You may find you concentrate better under stress, but if it continues building, no doubt your performance will eventually suffer. This is known as the Yerkes-Dodson law.
Quote:
The Yerkes–Dodson law is an empirical relationship between arousal and performance, originally developed by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson in 1908. The law dictates that performance increases with physiological or mental arousal, but only up to a point. When levels of arousal become too high, performance decreases. The process is often illustrated graphically as a bell-shaped curve which increases and then decreases with higher levels of arousal.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yerkes%E2%80%93Dodson_lawDifferent people will have different stress levels that are either too low, optimal for them, or too high. It's useful not to compare yourself against other people, but to compare yourself against yourself.
I used to have a regimen for high stress events like a major exam. First, I would get a professional therapeutic massage the day before, since I tend to carry a lot of stress in muscle tension. Second, I prepared, but I stopped cramming the evening before, so I would get a good night's sleep. Third, I would eat a brownie or fudge cookie or chocolate candy bar and drink a cup of coffee right before the event. The chocolate, I thought, gave me a positive mood boost; the sugar in the candy or treat would give me an energy boost; the coffee was to counteract the energy slump that you get maybe 30-60 minutes after the sugar rush.
I couldn't do that today, the coffee would give me bladder spasms and I'd be rushing to the rest room! Still, the formula worked for a number of years.
My point is not to follow my formula, but figure out what works for you. You have to be able to honestly notice your performance and environment, for this to work.
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A finger in every pie.
15 Apr 2019, 2:22 am
