The Peak Performance Expert

How to relieve that brain traffic jam

Does your brain feel jammed?

Do you ever wish you could push a delete button and get rid of all the junk in your noggin?

Today a client reported feeling overwhelmed and tense because of the  immense amount of work she had to complete within a short period of time.  Sound familiar?

Paying attention to the barrage of information coming at us is costly.  Most of us aren’t aware that there are different kinds of attention; we spend most of our time engaged in “narrow-objective-focus,” zeroing in on one or a few things in the foreground and ignoring the background.

In a book called, The Open-Focus Brain by Les Fehmi and Jim Robbins, Fehmi, relying on decades of research, says that the way we pay attention has a measurable impact on our brain waves.  Read the rest of this entry »

It may be hard for you to picture a bunch of Marines meditating but that’s just what they did under the guidance of The Mind Fitness Training Institute  in a study to boost resilience. 

The short version of this story is that mindfulness training works.  That’s not news to the many people who already practice a mindfulness based program but it certainly was news to the Marines who engaged in this project. 

Here is an example of one of the mindfulness exercises the Marines were taught:

An early exercise was to have the men consciously shift attention between 2 places.  They were asked to sit quietly and simply bring their attention to the point of contact between their feet and the floor or their seats and the chairs or their hands on their laps. If or when they noticed their minds wandering, they were asked to bring their attention back to that point of contact. 

Once their attention had stabilized, they were then asked to shift their attention to a new bodily sensation or sound.  It could be a focus on breathing or sounds in the environment.  When attention moved away, they were asked to bring it back to the breath or the sounds.  After that had stabilized they were then asked to shift back to the original point of focus. 

The shifting back and forth trains the mind to be able to place attention where you want!  And when distractions occur, to bring it back to where you want it to be. 

This is an easy and portable exercise that works to boost working memory capacity which is essential to healthy cognitive and emotional functioning.

Ever since Osama bin Laden met his demise, there has been significant interest in the mystique of the Navy SEALs.  Who are these tough guys and how do they train? Can an average citizen learn some of these mental toughness techniques? 

Well, if you have any fantasies of becoming a SEAL, think again.  The training and initiation is beyond rigorous and somewhere between 75 – 90% of applicants don’t make it. 

Still, you can learn some of the techniques used by SEALs and in fact, you probably already do! Read the rest of this entry »

High stakes, high visibility situations are accompanied by excitement and tension.  It’s easy to get distracted by extraneous thoughts and feelings that interfere with your performance.  Meditation is a great technique to train yourself to let go of distractions and focus on what is most relevant – your performance! 

Now your first reaction might be the thought that you don’t have time to meditate. Well okay, but if you have a big event coming up you may want to think twice about this. 

Meditation is simple and hard; teachers of meditation say it is the simplest hard thing you can do!  Why?  Well, take about 10 minutes and try it – at least once. Come on… 

There are many different “types” of meditation but what they have in common is a focus on the breath.  So, what I recommend is this: 

Find a nice quiet place and sit up with your eyes closed. Now just notice the rise and fall of your breathing and don’t try to “do” anything. Meditation is more about “being” than “doing.” 

Just notice how your breath rises and falls, comes in and out. Just notice it and as you do so, when thoughts appear, simply notice those and let them go, without staying focused on the thoughts, without deepening them. Just notice these thoughts as distractions but don’t judge them or become attached to them. You’re going to practice not reacting to new thoughts. You’re just going to acknowledge their existence and let them go. 

Okay, if you’re like most people you realized you have many, many thoughts of all kinds and you probably noticed that it’s not easy to just sit there and focus on your breathing! (It’s the letting go of all these thoughts that prompt people to say meditation can be hard.) 

 When I meditate, I start thinking about such things as: that person I need to call; an email I must respond to; a birthday I forgot; what to cook for dinner tonight; something I forgot to tell my husband; and lots of other stuff. Each time that happens, I notice it and let it go…and again – I notice it and let it go…over and over.  You might be thinking – so what!? Well, each time I go through this process I am training my brain to let go and refocus, let go and refocus, let go and refocus. I am also training myself not to react impulsively but rather to observe with a somewhat detached interest. 

Now, isn’t that important for performing?  Consider how useful it would be to have that skill of letting go of irrelevant thoughts and feelings which can undermine your productivity and your performance and being able to refocus on what is most important – your performance in the moment! 

You also must be able to let go of any mistakes that you make because if you dwell on those mistakes you won’t be able to pay attention to what you need to do next.  Meditation can help you with that. You can learn to stay focused on your performance instead of getting caught up in distractions. 

Although it’s recommended that you spend 20minutes a day on meditation, you can also incorporate mini-meditations of a few minutes throughout the day.  A few moments here and there can also train your brain to let go and refocus. 

How often have you been told to “relax and take a deep breath” when you are stressed or anxious?  And have you tried it?  It ain’t easy.  And that’s because  when we are anxious, we’re breathing shallowly and quickly so trying to take a deep in-breath at that moment can feel almost painful and not at all relaxing.

Instead, focus on your exhale.  Breathe out as slowly as possible 3 times and see how that feels.  Notice yuor shoulders moving down from your ear lobes to their natural position. Notice that after you exhale slowly you are creating room in your lungs so you can take in a deep breath.  Isn’t that better?

Next time you watch a baseball game, notice what the pitcher does.  Does he stop to inhale deeply? No, he exhales profoundly.  This serves two purposes: it allows him to rid himself of excess tension and it allows him to take in a nice deep in-breath.  Aaah…now he can focus on the task at hand.  And you can, too!

So, if you’re feeling tense, simply exhale slowly 3 times…more if you have the time and the inclination.  Over time, you will train your mind and your body to relax and focus whenever you exhale s-l-o-w-l-y.