The Performance Science Digest #1

Reading Time: 5 Minutes

What to Expect:

• A research summary about stress mindsets

• How to live a life with more personal growth

• How we can train for pressure situations

Beginning this month, I will be sharing the scientific articles I read and how they inform my approach to working with elite performers. These articles enhance my practice and my understanding of what it takes to be great.

I believe that they can help you, too, feel more confident in your knowledge and understanding of how to enhance your own performance.

Let's jump in.

Optimizing stress responses with reappraisal and mindset interventions: an integrated model

Jamieson, J. P., Crum, A. J., Goyer, J. P., Marotta, M. E., & Akinola, M. (2018). Optimizing stress responses with reappraisal and mindset interventions: An integrated model.Anxiety, Stress, & Coping,31(3), 245-261.

This article integrates the latest theory of mindsets with the tactic of reappraisal. Reappraisal is the act of changing the way you think about a particular situation or event. Mindsets are internalized beliefs and assumptions you hold about an experience or category of things that lead to specific expectancies, goals, and explanations (Crum, 2021).

What we know about mindsets so far is that these beliefs shape everything from our mental responses to circumstances to the physiology associated with them. By deploying a “stress-is-enhancing” mindset, people are able to tilt their psychology and physiology toward using stress effectively, rather than being overwhelmed. Stress can facilitate performance, promote active coping, and protect against the damaging effects of catabolic hormones (e.g., Dienstbier, 1989; Jamieson, Hangen, Lee, & Yeager, 2017; Mendes, Gray, Mendoza-Denton, Major, & Epel, 2007).

If you couple that with actively appraising specific situations as challenges, you can alter the stress response entirely. As a result, your mind and body are even better positioned to leverage stress to enhance performance.

At the core of this model of stress are the concepts of “demands” and “resources.” If we appraise the situation as too demanding and we don’t believe we have the resources to manage the stress, then we end up with avoidance motivation and poorer performance. If we believe we have the resources to manage the stressor effectively, our motivation and performance are enhanced.

This article suggests a simple, 3-step process for leveraging our mindset and reappraisal to enhance performance.

The first is to simply acknowledge the presence of a stressor. Rather than evaluating it as "good" or "bad," starting with an open acknowledgment gives us the opportunity to pause and appraise the stressor most effectively.

The second step is to practice approaching stressful situations. Over time, the more we interact with difficult circumstances, the more we can train our mindset to default to the idea that stress is enhancing. We need practice and repetition to change the way we experience stress, but with enough reps, we can alter the way we initially respond.

Finally, the focus is on the active appraisal of the stressor as a challenge or opportunity. This step, called optimizing the stress response, allows us to use the resources of the stress most effectively as a performance enhancer.

It looks a bit like this:

With regular practice, we can train our minds to make stress work for us.

Pressure Training: From Applied Research to Practice

Low, W. R., Stoker, M., Butt, J., & Maynard, I. (2022). Pressure Training: From Research to Applied Practice.Journal of Sport Psychology in Action, 1-16.

How do we teach people to perform better under pressure? I've spent over a decade in sports, and the main way I've seen coaches try to elevate pressure is by changing the demands of a particular drill or performance (thinking adding crowd noise or making the last rep the hardest).

This article suggests some other tacts we might try.

Those tactics increase difficulty, but not necessarily pressure. Pressure, in this case, is the "increased importance to perform well" (Baumeister, 1984).

Pressure training is about strategically using pressure in training to improve how athletes manage pressure in competition. In this article, they draw a parallel to exposure therapy, which is based on the idea that the more we engage with challenging situations, the better able we are to cope with similar situations (or the same situation) in the future. People learn through exposure that the feared situation won't necessarily harm them and disconfirms some fears. As a result, people are able to cope more effectively with the feared situation (in this case, higher pressure).

Also like exposure, it turns out that pressure training has to be fairly regular for athletes to learn how to manage it most effectively. The data suggests this type of training can improve resilience and decision-making, as well as team functioning. And, even elite athletes performed better after pressure training.

Since it's just a matter of time before athletes deal with pressure in competition, it makes sense to train for it. Though training can't fully replicate the competition feeling, it can get closer by raising the consequences of failure in practice such that it changes the athletes' need to perform well. For example, you might raise pressure by putting playing time on the line or emphasizing performance expectations of the culture.

If you do engage in pressure training, it's important to have a practitioner train your athletes on how to use coping skills to manage pressure effectively. Skills training, in competition with pressure practice, may be the most potent tool we have for helping athletes execute at the highest level when it matters most.

Ultimately, what we're after in pressure training is helping raise athletes' awareness of how they cope with pressure, and illuminating gaps in their skills so they can build their arsenal of coping strategies to its fullest. With some regular practice, athletes can figure out how to get the most out of themselves in difficult situations - they just need an opportunity to try in an environment that mimics the game but doesn't have quite the same consequential outcomes.

Achieving Full Psychological Functioning: The Dimension of Personal Growth

Freire, C., Ferradas, M. D. M., Núñez Pérez, J. C., & Valle, A. (2022). Achieving full psychological functioning: The dimension of personal growth. Papeles del Psicólogo.

In psychology, we tend to define well-being in 2 ways.

Eudaimonic well-being is the attainment of well-being via excellence and fulfillment. It's about being well because you achieve your full potential.

Hedonic well-being is well-being via the attainment of goals and outcomes. It's about reaching specific milestones and then setting new goals.

The good news is that both types of well-being tend to prevent the onset of psychological issues (or at least mitigate symptoms). But, data suggests eudaimonic well-being may be more important for our long-term growth and fulfillment.

Personal growth is one of the best predictors of psychological well-being. When people are transcending themselves, connected to the world around them, and feel connected to a purpose beyond themselves, they are engaged in a process that's likely to help them experience well-being on a continuous basis. It's a powerful place to be.

This article examined some basic psychological mechanisms that facilitate personal growth. A really simple summary looks like this:

In addition to the simple 2x2 matrix above, here are some other things the article suggests to consider.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT)

SDT was originally conceived as a theory of intrinsic motivation. We know now, however, that the basic components of SDT - autonomy, competence, and relatedness - are also key to a life well-lived.

If you want to increase your psychological well-being and personal growth, this article suggests seeking environments that facilitate each of these 3 needs. Over time, in such environments, we tend to seek out things that are intrinsically meaningful and motivating to us, and as a result, experience personal growth.

Flow

Flow has become a popular concept in the last several years. At its core, flow is about finding a balance between challenge and ability that facilitates the development of competence and new skill. When people experience flow, it's often in the context of a personally meaningful goal and at the edge of someone's current capabilities. As a bonus, flow often facilitates complete presence and immersion in an activity, which makes the activity all the more rewarding.

Finding flow regularly can facilitate your personal growth via the development of new skills and the achievement of significant goals.

Mindfulness

Being here and now is an important path to personal growth (Chang et al., 2015). Mindfulness practice has often been touted as a way to liberate the "self" or ego, and to help us switch from doing to being. With practice, we can tap into a more content state of mind.

These are just some of the mechanisms highlighted in the article that illuminates how we can find more personal growth. Each of these psychological resources has empirical support and connections as ways that we can make our lives more meaningful.

That's a wrap!

Next month's performance science will dive deeper into The Underdog Effect, how pressure impacts performance, and why recovery from work matters for enhancing performance.