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Limitless. How can everyone feel this way? What does it take to perform at a higher level?

Mental performance is something that has fascinated me for quite some time. Finding effective ways to keep ourselves in a peak state can be extremely beneficial for our careers, businesses, and relationships.

How do we all stay at the top of our game on a regular basis to accomplish one’s goals? Through consistent dedicated practice to our cognitive capabilities, “cognitive stimulation can be understood as the set of techniques and strategies focused on efficacy and boosting cognitive capabilities through activities that produce changes in the brain” (BitBrain, 2019).

Focusing on keeping our brains and bodies healthy has been discussed but not necessarily taught to many of us. Sure, people may have heard the occasional line like: “go eat more broccoli, go for a run, read a book, meditate for a bit” but what does this all mean to you?

It means that the habits of those that perform at an elite level are not much different than we think, but they do have a slightly different routine to allow for such world class performance, “along with a healthy balanced diet, regular practice of physical exercise, and good resting” (BitBrain, 2019). These are some of the main components of a world class routine.

The only way we will know how to perform at an elite level is to test various strategies until we find our sweet spot of: maintaining consistency and longevity of our results.

For myself, I have been developing my own peak mental performance routine over the last few years with minor tweaks but this is my current routine I am using right now:

• Get 7-8 hrs of sleep or more a night

• Stretch or Yoga daily for 3-5 minutes

• Listen to 10 minutes of Audibook everyday

• Listen to 10 min of Business Podcast everyday

• Exercise everyday for 20-30 minutes

• Meditate for 5-10 minutes everday

• Write down my goals daily to stay on track

You don’t have to have a routine exactly like this but this will give you an idea of a blueprint to follow if your feeling lost or don’t know where to start.

I have always been the most successful when I stack my daily routine from one exercise to the next, just like when I lift weights.

According to Caroline Stokes, founder of Forward, “peak performers share five traits: getting into the flow, self-awareness, the ability to relax under pressure, coachability, and control over emotions”(Stokes, C., 2019).

Getting into a flow state more frequently and for longer durations can help boost your performance. Today, more than ever there is constant distractions battling for our attention. This is why we need to train our focus muscle to help concentrate on the right tasks to get the right work done.

Peak performers exercise their ability to focus for longer periods of time regularly. For myself, this is done through regular exercise, sleep, a well balanced diet, and meditation. 

Focus stands for a “quirky yet effective acronym: follow one course until successful” (Rockley, K., 2019).

Do one thing at a time and watch your productivity shoot through the roof! As much as the world wants us all to sprint, I have learned it is better to slow down and re-focus.

Our focus muscle needs to be taught what should demand our attention and what should not, it will be up to us to decide what we wish to focus on more to achieve our version of greatness.

List of References

BitBrain. (Aug 19, 2019). What is high cognitive performance or “peak brain performance”?. Retrieved Dec 3, 2019 from https://www.bitbrain.com/blog/peak-brain-performance

Rockley, K. (Dec 4, 2019). 10 x Successful Habits of Peak Performers, The 5% Institute. Retrieved Dec 4, 2019 from https://www.5percentinstitute.com/10-x-successful-habits-of-peak-performers/

Stokes, C. 12 Actions to Achieve Peak Performance. Retrieved December 1, 2019 from https://www.theforward.co/12-actions-achieve-peak-performance/ 

Caffeine is something most of us think we need to thrive in this fast paced, speedy world. Without that hit of good Ol’ cup of Joe, we feel exhausted, tired, and lethargic.

Have you ever felt the rise and fall of your energy levels after taking 1-2 cups of coffee in the morning? Most of us get this feeling. Caffeine creates the illusion that we tend to feel these sort of peaks and valleys of energy throughout the day.

I myself would have major peaks of energy and major valleys of energy from my my daily caffeine consumption. But, I felt my energy became inconsistent day to day so I decided to kick the fix once and for all.

I am going to tell you a few tips that helped me kick my fix for good and helped re-create that HIGH ENERGY I’ve been searching for!

These tips are:

1. Transition to lowering your coffee intake first (e.g. – if you currently drink 1-2 cups per day, lower to 1 cup per day, or if you drink 4-5 cups lower to 4 cups per day, and so on)
2. If you can’t eliminate coffee entirely, try decaf-decaf coffee has 7-10 mg of caffeine approximately versus a regular cup of Joe can have 80-100 mg of caffeine or more per cup
3. Try higher caffeine Green Tea or Black Tea-Green tea is a great alternative to Coffee if you feel you get the jitters too bad like myself. Green tea has many flavours that may suit your fancy, without nixing caffeine entirely.

Transition to lowering your coffee intake first

Let’s start off by saying that lowering your caffeine intake will be the toughest challenge by far.

If you are someone that has built the caffeine habit over many years, It can be a very tough habit to break. When you have such a reliance on maintaining your energy through a mental stimulant such as coffee, the first week of taking in less caffeine will be felt.

Initally you may get a few lopsided headaches that feel like someone just sucker punched you in the head, your focus may dwindle slightly, but this feeling shall pass after the first few days of lowered consumption.

Once you have continued to lower your intake after 3-4 days, it starts to get a little easier. Not only on your gut, but on your mind too.

If you can’t eliminate coffee entirely, try decaf

The thought of never drinking a cup of coffee again was daunting to me, to say the least. I sure didn’t want to give it up entirely. Caffeine yes, but coffee? I still loved so deeply, and passionately.

As I transitioned off of caffeine, this would be the first time I had experimented with trying decaf. I heard people talk about it from time to time, but never really gave it a fair shot when I was contemplating nixing my coffee habit.

I would often hear mixed reviews when out in public. I would say, “I am trying to quit coffee!” and people would look at me, eyes slanted sideways and say, “oh dear really? I have drank coffee since I was young because it’s so habitual, and its what everyone does” or “I like to drink enough coffee so I start to hear a fast murmur of my heart” (another term for fast racing heart after oodles of coffee)

No one quite understand my transition to decaf except for me of course. But, eventually I didn’t need to rely on caffeine anymore. Decaf had become my saviour, my new elixir that would reset my energy levels for good!

Try higher caffeine Green Tea or Black Tea

Lastly, the next best option to nixing caffeine entirely would be to try green tea or black tea.

People don’t realize how much caffeine is actually in a cup of green tea! I couldn’t believe some of the teas I found by a brand called Tazo,  that made me have the jitters even more than a cup of Joe.

Tazo brand’s Chai flavoured green tea has 47mg of caffeine in an 8oz cup. That is still 1/2 the caffeine of a cup of coffee! Which is still decent if your reluctant about taking decaf coffee. It all depends on whether your more of a tea drinker or a coffee connoisseur.

Some black teas can have as much as 90mg of caffeine depending on the type of black tea you drink

I prefer coffee over tea for most of the time, so decaf has been a great change for me. In the past, I had green tea and no coffee at all. That was when I was much younger, and had no tolerance for caffeine.

Nowadays I have a slightly better tolerance but still can’t handle the jitters as much as I used to.

If you enjoyed this article, let me know what you thought in the comments section below, give this article a thumbs up, and let me know what other types of articles you would be interested in reading or seeing in my youtube videos.

Hope you all enjoyed and stay tuned for next week’s post on my obsession with mental performance.

Cheers,

Alex

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