But for so many it's this unachievable status. What exactly is high performance?
Mark:
One word behavior. Performance is a behavior it is it is really, really simple. And it comes back to your daily behaviors.
Like it's not high performers don't have this unrivaled sense of motivation day to day. It's just they have a behavior that leads to high performance.
So it's really a question of how do you attain and maintain those behaviors that deliver high performance? And that's the key, I think, because the mistake that people think is Oh, if I want to be a high performer, they might look at an elite athlete, for example.
And they must be really motivated and really talented. And yes, they might have some talent, no doubt. But then it's not the motivation. It simply comes back to a routine and their behaviors. So I guess the question is, how do you get to have those behaviors and routines isn't? Exactly so how do we get there? Well, I think I think so the first thing is, you have to be very clear on what your purposes.
So what's your why?
Many of you may have heard, you know, Simon Sinek has some great, great talk.
So there's a TED talk on, you know, what's your why, and starting with your why. So you have to be very, very clear on your purpose.
And there has to be a connection to your purpose, if there's no connection, it makes it really, really hard. So as human beings, we're wired to be connected. And if we want to improve or prove on something, there are three, there are three key things.
So we must have a sense of mastery. So we need to be mastering the skill. If it's in a professional capacity, we want to be getting better at that skill.
The second one is autonomy, we have to have a sense of autonomy over what we're doing. So as an example, if you're teaching, you know, the parents out there, if you're teaching your children to ride a bike, at some point, your children are going to want to see the bike themselves, they're going to want to have a sense of autonomy, you're going to take the training wheels off, you're going to take your hands off them, and they're going to get better.
So they're mastering the skill, they've got a sense of autonomy. And the last one is connection. So they've got to be connected to the purpose, it's got to be something that they actually enjoy. So that all goes back to Okay, what's my purpose?
So if my purpose is to, you know, have a have my business grow to a certain level or achieve a certain position in a professional capacity, you've got to feel a real purpose.
And there's got to be a strong why if you don't have that, I doubt that you'll actually achieve high performance because it won't actually deliver the routines.
So once you've connected to purpose, and you've got that strong why. And then there's the sense of mastery, you're getting better. There's a sense of autonomy, you've got some ownership over the journey, and you're connected. Well, then you're there.
And then the second, I guess the final point is developing routines that you can sustain on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly process, because motivation is a limited behavior that runs out.
So as an example, you wait loss challenges, people get motivated that they want to, you know, January one, everyone's going to join a gym and they're going to lose weight. And you know, they're all motivated, and they go and join the gym six weeks later if stopped, because their motivation has run out.
So if you go back to even you know, when when we first met, you will see it in our squad, people will do our beginner courses, because they'll have a burst of motivation that they want to do a triathlon and we'll introduce them to the sport. But then once I've done the first triathlon, it's only if they feel connected, and then they've developed the routines and habits to sustain it. Because the motivation runs out, you know, when the alarm goes off, when the alarm goes off at five o'clock in the morning, and you got to get up and go training, unless you connect it to the purpose, it's not really going to happen.
And it's the same in a professional capacity. If you're working hard towards something, and you're achieving, you know, you've got some real clear goals. If you have to get up early, it might be getting up early to do some study or to write or to learn or to listen to a podcast or whatever it might be. If you're not connected to that purpose, and you're not in a good routine, it's not going to happen.
So the behavior comes back to a really good routine that you can sustain on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis, because that's how you achieve performance.
It's like the Japanese principle kausar, it's just a little bit every day a little bit every day, it's not one big week of work or one big month of work. It's just a little incremental bits.
So it's been great being consistent.
That's the key.
So that I think, once you've developed all that your purpose and your connections of all you're looking at, you're at a loss, are they Well, have I got good routines and habits? And if you haven't, that's where you probably need to go, how can I change my lifestyle, to ensure my habits and routines are delivering me to my behaviors, which is performance.
And this is where I think many people go wrong is just the routines and habits out there anyone that has achieved success at an elite level, whether it be in in a professional capacity or sporting capacity.
They are creatures of habit. Simply just creatures of habit that they can perform the daily tasks every day. And I just consistently good at being consistently great. That's alive. And this is so true. I live on habits. I don't question if I get up in the morning, because then I would have the internal discussions with myself. So I'd stick targets didn't call this whatever.
So that's a really good point and also the small incremental steps.
And it's not just one big sprint, it's a marathon. Hmm, absolutely. But it's also going the other way. So yes, we have those good habits that actually get us to the high performance, but most of us have habits as they aren't, they may not be good. What can we do to change that was a small and sustainably?
Look? That's a good question.
Because we all have bad habits, don't we, you know, it's interesting, I'm sitting here and I've got a, I've got a bowl of popcorn next to me that I'm sort of snapping on. So we all we all have our you know, our bad habits, but it it's an understanding that we're human as well.
And we're not perfect. So what I guess we if you want to create a habit, it's it's something you've got to be initial burst of motivation will give you the habit. So if you do something, I'm not sure the exact studies but you're looking generally probably about six to eight weeks, if you do something repeatedly for six to eight weeks, it will become a habit. If you want to stop doing something, it's the same thing, you've got to set the goal of alternatively say, Okay, if I want to stop smoking, or if I want to go to bed earlier or for one to you know, read a book, or whatever the bad habit might be, you've actually got to put a plan in place, you've actually got to have a sustainable and achievable plan in place. So for example, at the moment, I found, you know, over the last sort of 1213 months, I haven't been training as seriously.
And so my weight has steadily increased to the point where now I actually need to lose a little bit of weight. And so I set myself for September, a 30 day challenge to do 100 chin ups and 200 push ups every day. And it's been really hard, but I just use a simple calendar, a walk calendar, and every day I put across on the calendar when I've done it, I'm getting that, that dopamine hit to my brain, I'm getting that feedback, that visual stimulation or really look forward to putting the cross. So if you're trying to eradicate a habit, it's the same thing. I think the more you do something so the habit might be to stop smoking or to go to bed earlier.
And so I'm gonna set myself a goal of going to bed by nine o'clock. Not so I'm getting more sleep so I can get up earlier, I can educate myself more, and I can be better. It's a matter of setting the goal. And then actually, each day, I think a simple thing like marking across on a calendar can help you do it.
And getting that, that feedback that, you know, and once you build up a certain amount of cross machinery like this really like this new habit, or I'm actually working away out of this habit. So it's the same principles apply whether you want to get lose a bad habit, or, or start a good habit, it's just setting a goal, having a clear plan. It's and you can't be too romantic about the whole thing, you've actually got to have a clear plan, what are the steps you're going to take to achieve your goal? So if you you know, okay, you want to read a book a month? Okay, so that means I have to read 10 pages a day. So you okay, how am I going to read 10 pages a day?
Well, maybe if you weren't scrolling on your phone for 30 minutes a day, there's time you could read for. So it's about a clear plan. And I also believe probably writing down your goals. And, and, and a level of accountability as well, you know, sharing your goal with someone, and then having them make you accountable to that. So a critical friend, if you want, but yeah, it's, it's really just putting good processes in place, and good routines or good habits, accountability, connection. And then the discipline of actually maintaining. And what you just mentioned, they're all great, very tangible tips, because in the end, it's a visual cue that I see haven't done it or not. And this is also a rewarding feeling to say, Oh, I actually did it.
And then you sum it up, and all of a sudden, yes, you may have just done 10 push ups here. 50. There, but over the year, you do 1000 push ups, and this is you know what the compound effect in the end comes down to Yeah, absolutely. And you also mentioned the critical friend, this is, you know, I think also especially with, with a coaching is such an important part to actually have this accountability and challenge people because where they are, I definitely want to lose 10 kilos. So why do you have your Big Mac next to you? Tomorrow? That sense of urgency or this pressure from somebody? You just usually don't do it?
Yes, yeah, we put it off as human beings, we put it off, because it's difficult. And we've learned to live in our comfort zones. Yes. And it's also sometimes intimidating, because you just think, Oh, my God, I have to lose 10 kilos. I don't even know where to start. I'll start tomorrow, so that you don't have, as you said before, and you don't have to plan. Or it's so crowded that you just don't think clearly. Yeah, yeah, no, you know, as you know, I'm sure a lot of your millennial members probably would have done a university degree. You know, when they started University, they didn't think about graduating, they're just sort of getting through the first semester. And let's, we just have to be, we just have to break your goals down into small, daily weekly goals that we can achieve. And I think this is a reflection of society, too, is it?
It's become too easy to get things. No, there's, there is a bit of good old fashioned tall and hard work. And, you know, elite performers. Pretty much any elite performer in any field has a coach. You know, they an elite performer knows what to do. They have the knowledge and the skill. You know, if it's in triathlon, which is my area of expertise, they know what to do in a daily training session. It's not so much what I can tell them, it's being that that supporter, that guide, that mentor, that teacher, that critical friend, to help them stay on the path of the goals that they had set, and then they've brought me in to help them achieve those goals. And in a business sense, I would take that pretty much anyone that's an elite performer in a business world, if they don't have a coach or should have a coach, because it makes a massive difference in terms of helping them stay accountable to their goals, and ensuring that they're staying on their path. Because as human beings, we are flawed, and we do make mistakes, and we do have setbacks. And we you know, when you have a setback, you just get back on the horse, and you started getting and honestly I couldn't agree more with that bend what I could also feel from my own experience, especially when I started triathlons, I definitely did build up resilience, and also that translated into other areas. So I remember very well in Noosa camp for traveling on a long weekend. And we did we arrived in the rain. We did a two hours windy session because it was raining so we couldn't go for a bike ride. We were in this in this basement. It was so long and I thought I have to die before I've never had been on a wind train for two hours. And then I said, Alright, get ready for 10 k Brown, I just thought I would cry and go home. But you know, I did it. And I think this is also has built up my resilience in areas in my career that you know, things are hard and not everything is presented on a silver platter.
Petra:
Can you also see them currently correlation between high performance from a physical state and also from a mental state in other areas of your life?
Mark:
Absolutely. But they're connected.
You know, being healthy physically, will help you in your professional life, you can expect to get the best out of yourself, if you're not looking after yourself physically, because, yes, whether it be doing a triathlon or, you know, doing a park run or any type of sporting event, even joining a sporting team and taking up a sport, you know, it develops resilience, and we need resilience.
Because professionally, it's tough at the moment, whether you've been made redundant or whether your business is suffering, we have to be resilient, we have to learn to pivot, and work our way through the tough times.
And my sporting experiences have been so beneficial in helping me through I guess, my own challenges, you know, professionally, that that we all come against. So, again, physical health is is so important. But even probably more important, I think, is our mental and emotional health.
And they're all connected, you know, physical health, emotional health, spiritual health, mental health, it's all connected. If we want to get the best out of ourselves in life and be a high performance individual is it comes back to that behavior.
But it also comes back to at the end of the day, looking after our, you know, the one, the one thing that we own in the world, they truly The only thing we own in the world was their body. With everything else we don't own. They're just physical possessions.
The only thing we truly own is our body.
And the better we look after our body, by exercise, we're designed to move we're hunters and gatherers, that's we go back to our ancestors were hunters and gatherers.
We're designed to move we're designed to connect, and were designed to play and to rest and to love and to connect. So it's super important that we get back to, I guess, a level of spirituality, you know, what is it that what, you know, what's your purpose in life, not just in business?
What's your purpose in life?
What is, you know, what is it that you want to achieve in your life away from business, and if you can connect all of that, well, then you're certainly on the road to becoming a high performer.
I think it also needs to be mentioned that being a high performer doesn't mean millions of dollars in the bank. It doesn't mean, you know, you're the CEO, you could be a high performer and just be in any level permission, any level of management or profession.
But if you're happy and successful, and you're doing well in your life, you're a high performer.
It's not defined by money, or status.
Petra:
I just want to ask if there's a definition or when we know if we are high performing, and maybe if we push ourselves too hard, or maybe not enough, is there?
Mark:
That's a good question.
I, for me, it's contentment.
I feel a level of contentment, and satisfaction in my life, then I feel as though I'm operating at my best.
So I'm a high performer for me. So that doesn't mean and one thing I'm never trying to do is compare myself to anyone else. If I have a level of contentment and satisfaction in the decisions that I've making, and me as a coach, as long as I'm making a difference in other people's lives, then I feel as though I'm being a high performer.
That's I think it's such an important part because everyone is so selfish or self centered. It's all about them. But we're never reaching the highest level of satisfaction if we don't do any service for somebody else. No, no, no. And you know, I think helping someone else actually releases oxytocin and serotonin and Brian, it makes us feel good. That and when we feel good, that's, that's, that's better than any alcohol or drug or, you know, synthetic type of thing that that will give you a high, helping someone else's is a fantastic thing.
So I just think it's really important that you, we don't compare, but you're being a high performer. Does it mean status or wealth? Are you content that you're doing well in your life, and that, you know, you're connecting with your purpose? whatever that might be.
Petra:
I couldn't have honestly sounded up better. That's perfect. So maybe it's just a wrap up. What kind of advice would you give us in terms of Yeah, we want to become a better version of ourselves professionally, personally, physically, what I meant might be, when should we start, especially if it's a little bit clouded? And when it's a bit overwhelmed?
Where do we start?
Mark:
Well, I would recommend getting a coach. Definitely having a coach and that critical friend, someone to help you make account be accountable.
Be really clear on your purpose, what is it that you want to achieve? So really drill down on Okay, what is my goal, and what is my purpose, once you know that, and then I think once you're working with someone who's going to help you be accountable, it'll actually come to you pretty clearly, the path, you know, the clouds will clear, so to speak.
So once you've got your goal and your purpose, and it's clear, the path will clear, the decisions will become a lot easier, and the plan will become a lot easier.
But just take one step, just take one step at a time, and set clear, realistic, achievable goals. But at the same time, you've got to stretch yourself, it's not going to be easy, but you have to stretch yourself. And you know, that's part of the journey. And it's when you do stretch yourself, you know, you can be in a comfort zone, you can be in a challenge zone, or you can be in a panic zone, we wanted to live in that challenge zone a little bit, you know, that stretch zone, not the panic zone where we go too far and break, we want to hear from an athlete perspective want to challenge athletes not break them.
And that's where the growth occurs.
So you've got to be prepared that it's gonna get a little uncomfortable.
But that's, that's where the fun is.
Petra:
And, you know, I just coming back again to the physical challenge. This is why I still love working out so much.
The more stressed I am, the more I'm working out to get rid of all of that negative energy and center it. And in fact, I did two keynotes.
And last week, and I went to the pool, you know, I did 10 kilometers last week, and I just practiced my speech. So you can also connect it and once your your blood is flowing, maybe from an exercise point of view, what is it good way to actually get healthier and feed up and make it also sustainable in our day.
Mark:
From an exercise point of view, most of our exercise needs to be at an aerobic intensity.
And what that means is, if you're going for a run or a walk, or a bike ride, or pedal or something, it should be at a level where you could have a conversation with someone. So at that level, you're you're developing your aerobic energy system.
So again, we have anything, we have the ability to outlast anything on the planet, because we're hunters and gatherers. So most of your training should be done at a perceived effort of about 67 out of 10.
So 10 out of 10 is as hard as you can go.
Zero to 10 is lying on the couch, six to seven out of 10 is about the intensity, you do most of your training.
But then sometimes you need to do what's called the hard high intensity, you know, spin sessions at the gym, or boxing classes or where conversation is not possible.
And it's uncomfortable and it hurts, about 20% of your training needs to be at that level. And if you do that, you know, three or four times a week, you'll get your your health will come and then obviously, you know watching what you eat and drinking lots of water.
And yeah, that'll that'll get you to a point where you're feeling better and healthier. And when you're healthier, you'll be more productive in your workplace. And that's where I think, you know, people don't understand the benefits of the physical health and how it can make a massive difference to their productivity. And to give you an edge, you know, in in what is becoming a very competitive environment, whether it be starting your own business or trying to secure a role, you've got to have an edge and the edge can be in in doing that and their basics. But a lot of people don't do them safely.
Go back to basics. Go back to basics of eat healthy food, get lots of sleep, drink water, and move. Go back to basics. And one other thing just communicate, connect. Listen, talk and connect.
Petra:
Love this holistic approach. Yeah, you mentioned because you can't perform high on one area and all the other aspects.
Mark:
No, no, it's all connected. It's all connected. And my experience of working with elite performers across you know, in the United Kingdom and here in Australia and in different sports is they have an awareness of the whole picture. And they're just creatures of habit. Just creatures of habit. Some of them are outliers in terms of their ability to just do an insane amount of work. But they still are just creatures of habit.
And the very the probably the biggest common denominators, they're very clear on their purpose. They just have such a clear vision of where they want to go and how to get them.
Petra:
Next up is Sam Holston. And what I love about Sam is that he breaks down the complex into something so easy and simple to understand. I'm talking about brain science, neuroscience, how the brain works, and how we can use this knowledge to turn it into productivity and performance, tips, tricks, and hacks.
Now enjoy the tips that Sam is sharing with us and how you can become a high performer and implements to sleep routines in your everyday life.
Sam:
Did you know that when you're stressed the parts of your brain responsible for your memory, and for worrying and thinking physically shrink. That's right, they physically shrink.
Today, I'm going to tell you a little bit about how your brain works, how you can optimize your brain for peak performance and better productivity. And it's all about stress. And you. Hi, I'm Sam Holston. I'm a growth strategist at intelli HR.
But really My passion is neuroscience in the brain. And since I was 16 years of age, I've been studying neuroscience in my own time, to really understand how my brain works.
Now I have a podcast called the brain tools podcast, and I share these tips. And today, I'm going to teach you how you can get the most out of your brain by keeping it as calm as possible for maximum output.
Remember how I said that when you're stressed the parts of your brain responsible for thinking and processing shrink, what actually happens is the cortisol that is flooding throughout your body and in your brain causes the hippocampus which is responsible for memory, and your prefrontal cortex, which is the coder in your brain responsible for all your thinking, all that amazing work you do, causes it to physically shrink in defense of the cortisol.
And this is how the cells protect themselves, the neurons protect themselves. So when you're really stressed, you physically can't perform at your peak.
Because the parts of the brain that you rely on to perform your hippocampus for your memory, and your prefrontal cortex for thinking and processing.
That's why performance and peak productivity is really about stress management.
And I'm going to give you a couple of things that can help you manage your stress to get the most out of your brain and to perform at your best level.
So here are my top three tips that I personally use based in neuroscience research of a decades that are validated by science be ready.
1. Okay, my number one tip, my first tip is get some green time.
And what I mean by this is gardens, plants and soil it and his way, when you surround yourself with green plants, or if you go into gardens, your brain naturally calms down, there's research that shows that you activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which turns off your stress response.
And there are a couple of reasons for why this happens. There are certain microbes in the soil, which contribute to elevated serotonin levels in the brain. But also they've found through a research at the University of Melbourne, that just staring at plants for 40 seconds, dramatically boosted concentration for students in the sample of 150 students that they tested using a specific exercise. So just being around plants being around green is really, really good for the brain. And from an evolutionary perspective, this is because that's where we evolved.
And so seeing green and plants triggers this de-stress response in the brain.
From a performance and productivity perspective, the way to use this is how I would use it throughout your day, make sure you're maximizing your exposure to time outside, especially around plants. And if you don't have that access, even just getting some indoor plants that you can look at as you're working or be surrounded by is incredibly important. And they also have flow on effects like improving the oxygen that you brave and the calming effect.
So number one is get some great time for better performance and productivity.
2. My second tip is another physical tip.
And this is for that moment, when you're breaking down and you feel really stressed. Maybe you've got a couple of projects on the go and some deadlines coming up.
Your boss just pinged you on slack or Microsoft Teams and now you're freaking out a little bit As soon as that stress response starts rolling down the parts of your brain responsible thinking shut down, it physically stop. It's a survival mechanism.
So you need to regain control of your brain to reregulate from the deregulation you're experiencing. And the way you can do this is by using some physical stress. And what I mean by that is physical exercise. So you can stand up out of your chair, and go to the wall and do a squat for 60 seconds. Or you can go and do some squats in the air until you start to get tired.
Whatever you do, the important thing is to do some physical exercise, because this actually forces the blood to flow throughout your body, pushing out the cortisole, flushing it throughout your system, but also switches your nervous system from sympathetic stress response to parasympathetic, calming you down, plus our flow effects from exercise with the blood rushing through your brain oxygenating your brain clearing out some of that stress induced performance drop. So here's how I use this at my work.
I work remotely like almost everyone does these days. And when I'm feeling a little bit pent up or stressed, I'll go outside and oh, shoot hoops for five minutes, I've got a basketball ring, I'll just shoot for five minutes and try to work up a tiny bit of sweat. And what I find is this has the effect of clearing your mind is way to describe it. But what is really doing is clearing out these neurotransmitters and these hormones and resetting your system. It's like a physical reset, so that you're able to focus again.
And it's really, really good. If you find yourself having those memory blank moments where you're so stressed and you just can't think of what you should be doing. That's the perfect time for a physical reset. There's a famous neuroscientist called Dr. Jared Kinney hava, he has a great book, it's called stop talking, start influencing. And one of the things he likes to do is he does a wall squat for 60 seconds when he starts experiencing these like mind blanks. And that's one really great way to do it, I encourage finding something that you'd like doing.
If you like doing push ups, you like doing squats, even if it's just walking around a little bit to move your body, the important thing is getting in your body and getting the blood flowing.
So you push out the stress hormones from within your muscles and within your brain and you reset your system. performance and productivity is really just stress management.
We perform at our best our optimal when our stress is low, and our thinking functions in our brain or the resources directed towards them, as opposed to fight, fight or freeze. So tip number two is a physical reset for when you're feeling overwhelmed.
Before I give you my fourth and final and last tip on how to achieve high productivity and performance by optimizing your brain in the way you're doing things, I've got to address the elephant in the room.
3. Sleep.
Sleep is the number one productivity hack in the world.
In fact, DARPA, which is a big Defense Agency in America, called sleep, a learning superpower and a thinking superpower. And the reason is many different things.
One, when you sleep your brain flushes out all the toxic waste and build up from the day. It's like a garbage man going for at night and cleaning the bins in your brain.
So it helps flush out the system.
And there's a process with cerebral spinal fluid that's flushed out from your core taxes and cleans out these accumulated proteins and waste. So cleanse your brain sleep.
The second big thing is memory consolidation. So when we sleep during a specific phase vacillate through slow wave sleep, our brain actually replays our memories from the day and we consolidate these into memories. This is how you learn new things.
You don't learn them when you're experiencing them throughout the day. You learn them that night when your brain is replaying.
And this is why sleep is really important for performance and learning and productivity is because it's how your brain consolidates the memories and the learning from that day. The other big one is that sleep impacts your mood regulation through your endocrine system and your maturities to pituitary gland. We'll be glad.
So when you don't sleep properly, your hormones are totally out of balance because your body is still struggling to recalibrate. And it's lacking the period at not which it does that which is when you sleep healthy. So without doing anything else, if you don't sleep optimally, there is no way you can sustainably improve your performance and productivity over time. You could do nothing else. Just getting a good night's sleep every night is the biggest productivity hack ever.
Exercise number three and one that I love to do before and after I've commenced an activity session, a little block of work, and that's called the box breath.
4. Box breath
And basically what you do is you breathe in for four seconds 1234, hold for 4 seconds 1234 and breathe out for four seconds 1234. And then you hold the breath for four seconds, 1234. That's a box 4444.
The reason I do this before and after. And the reason why I encourage you, is because deep breathing when you do it in this way, activates your parasympathetic nervous system.
And in your brain is basically turns off the stress response, which is really, really good for productivity and performance. Because when you turn that stress response off that sympathetic nervous system response, and all the hormones that come along with it, cortisol, norepinephrine, all which create distractions, and stress and reduce your ability to think like we talked about in the start with your prefrontal cortex, your hippocampus shrinking in stress conditions, when you deactivate those hormones. by breathing in deeply by doing a box breath, you prime yourself for a much more productive session, you can enter your work with a much clearer mind.
And you'll feel this as well. This also works in the moment, you're feeling overwhelmed, much like the physical reset, you can do the box breath, and improve your productivity and performance by resetting your brain and removing that feeling of stress, which is often the thing that gets most in our way when it comes to productivity and performance. So really simple to call the box breath.
Four seconds in four seconds, hold four seconds out four seconds help you set the start, and at the end, and anytime in the middle when you're feeling stressed as a way to prepare yourself, and to keep your brain as unstressed as possible, and therefore performing at its best.
Okay, so I know I said I was only going to give you three tips. But I have two other ones that I really love, and that I use all the time. And they're a little bit unconventional, for achieving performance and productivity.
But I think they're really effective. The first one is the afternoon nap. Now, the reason I suggest this is there's a lot ofresearch out there that suggests a sleeping patterns were actually optimized for a nap in the afternoon when we evolved. But as we became the society that worked nine to five jobs, we lost that opportunity. And that's why there's still cultures, Spain, Italy, other places in the world that have this Yes, because it might be in a part of our chronological sleep cycle. So I like to take when I'm feeling tired, a 20 minute nap maximum in the afternoon as a way to reset.
And I find that gives me from the hours of about three to six, or two to five, just this added boost of productivity because my brain is able to shut down for a little bit and process. What's happened before that. So the afternoon nap. Really, really cheeky little productivity and performance hack that I find is amazing. I know many incredible human beings from Einstein to Salvador died to Thomas Edison swore by naps, and there was a reason for that thing, great for your brain. And the other one, which is more to do with your computer, and distractions, which is a big thing I'm finding myself is to put everything you do in full screen mode, full screen mode.
So what I mean by this is, if you're using an internet browser, or if you're an Excel word, whatever you're working in, put it fullscreen mode, and close the taskbar bottom. And the reason is, this completely eliminates the visual cues and distractions you get, maybe it's an email, Slack, Microsoft Teams notification, maybe you've got a couple of different documents open you keep glancing down and seeing that one of those documents is something you really desperately need to do but you're working on something else. eliminating these from your screen by using full screen view is a great way to remove that visual noise and makes focus so much easier to do.
Again, so those are some of my favorite performance and productivity tips when it comes to the brain. just wrapping those up the first one was getting green time be around some plants.
The second was a physical reset from when you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed because performance productivity go. So performance and productivity go hand in hand with your stress management stress levels.
The third one was the box breath before and after.
And anytime you're feeling stressed and then using full screen view and afternoon naps.
Now, the last thing I'll leave you with is when it comes to sustainably, performance performing your best and being the most productive version of yourself. What it really comes down to is regulating your energy throughout the day.
Managing your stress and making sure you have enough outlets and enough breaks for your brain to recover. Unfortunately, our brains are not computers that all machines, we can just plug into the wall and use all day without recharging.
We need to give them some time to reset, and refocus. And this is the biggest thing that I find for for people who don't really understand what's happening with their brain is as you work throughout the day, you are depleting the resources, your brain needs to function at its best, while also accumulating fatigue. So give yourself some breaks. In fact, give yourself a break right now, if you can. I'm Sam Halston and neuroscience obsessed nerd with my podcast brain tools.
I hope you learn something you found something new. And that you can learn how to better use your brain for optimum performance and to be as productive as possible during these really, really times.
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