“Stress” is a dirty word in the world of wellness. It’s something to be tempered, reduced or completely released in your weekly yoga class. It’s something we’re supposed to carefully manage — or, better yet, avoid at all costs.
But stress — and its common-law companion, risk — aren’t the bad guys we’ve made them out to be. New research suggests that these two bad boys of decision-making have the power to enhance learning and growth, all while helping us make better choices in life.
For one, they help our brains stop overthinking matters, especially when put in the context of a learning technique called “deliberate practice.”
Erik Dane, a professor of business at Rice University in Houston, likens it to working at the very edge of your performance ability.
“It’s the classic model for getting really good at something, working to the point where you can eventually gain expertise,” he says. “Think of the burgeoning violinist. She will select a very tricky passage. And she will work on that passage, failing over and over again, until she just gets it. Working right around the edge really helps you learn and progress.”
The bad boys of decision-making, stress and risk, have the power to enhance learning and growth, all while helping us make better choices in life.
Though failing over and over might not seem like fun, the stress and risk involved in this particular type of practice confers some amazing benefits to the brain. It helps you reduce your overall cognitive load, allowing you to deploy your attention and cognitive resources on the factors that will help you make a more optimal decision.
While that violinist is stressing herself out about that tricky piece, she’s not worrying about common rookie pitfalls like good posture or finger clenching. The stress of that practice makes the basics automatic so she can focus on the goal at hand: mastering that difficult passage.
Scott Grafton, a neuroscientist who directs the Action Lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says the push towards automaticity is a good thing, whether you are playing the violin or trying to climb a killer rock wall, because the brain’s motor systems work at speeds much faster than our higher-level cognitive ones. His studies have shown, time and time again, that overthinking can be a killer when you are trying to master a skill.
“The speed at which we talk, at which we think verbally, is no better than an old 56K modem dial-up,” he says. “If you think about how fast things are going when you make a golf swing, or hit a baseball, or do some gymnastics, you just can’t think and expect to not interfere with your body. As soon as you think about it, and try to make adjustments on the fly, you’ll see your performance degenerate.”
That automaticity has benefits beyond the physical — it also helps you make wiser choices. When you’ve practiced enough at this stressful level, gaining important skills, your brain starts to work more efficiently. You can deploy your attention faster, and in a different manner, according to Michael Posner, a pioneering neuroscientist from the University of Oregon, so you can better anticipate what will come next and how to best respond to a situation.
And that efficiency extends to the amount of energy your brain needs to work optimally. The brain is an expensive machine to run, requiring approximately 20% of the human body’s total energy costs. But research from the University of Pittsburgh suggests that extended practice, with that extra side order of stress, has the power to reduce the brain’s metabolic needs. When you push yourself with extended practice, the brain requires less energy to perform. That stress-fueled practice appears to help the synapses in the brain sync up better, so they can communicate faster and more effectively — and that will improve your performance.
Think of it this way: Say you want to learn how to rock climb. Sure, it makes sense to stay on the easy course for a while. And if you continue there, you probably won’t feel much stress — and you certainly won’t be risking a fall or failure from a harder climbing route. But you aren’t going to become a better climber either. The stress — and the risk that accompanies it — are the key components to helping you improve. They help your brain rely on more automatic processes, so you can learn faster and more efficiently, deploying your cognitive resources in such a way that you can make better moves and better choices.
Your response to stress matters. A recent study from Stanford University found that individuals who understood stress was helpful reported better emotional well-being, better health, and increased productivity at work. And that’s even when a lot of really stressful things were happening in their lives!
If you always view stress as a negative, instead of a motivating force that can help you reach your potential, you are more likely to deal with it in a destructive manner (think alcohol, anxiety, and outright avoidance), instead of finding a way to harness it so you can better learn, grow and thrive.
Kayt Sukel is the author of “The Art of Risk: The New Science of Courage, Caution, and Chance” (National Geographic), out now.