Read time:
The pursuit of high performance can be taxing.
A little over a month ago, we spent some time discussing the journey of USA Olympic Swimmer Caeleb Dressel. You can listen to the How To Flourish podcast episode - here.
Dressel’s story is an all too familiar tale of the all consuming nature of high performance. Despite being at the pinnacle of his game, he was breaking down and burning out internally, eventually withdrawing from the World Championships and taking a hiatus from the sport at a time when he should be reaping the rewards of his lifelong work.
In this week’s issue we’re going to take a look at a deeper understanding of human performance and explore a 6 minute practice that you can implement right away to lower stress, increase enjoyment, along with continuing learning and growing in your daily life.
Understanding High Performance
In 1982, Peter Nixon, a cardiologist exploring stress and burnout in relation to heart health developed the Human Functioning Curve. This tool helps us understand the relationship between performance and arousal (stress). It demonstrates that we are biologically connected to external stressors and everything we experience in our lives has an impact on our inner life and well-being. Stress in appropriate doses is not only necessary but useful. An appropriate relationship with stress can move us from low arousal, drifting, drone zone kind of living into purposeful, passionate, and meaningful lives.
However, if taken too far, it can drastically impact our well-being, and lead to burn out. There is a healthy tension every high performer must have with stress. In his research, Peter Nixon found that the sweet spot was to spend most of our time at 75-80% of total capacity. Intentionally leaving more in the tank. Not going to the well with extreme efforts on a regular basis. Most importantly, Nixon found that if we ignore our body’s cues in this fatigue zone it will do damage to our health.
Whether a high performing leader wants to admit it or not, they will fall somewhere on this curve.
Drone Zone, C Zone, Fatigue Zone or Ill Health.
Most high performers don’t find themselves in the drone zone often, but rather spend their lives and their vocation teetering on the edge of C Zone, and Fatigue Zone in the space of “productive discomfort” that comes with growing, leading, and winning in their respective arenas. Stress is what causes us to climb from the Drone Zone to the Fatigue Zone. We need stress, but if we’re not related to stress well - it will take us down from the inside-out.
Remember, this is research done by a cardiologist while studying the effects of stress on the heart.
The Human Functioning Curve was not birthed in some high performance sports academy with the greatest 17u stars in this generation. It wasn’t developed in the training centers of the top college athletic departments as they sought to find the 1% edge to separate themselves from the pack.
It was developed by studying the effects of stress on the heart. As the story of Caeleb Dressel taught us, if we don’t learn to establish a healthy relationship with stress, it will take us down from the inside-out, and often at the most perplexing and inconvenient times - when we’re achieving what we thought would satisfy, but it isn’t.
Reduce Your Stress By 68% In 6 Minutes
Maybe you find yourself firmly planted in a productive zone, rooted in good rhythms, healthy relationships with your pursuit and firmly planted in effective recovery. If that is you, keep going!
For those of us who need to reduce stress and learn to move from the fatigue zone back to the C Zone, what tools do we have in our toolbox? While we’re often reaching for our phones and scrolling, we all know that isn’t helping (actually may be causing the problem but that is for another newsletter edition), we can try to lose ourselves in sports & entertainment, or watch a netflix show. But most of the time, these outlets aren’t moving the needle at the level we need either. There is however one practice that has been shown to be far superior to all the others.
Reading a book.
Researchers at Sussex University in the UK found that reading can reduce stress by up to 68%. Study co-author Dr. David Lewis and his colleagues found that participants who engaged in just six minutes of reading experienced a slowed heart rate and relaxed muscle tension.
The study found that reading reduced stress better and more quickly than other methods of relaxation.
Listening to music (61% reduction)
Drinking tea or coffee (54% reduction)
Going for a walk (42% reduction)
It’s no wonder the best leaders I engage with are voracious readers. The saying has always been “leaders are readers.” Perhaps we only focused on the perceived commitment to learning and growing that comes from “leaders are readers.” In reality a hidden benefit may have been the embedded stress relief.
Many coaches I interact with confess they maintain reading 1-2 books a month even while in season. Some may ask “How do you have all that time to read?” Well in reality, it may not just be a margin or capacity issue, it may be the very thing keeping them from cascading from the fatigue zone to full on ill-health.
6 minutes of reading can relax your muscles, slow your heart rate, allow your mind to be fully engaged in something other than the stress and anxiety surrounding life, leadership, and the pursuit of high performance.
There’s something about reading that intentionally slows the pace of life down. One of the tell-tale signs I need to re-evaluate my calendar and my commitments is when I start to feel “too busy” to read. Working my way through books is an anchoring habit that intentionally places margin in my life. If it goes, my health will surely follow.
I’ve written many times about the power of reading in the past. And even created a full on STC reading challenge years ago. If you’re looking for some great reads, reach out and we can steer you in the right direction.
Of course, I’m always looking for reads to add to my queue as well. Reply and let me know what you’re reading these days!
Stay The Course,
JB
