Since I can remember I have been intrigued with the mind, body, spirit connection. I’m sure if you had asked me, twenty or so years ago, why I was training my answer would have been to improve physically. However, looking back even then there was something that I enjoyed about the training that neuroscience now supports.
In the west, we tend to think of the mind, body, and spirit as separate but in reality they are intimately connected. When you examine physical training from a hormonal perspective this is even more apparent. I believe in the future we will see more focus on the hormonal responses of training. I truly believe this is where the “magic’ of looking, feeling, and performing better lies.
Commit, Show Up, Don’t Quit, Be Uncommon,
Billy
Here are 4 Neuroscience Hacks from Coach Sonnon:
| What Creates a High Performing State of Mind? Hello Friends,Working with elite surgeons, combat pilots, professional athletes, Fortune 100 executives and special operations forces, I have identified certain common characteristics.Four major brain chemicals create their high performing state of mind:SerotoninDopamineOxytocinNorepinephrineEmpowering you with the ability to release these chemicals, places control of your attitudinal state and full access to your capabilities in your hands (called an “internal locus of control”), rather than being subject to your environmental influences and believing you must await luck, success and fortune and wish/pray to avoid failures (called an “external locus of control”).These four biochemical “hacks” will aid you in secreting the brain chemistry to improve your performance and self-gratification in your life, personal development and career.1. Be a Warrior not a WorrierA warrior can ‘enjoy less’ where a worrier ‘enjoys less.’ As Socrates stated, “The secret of happiness is not in seeking more, but in the capacity to enjoy less.”Stimulating an unwanted chemical release in an undesired region of your brain, lessens your capacity to enjoy. UCLA neuroscientist Alex Korb, author of The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time, explains: “worrying stimulates the medial prefrontal cortex and lowers activity in the amygdala, thus helping your limbic system, your emotions, remain copascetic.”You’ll have to practice ‘mental self-defense’ against external messages which trigger worrying, and practice ‘mental martial art’ by disciplining yourself through repetition of self-gratification.Remember: a warrior can experience enjoyment with less. Korb recommends the daily practice of asking: “What am I grateful for?”He explains the biochemical rationale this way, “One powerful effect of gratitude is that it can boost serotonin. Trying to think of things you are grateful for forces you to focus on the positive aspects of your life. This simple act increases serotonin production in the anterior cingulate cortex.”The ‘Cingulate’ is where “worry” happens, but it’s also where impulse control, mental flexibility, motivation and morality occur. A gratitude practice changes you from worrier to warrior: allowing you to control impulses, feel greater motivation, strengthen your moral compass and act with greater mental flexibility. 2. Perfect your Practice; don’t try to Practice PerfectlyNo practice will ever be perfect because by the time you finish, you’ll have been able to practice better. Attempting to perfectly practice is the realm of the mediocre. High performers, however, focus on improving HOW they practice, rather than merely trying to perform their skills better.Neuoroscientist Alex Korb explains that trying to practice perfectly, rather than perfecting your practice, “brings too much emotional ventromedial prefrontal activity into the decision-making process.” Contrarily, perfecting your practice, “activates more dorsolateral prefrontal areas, which helps you feel more in control … increasing rewarding dopamine activity.”Dopamine is both the reward and the motivation neurotransmitter, so if you want to increase your motivation to face more uncomfortable circumstances (outside of your comfort zone where growth and advancement occur), then start by self-rewards, so that you strengthen that channel with increased motivation. By increasing your motivation, you also feel like you deserve greater rewards for your behaviors.Perfecting practice, “includes making decisions, creating intentions and setting goals — all three are part of the same neural circuitry and engage the prefrontal cortex in a positive way, reducing worry and anxiety. They also help overcome striatum activity, which usually pulls you toward negative impulses and routines. Finally, they change your perception of the world — finding solutions to your problems and calming the limbic system,” Korb continues. 3. The Trust Bond of Touch |
| “Believe nothing you hear, half of what you see, and all of what you feel. Only touch is real,” says Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Doctor Jonathan Ellsworth Winter.The power of human touch can tame the most powerful emotions because it releases the chemistry of social trust. UCLA neuroscientist Alex Korb explains that human contact, “releases the neurotransmitter and hormone oxytocin, which reduces the reactivity of the amygdala.”In a study Korb references, those whose hands were held by another felt less anxious when about to receive an electrical shock: “The brain showed reduced activation in both the anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — that is, less activity in the pain and worrying circuits.”Grappling martial art practice provides sustained, controlled physical contact which develops trust-based relationships due to the oxytocin release it elicits.Practicing grappling arts like Jiujitsu, Judo, Sambo or Wrestling sends signals to our brain that activate the release of oxytocin, increasing risk-taking and willingness to relate with one another as a community, and a sense of calm and trust.Effective grappling schools “Roll” and you can viscerally feel the emotional resonance forming through the controlled pressure, smooth movement and calm breath, which stimulate risk-taking and as a result, accelerate the rate of learning. Ineffective grappling schools, contrarily, become fights between opponents every class, decreasing risk taking and slowing the learning rate. As multiple time world Brazilian Jiujitsu champion and TACFIT Instructor, Alberto Crane, says, “it’s not merely about proficiency; it’s the relationships which make you successful.” 4. Be Error-Focused and Micro-Progressive |
| If you only focus on your successes, you improve slowly or not at all, especially when failures and losses are a much higher percentage than successes and wins when you begin and even into moderate expertise. When you fail or don’t improve, you have emotional difficultly with your imperfection (see #2). So beginners and intermediates develop slowly, where advanced practitioners develop rapidly, with an ever widening gap between the two.Most people try something a few times and may improve by 3-5% but then hit a performance plateau, followed by regress. Imagine you could improve even only 1% every time you intentionally perfect your practice. Over several years, those drips and drabs become a torrent.Peak Performance expert Anders Ericsson argues it’s not 10,000 hours but the quality of practice which develops mastery.With each micro-improvement you achieve, if you celebrate that progress, you release dopamine, explains the Director of Persuasive Tech Lab of Stanford University, BJ Fogg. Your brain cannot differentiate between perceived (qualifiable) progress and actual (quantifiable) progress.You either win or you learn; if you quantifiably progress or regress, find the skill you can refine or correct, and you’ll always improve.Place your most difficult tasks earliest in the morning when you have the greatest cognitive advantages, and can remain dispassionately error-focused, and by mid day to late, you can be practicing the corrections and refinements, when cognitive capacity ebbs.MIT Neuroscientist T. Swart assures that if you keep ample supple of norepinephrine (the attention neurotransmitter) in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), you can deliberately practice. As attention declines, ventromedial (“very emotional”) PFC takes over and focuses on emotional judgment of your performance, rather than critical analysis of areas for improvement. Judgmentalism prevents you from focusing and acting upon errors, slows progress and activates the amygdala with fear and anxiety.Teresa Amabile, from HBS, refers to this as the progress principle: “Of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. And the more frequently people experience that sense of progress, the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run. … everyday progress—even a small win—can make all the difference in how [people] feel and perform.” Very Respectfully, Scott Sonnon |