Highly successful people use this mental shift to get ahead of stress at work, says neuroscientist
Highly successful people use this mental shift to get ahead of stress at work, says neuroscientist
Asking for a raise or giving a presentation to a group of executives can give you some workplace jitters. You might try to mitigate the feeling of anxiety in the moment by regulating your nervous system and taking some deep breaths.
The best strategy for tackling those moments of stress actually involves some preparation: Highly successful people get ahead of their unsteadiness with a key mindset shift, according to Lisa Feldman Barrett, a neuroscientist, author and psychology professor at Northeastern University. They don’t see stress as something bad to be overcome, but instead as something natural that can be managed.
“We always think about control as changing what we’re doing in the moment. [But] I don’t know that there’s a lot that you can do,” Barrett said during a recent episode of Wharton psychologist Adam Grant’s “ReThinking” podcast.
Instead, she recommends doing exercises beforehand to practice doing what unnerves you, and to help train yourself to understand and handle the stress differently. That way, your brain “automatically has a bunch of choices” it can make when you’re faced with the situation.
Try these techniques:
- Practicing: Giving a speech in front of your family members before doing the real thing, or doing mock job interviews before speaking with a hiring manager
- Calming: Practicing quick, easy mindfulness sessions
- Reframing: Reminding yourself that the nervousness you feel is normal and serves a purpose
Barrett used similar techniques while preparing for her 2018 Ted Talk on regulating emotions, she told Grant.
“I practiced jumping up and down in my hotel room, and I practiced on the stage the day before when the workmen were there constructing the stage,” she said. “[There was] hammering and drilling going on and I practiced out loud, standing up in my outfit … with all this noise, so that when I walked on stage and I was filled with arousal, I could just give the talk.”
Barrett also tried finding ways to make the stressful task at hand seem smaller. She used the “feeling of awe as a way of giving my nervous system a break in very stressful situations,” spending a few minutes each say taking in “the sky, the leaves, and the sound of the ocean.”
“Stuff that’s awe-inspiring makes you feel like a speck,” Barrett said. “And if you’re a speck, then your problems are diminished for a very brief time. It gives [you] a moment to reset.”
With time, these techniques can help you reframe your thinking about nervousness, shifting your perspective from “I’m anxious about the situation I’m in,” to “My body is trying to cope with this situation.”
“Numerous studies have looked at performance on math tests such as the GRE and found that students achieve higher scores when they recategorize anxiety as merely a sign that the body is coping,” Barrett said in her ted talk.
The tip seemed to resonate with Grant on the podcast. “It’s a shift from making the sensation go away to getting better at performing while I’m feeling the sensation,” he said.
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