What’s your peak performance cocktail?
Peak performance. It’s a difficult, complicated and often ambiguous subject. Thousands of books and studies have been done to figure it out. Often referring to sports teams, as it’s easier to figure out who performs better than the others in the same game. Making it very intangible for people at work who are told they need to perform at their peak for 8hrs/day and 5 days/week (if you’re lucky). But what if we looked at it from first principles? Perhaps we can make it a bit more tangible for everyone.
For starters, we share 99.9% of our DNA with other people. Yes, even with the people who look nothing like you and even the people you can’t stand. And while we’re more alike than we are unalike, no two people are exactly the same. Even twins will differentiate over time. So how we might get to peak performance individually within our respective disciplines can vary widely.
It’s a bit like you are going to a Thai restaurant and your friend orders something spicy. You say to the waiter, “I’ll like the same but not as spicy as her”. But how does the waiter know if it’s the perfect amount of spicy for you? Probably you don’t even know. You can only feel it when it’s just about right. So how can find figure out what the right amount of spices are for our personal peak performance dish?
In the book “The Leading Brain” there is a beautiful break down of brain peak performance from a neuroscience perspective. Without spoiling everything, we basically need a cocktail with 3 ingredients.
1. Dopamine
2. Noradrenaline and,
3. Acetylcholine
Breaking down the high-performance cocktail
Ingredient #1 — Dopamine
Dopamine amongst other things aids motor control. However, in the context of the brain and peak performance, it’s the “fun chemical”. Thus in order to perform at your peak, you need to have fun!
Ingredient #2 —Noradrenaline
Noradrenaline is at an optimal level when you feel slightly over challenged; it leads to a “this is tricky but I think I can handle it” feeling. It’s also released when you push yourself to perform a difficult task better, faster, or with fewer resources. Incorporating a constraint on your task or work, e.g. by putting a time slot in your calendar to complete the entire task within the time can help increase your noradrenaline and your performance.
Ingredient #3 —Acetylcholine
Acetylcholine comes from a part of the brain called the nuclear basalis. Babies release acetylcholine without even trying. Researchers have called this the “critical period of neuroplasticity”. Basically meaning that the learning machine is continuously on. As adults, we are not so lucky. We constantly need to find that learning switch while being completely in the dark.
So how do you flip the switch of your learning machine?
First, you need to be exposed to something that releases dopamine (the fun chemical). This is also why Instagram (or Twitter) is so addictive, you go to it when you are bored and it rewards you with a tiny bit of dopamine. However, there is no one size fits all. Your personality traits and current skill level have a huge impact on what actually gets you to a state of arousal that will release the right amount of dopamine. Personally, I get easily bored when it’s not intellectually stimulating or energetic for example administration or organizing things. Instead, I rather create something tangible in a short period of time. That works great for creating experiments, not so great if you want to write the next Harry Potter.
How I personally switch on the learning machine in my head? One thing that works for me is that I put on a song that just gets me in hyperfocus. Preferably with as little lyrics as possible. Here is my latest focus song. I put it on repeat and suddenly my dopamine system is activated and I’m starting to have fun at the task. Then I enforce myself to have completed the task within a time window (<50 min) that is blocked in my calendar, which releases a bit of noradrenaline. And finally, I try to envision what I can learn from doing this task by completing it, so my learning switch is switched to on.
Then I repeat the same for the next task, just with a different song that goes on repeat. If you do it often enough you’ll slowly turn brain peak performance into a habit, not some mythical thing that only happens to the happy few.
What’s the performance cocktail that switches you on?
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