While not everyone can manage a little pressure, many people find that it helps them perform better. There’s something about the stress that truly drives people’s minds and gets things done, from mental clarity to faster thinking. But why is this the case, and how can you use pressure to your advantage?
Under Pressure Performance
There’s a reason why performance increases under pressure, whether it’s a ticking clock or a competitive job, and it all boils down to adrenaline. When you’re under duress, your body releases a large amount of adrenaline, which has several performance-enhancing impacts. It may help you digest information more effectively and ensure that your brain is firing on all cylinders, as well as provide more oxygen to your muscles so they can perform to their full potential. It can even improve your memory, which is quite amazing.
The circumstance and moment in which we find ourselves is beyond anything we could have anticipated. Most of us had fantasized about working and living that way. All tasks and formal duties are now completed from home. We must all be calm and receptive in our approach to work, and as a result, our job efficiency may be harmed. While all of this appears to be perfectly natural, we can’t help but wonder why we perform better under duress.
Most of us wait until a deadline approaches before starting to work on a project. Most bills are paid on the due day; we rush to meetings at the last minute; many of us study for tests the night before, and we begin composing articles when we can no longer put it off! On most days, it’s our workplace where we’re assigned tasks, which we frequently do ahead of schedule.
So, what makes the distinction? What is the driving force behind our actions?
When it’s time to put everything, we have and are capable of to the test, we feel pressured. When a lot of things are piled on our heads because of expectations or coercion, we feel under pressure.
People do break down under duress, but those that survive grow better at what they do.
In such high-pressure situations, most of us are pushed to be better, to grow into much more than we are, and to make the most of our potential. As a result,
Pressure Forces Us to Leave Our Comfort Zone
It has been suggested that we step outside of our comfort zones to tap into our hidden potential and explore what we are capable of. Many successful people pushed themselves out of their comfort zones and challenged themselves to accomplish better, which they did. In our myths and legends, youngsters are frequently sent and pushed out of their comfort zones to become great warriors. When we are surrounded by the unexpected, we are more likely to take in new information like a sponge and remember it for a longer period. It motivates us to improve on what we currently accomplish. As a result, we become more efficient and productive.
We Are Less Prone to Procrastination
When we’re put under duress, it’s usually a case of doing or dying. Whatever the case may be, we must accomplish the assignment. When we have time on our hands, we prefer to relax, but when we are under pressure, it is simply time that is slipping away. As a consequence, we don’t procrastinate since we don’t have the time or opportunity to do so. Previously, you had the opportunity to reflect on the task’s challenges and your aversion to doing it. If we have a project due before the end of the night, we may feel compelled to accomplish it immediately rather than deferring it. As a result, when we don’t procrastinate, our job productivity improves immediately.
We Become Less Distracted and More Focused as A Result
Working under duress produces a sense of urgency, so we remove any distractions and avoid anything that might pose a stumbling block or delay for the time 
being so that we can do our tasks in a more efficient and timely manner. In the absence of distractions, we may gather and employ a lot of our efforts and minds that were previously spent on non-essential tasks to complete the work at hand. We can concentrate better and devote our whole attention to the task at hand. This assures error-free and hassle-free work, as well as a lack of last-minute rush, which might have resulted in our whole effort being wasted.
What About Working Worse Under Pressure?
Why do some people perform poorly under duress, even while performing a task that they are comfortable with? Choking under pressure is a common occurrence that occurs in a variety of persons and settings. Knowing when and why individuals choke under duress can help us perform at our best when it counts. In this post, we’ll go through the latest scientific studies on the areas of the brain that induce choking under pressure, as well as how to avoid it.
Consider yourself in a classroom, taking an exam. You put in a lot of effort in your studies, yet you forget a key piece of information that you need to solve an issue. You stress as you try your utmost to recall that one information. Your heart starts to race, you start to sweat, and you can’t seem to think straight. This panic, also known as choking under pressure, is a nervous system response to very stressful events that can lead people to perform poorly on a task.
Not to be confused with difficulties breathing, “choking” under pressure occurs when stress, fear, and anxiety combine to make a person perform worse than they would ordinarily. In the scenario above, the test may either reward you (earning an A+) or penalize you (getting a D) (getting a bad grade). This type of stressful, maybe dangerous circumstance can have a significant impact on how much knowledge a student can recall in the present.
Fortunately, there are several precautions we may take to avoid choking under duress. Recent research has found that writing down your feelings before taking a test can help you avoid choking. This is likely because it frees up the working brain space that any unpleasant or overpowering ideas were occupying by putting them down on paper. Additionally, preparing under duress (such as studying like the actual test) allows you to practice pausing and breathing during difficult issues.
The majority of us will choke under pressure at some time in our lives. Because of our stressed emotional state, we may appear to forget essential facts, resulting in worse performance on the job than intended. Scientists have shown that choking under duress disrupts working memory function. When working memory’s capacity to stay focused on a task is disrupted, performance suffers as a result of changes in attention in the prefrontal cortex, emotions in the anterior ungulate cortex and amygdala, and motivation in the metabolic-cortical pathway. Fortunately, being cool and writing down your sentiments on paper to move them out of your working memory will help you avoid choking under pressure.
Although we know which brain regions are involved in choking under stress, further study is needed to understand how the processes and pathways in these areas interact so that we may understand how to perform at our best when a lot is on the line.