Contents
It is not the stress itself that is harmful, but the inability to manage it. Psychologists Jim Lauer and Tony Schwartz, in their book Life at Full Power, suggest that those who complain about lack of time, fatigue, and a drop in productivity at work take the example of professional athletes – to alternate periods of maximum power and maximum relaxation.
Comparing the pressures experienced by professional athletes and ordinary office workers, Loher and Schwartz came to the paradoxical conclusion: “The demands on ordinary people doing office work far exceed those of any professional athletes with whom we have worked.” Why is this happening? It’s just that the life of athletes is better organized. And this is understandable. After all, athletes are always in sight, their regime is subordinated to a single goal – to win the competition, bring points to the team, set a record. The main feature of sports training is just a hard rhythm, the alternation of concentration and relaxation, the consumption of only those foods that give energy in the right quantities. And of course, control over emotions.
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- The formula for success
What is the most important for performance? Energy! Changing the cycles of activity and relaxation is necessary in order to efficiently spend and replenish energy. Stress only depresses us when it lasts and is not resolved. Ideally, stress hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol spur you on, give you the joy of activity and the desire to create. But when we experience moderate stress for a long time, we lose efficiency. Thus, argue Loher and Schwartz, it is not stress itself that is harmful, but the inability to manage it. By subjecting ourselves to strong but short-term stress, by doing things that are beyond our capabilities, we train our “energy lungs”. It is better to concentrate fully on a particular task in order to quickly get it over with than to drag out the process by “pumping” yourself with something sweet or exciting (for example, a cigarette) in an attempt to alleviate anxiety due to deadlines and requirements.
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- Presenteeism: when work becomes harmful
- Breathing exercises for well-being
To achieve true efficiency, the authors of Life at Full Power urge you to take sprinters as a model – to break your activity into a series of intervals. To do this, you need to rebuild life in literally all areas. For example, determine the schedule of meals, sleep, do breathing exercises (deep and rhythmic breathing affects the supply of oxygen and the work of all organs). Our emotions also participate in the cycle of energy. They, too, can be subordinated to a certain rhythm. “Achieving full emotional power requires what the Stoic philosophers called “the interdependence of the virtues.” They believed that none of the virtues can exist by itself. Directness without delicacy, for example, can result in callousness. The ultimate goal is the ability to easily and flexibly move from one feeling to the opposite.”
The authors attach particular importance to daily rituals. It can be, for example, ten seconds of deep breathing and listening to your favorite music, calling home, running up the stairs several floors. The main thing is that at this moment we can completely distract ourselves from work and replenish energy. The more precisely we follow these rituals, the faster we can recover.
It is worth noting that the book “Life at full capacity” is written in line with modern approaches to productivity, which actively borrow oriental traditions and techniques. Thus, the Japanese economic miracle became possible largely due to the clarity and rhythm of the work (or rather, life) of people, their high self-organization. Breath control and clear mind meditation, which are actively used by the same athletes, come from the arsenal of Indian yogis and spiritual practitioners. The main idea of the authors of “Life at Full Power” is also close to Eastern philosophy: external success is impossible without internal harmony and subordination of one’s life to the natural rhythms of life.
Authors:
Jim Loehr, psychologist, chairman and CEO of the Human Performance Institute (USA).
Tony Schwartz, President of the Human Performance Institute, co-author of the center’s training program methodology (USA).
J. Lauer, T. Schwartz “Life at full power” (Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2010).