Peak Performance and Executive Functioning

Hello listeners, it's Friday, February 9th, then you're tuned in to The Science of Self, where you change your life from the inside out. Today, we're diving into the fascinating world of your brain with an episode inspired by Peter Holland's book, Super Brain. We'll be exploring circadian rhythms as well as our tendency to procrastinate. Think of it as a user manual for your brain power. There are innate, natural patterns that our brain has followed for thousands of years. Even if they are constantly challenged and undermined in the modern world, deep down, the brain is still running on cognitive routines, preferences and programs that took our entire shared history to evolve. Let’s dig into some important biological aspects of our neural functioning, and how we can work with rather than against them. Follow the rhythm Our bodies follow a specific biological pattern that determines states of alertness and sleepiness, hunger and satiation, and more. The body has a clock that determines different the timing of aspects of our behavior and sensations.

Like everything else, this clock is tied to our brain (Laje, Agostino, & Golombek, 2018, The Times of Our Lives: Interaction Among Different Biological Periodicities). The clock marks the biological rhythms, i.e. the natural cycles of change of the brain chemicals and hormones. A master clock coordinates other clocks across the body, and the master clock is in the brain. The clocks need to be synchronized, and some things, like jet lag or chronic sleep deprivation, can throw them out of whack (Laje, Agostino, & Golombek, 2018, The Times of Our Lives: Interaction Among Different Biological Periodicities). The human experience is coordinated across several biological rhythms. First, circadian rhythms refer to the 24-hour cycle and the changes within this period. For example, before we feel sleepy, our bodies release melatonin to produce the sensation, and thus we’re prompted to want to sleep at predictable times every day. When we wake, our brain signals cortisol release, which gets us up and moving. This signal depends on cues from the environment and specialized cells that literally sense the passage of time and orchestrate behavior accordingly.

Another type of rhythm is called ultradian; these rhythms are shorter than 24 hours and include things like pulse, breathing rate, appetite, blink rate and REM sleep cycles, which last around 90 minutes. Finally, there are infradian rhythms longer than 24 hours, such as migration, hair growth, or menstruation (Laje, Agostino, & Golombek, 2018, The Times of Our Lives: Interaction Among Different Biological Periodicities). If you’re thinking about habit, performance and changing behavior, it’s wise to consider how the body naturally organizes its behavior. It’s all about timing: an obvious example is not to force yourself to learn something new and complicated at 2am, when everything in your body is priming your brain to sleep. When we understand our rhythms, we can schedule things more effectively and can also take care to keep our clocks running on time. Let’s consider each rhythm and how we might maintain them to improve our lives. Technique #5 Planning according to our brain clock The first aspect of this technique involves observing your natural rhythms. You can’t make changes until you know realistically what you’re dealing with. Pick several 24-hour cycles, preferably on days that are average for you and don’t involve any particular changes in your sleep or eating cycles or any extraordinary levels of stress.

Choose at least one weekday and a day on the weekend. Observe and write down the times when you feel most alert and awake. What time do you wake up normally when you don’t have to wake up at a specific time? What time do you wake up if you have gotten enough sleep? Note the times when you feel most and least productive. Usually, our alertness will spike throughout the day, rising and dropping. Some people are especially productive in the morning, while others do their best in the evening or the afternoon or even during the night. Note when is the best time to go to bed and wake up. If you know the times when you are most productive, you can schedule the most difficult and demanding tasks for these hours of the day.

How it connects to the brain: Our brain has a master clock that controls our biological rhythms. This clock runs to its own rhythm - we can’t thrive if we ignore it. Understanding this and organizing our life according to this rhythm can make us more productive and happier as well. When considering your schedule, you might discover your chronotype. A chronotype is a pattern of sleep and productivity spikes that focus on specific times. You might have heard about the lark and the owl: people who are most productive in the morning and in the evening/night, respectively. However, other chronotypes have been identified by Dr. Breus (2016, The Power of When) who presents a clear outline of four main types and suggests a productivity cycle for each. These types are more specific than the lark/owl division. They are believed to be based in biology, specifically, on gene expression and brain functioning, so it’s difficult to change one’s chronotype.

Instead, it can be best to try and adapt our lifestyle to it. •Bear Most people, around 55%, belong to the bear chronotype. They follow the solar cycle: getting up at 7 am and going to bed at 11 pm. Their productivity spikes between 10 am and 2 pm and drops after lunch. •Wolf Wolves sleep best between 12 am and 7 am. Their productivity spikes between 5 pm and 12 am. Around 15% of people fit in this chronotype. •Lion Lions sleep best between 10 pm and 6 am. Their focus and productivity go up between 8 am and 12 pm, so they are the most clear-cut “morning” type.

•Dolphin Around 10% of the population are dolphins. Dolphins rest best between 11:30 pm and 6:30 am. Their best productivity time is between 3 and 9 pm. Discovering your chronotype can help you decide how to schedule your tasks. For example, Bears and Lions can start with their heaviest tasks, while Dolphins do better if they can build up their more difficult tasks by starting with the easier ones. Use your chronotype to make a schedule optimal for you. You might note that the chronotypes still do better if they go to bed at midnight, and this is associated with another brain characteristic: we rest better if we go to sleep between 10 pm and 2 am and get enough sleep, no matter who we are or what our chronotype is (Walker, 2017, Why We Sleep). Despite each having our own chronotype, our internal clocks can be disrupted by different things. Our brains use light as one of the main signals, but eating and physical activity, as well as a disrupted and inconsistent sleep schedule, can also mess with our internal configuration.

A good idea is to avoid bright light as your bedtime approaches and increase natural light exposure in the mornings. Avoid heavy meals and physical activity before bed (Walker, 2017, Why We Sleep). This concerns circadian rhythms, the 24-hour cycle we experience every day. But what about ultradian and infradian cycles? Ultradian cycles are shorter than 24 hours. Since the 1950s, it has been suggested that our brains and, as a result, our bodies, move through 90 to 120 minutes cycle when we are awake and asleep. They define how our alertness might ebb and flow. Our attention will rise and fall during this time, as will our energy. When our bodies are at their best and we feel full of energy, we can take advantage to get things done and schedule our breaks for the ebb of our alertness (Goh, Maloney, Mark, & Blanche, 2019, Episodic Ultradian Events—Ultradian Rhythms).

We might push against these cycles to a degree, but this can lead to significant issues in the long term. When we look at the top performers across fields, such as a classic study done with young violin players, we can find they adapt their practice and performance to these cycles. They tend to work for 60 to 90 minutes and take breaks later, alternating between intense work bursts and recovery (Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesh-Romero, 1993, The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance). This means that it’s not useful to plan to work for several hours straight with no distractions. Instead, focus on alternating between intense work and rest within the cycle. It can feel counterintuitive and even lazy, but the results are likely to be better than you might get if you are pushing yourself to work harder and harder. Infradian rhythms regarding a monthly cycle can be more relevant for women than for men, as women must pay more attention to their menstrual cycles and hormonal changes. For women, planning for their infradian cycles can be useful, as it allows them to allocate less work for specific days and do more intense work on other weeks (Schechter, 2010, Sleep, Hormones, and Circadian Rhythms throughout the Menstrual Cycle in Healthy Women and Women with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder). However, infradian cycles might cover even a year.

Many people find that their energy dips in winter, for example, when there is less sunlight, and prepare themselves by taking more vitamins or planning for the biggest projects they have to take place over the spring and summer months. Winter and autumn can lead to seasonal affective disorder or seasonal depression (Melrose, 2015, Seasonal Affective Disorder: An Overview of Assessment and Treatment Approaches). Our brain controls our internal clocks, and our basic schedule appears to be rooted in biology. This means that adapting to it and taking it into account is a better strategy than forcing a change. Our brain likes fun and easy: why we procrastinate Procrastination affects most of us at some point. Around 80 to 95% of individuals report procrastinating at some time (Novotney, 2010, Procrastination or 'intentional delay'?). The rest, perhaps, do the same but do not report it! We are all likely to face putting things off. We are likely to put off important things as well, and even more so.

Big projects that require an early start often get put off until the last minute, even if it rationally makes no sense. Your brain is big on saving energy and effort. It wants to find the simplest, easiest and most pleasurable way through a task – why wouldn’t it? But our brains are also not rational, and procrastination is a clear example of this. Often, we might perceive the task we have to do as difficult, unpleasant, challenging, or boring. We might know that it must be done right away and that putting it off will only bring trouble. Yet, we often cannot bring ourselves to do what needs to be done. Why? One issue tied to procrastination is choosing to do what is necessary but hard instead of what is unnecessary but is easy, fun, or pleasant.

Our brain often will pursue instant gratification - an activity that promises an immediate reward are perceived as more attractive. Delaying gratification is an important skill to reach success. We can do it often until suddenly we find ourselves procrastinating on something that has a huge impact on our success, health, or relationships. Why does this happen? We can prefer instant gratification more when tired, stressed, or experiencing negative emotions. Our willpower drops. It can also be a more likely outcome when we perceive the task as too intimidating, too dull, too complex, or a challenge to our ability. If we are afraid of failing or doing a bad job, we might also avoid the task due to perfectionism. Instant gratification becomes much more difficult to resist when we don’t want to do the task we have to complete (Moshin & Ayub, 2014, The relationship between procrastination, delay of gratification, and job satisfaction among high school teachers).

We can work with motivation and resolve our perfectionism, but one of the easiest tactics to reduce procrastination is to tap into our brain’s search for instant gratification. By changing the way we perceive the task, we motivate ourselves to do it right away and reduce procrastination. Technique #6 Making a task more attractive for our brain It will take enormous amounts of energy and effort to use sheer willpower to tackle procrastination. But driving home how unpleasant and mandatory a task is will likely only lessen its appeal, making it harder to do! Instead, we can work with our brain’s preference for easy and pleasurable things, and use different strategies to make a task more appealing, such as reducing it to smaller tasks that do not seem that intimidating or reframing it more positively. However, here we will talk about how we can make a task appear more fun and the different ways to help our brain get more interested in it. How it appeals to the brain: We have a highly developed motivation/reward system mainly drawn to things that aid our survival and that promise to engage our dopaminergic system. Games and fun activities that seem easy to finish and get a result to draw us in consistently. If we can make the tasks that bore and frustrate us seem more like the things our brain likes, it is certain to provide enough dopamine to take our motivation higher.

•Extrinsic motivation: rewards Extrinsic motivation boils down to rewards and punishments for completing our tasks. You’ll recall from the habit loop that rewards reinforce the routine that came before and makes it more likely to occur. Rewards tend to show better results than punishments and fewer negative effects as well (Pink, 2009, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us). This strategy is as simple as making a reward conditioned on completing the task. Rewards are not the most effective way of doing this, but they can create a good incentive for a short-term, dull task, like filing your taxes or running an errand. It is better to use them for something that is a one-time thing and not for something that can become a habit, as rewards seem to lose their effectiveness when used continuously (Pink, 2009, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us). Our brains like surprises and novel rewards, but the shine wears off quickly, and we are not as eager to get things done for a prize, so this is best used sparingly. Make your reward something enjoyable, and don’t stick to material rewards. A fun experience can be as good as a treat or a purchase.

Try to avoid situations where you can easily access the reward before completing the task and commit to making it conditional on task completion. Also avoid rewards that undo the benefit of the task! •Intrinsic motivation: autonomy, belonging, mastery, and purpose Intrinsic motivation seems more complex than extrinsic motivation. It involves a strong link to dopaminergic systems. Dopamine is one of the main neurotransmitters for our brain, one involved with the feeling of satisfaction, curiosity, the desire to seek and do more (Di Domenico & Ryan, 2017, The Emerging Neuroscience of Intrinsic Motivation: A New Frontier in Self-Determination Research). It’s fun to get a treat or a prize, but this is not usually enough for some tasks, especially for the long term. Employers discover this frequently: they can only do so much to incentivize workers before they start needing a more genuine and meaningful reason for doing something. When intrinsic motivation becomes involved, we get a stronger pleasure boost with more lasting motivation. We are not just making temporary behavior changes, but we are experiencing the deeper internal shifts accompanying real transformation.

As the name suggests, intrinsic motivation comes from within and involves emotional experiences like curiosity, pride, fun, social connection, and others. According to the main framework for understanding it, four things engage our brain more and keep it hooked via increases in intrinsic motivation. Autonomy is the first element. We are more motivated to do things we get to decide about. Even a boring task becomes more interesting when we have more freedom to choose when or how we do it. Increasing your autonomy over a task can help you feel more motivated to do it, so add your own touch to the process or the outcome (Pink, 2009, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us). The second element is belonging. When something brings us into contact with other people, it becomes more desirable for our brain to pursue social connections. Consider whether you can bring someone else to support you with the task or use it to further your connections or relationships.

Tie a dull errand to meeting a friend, for instance, or find an accountability partner (Pink, 2009, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us). The third element is mastery. Mastery is the desire to be better and further our skills. Even if the task itself is undesirable or mundane, can you frame it as a task that will allow your personal or professional growth? Can you connect it with a particular goal or skill you would like to promote (Pink, 2009, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)? The fourth element of intrinsic motivation is purpose or meaning. Why are you doing the task? What is its deeper purpose? How does it connect to your values or ideals?

What is the point of doing it? Some types of work are particularly meaningless by themselves but might help if you reframe them in terms of the value they bring to you or your community. The goal is to connect with the meaning of the work you are doing and trying to enjoy it or, at least, to recognize why it must be done beyond a more superficial reason (Pink, 2009, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us). •Gamification Our brains love games and game-like activities. They promise instant gratification and fun, so what’s not to enjoy? Marketers and professionals from other areas have recognized the power that games have to motivate us, which helped create the practice of gamification - making different activities more like games by introducing different elements. You have seen examples of this approach in different apps, such as a progress bar, achievements, points, and other elements borrowed from games. We can use gamification by making boring or challenging tasks more similar to games and engaging our dopamine release systems to motivate us more strongly to avoid procrastination (McGonigal, 2015, SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient). How can you employ gamification?

Here are a few ideas. You can treat tasks throughout the day as minigames that yield points. Once you reach a specific number of points, you get a reward or level up. Focus on them as challenges you pass to gain more experience or unlock the next task (Patel, 2019, Gamify Your Life and Become Massively Successful). You can use narrative or role-playing. Visualize yourself as a secret agent completing an assignment or an alien trying to blend in. Imagine why this task has high stakes and how it fits within a story that casts you as the hero. Some apps and tools help you gamify your life, such as Habitica and SuperBetter. If you employ them, you get a predetermined structure that tricks your brain into thinking you are playing a game as your goals are accomplished faster and more successfully.

Games are a dopamine goldmine. Applying these strategies to other areas of our life can help our brain feel more motivated and willing to do any tasks without procrastination. So have you unlocked the secrets of your brain if you're hungry for deeper insights into self-discipline and taking control of your life? Peter's book, The Power of Self-Discipline, is packed with practical strategies. Check it out on Peter's website, bit.ly slash Peter Holland. Thanks for joining us on The Science of Self. Remember, change starts within.