Remaining Calm Under Extreme Pressure

Ask yourself: How do I act under extreme pressure?

Not the pressure of an exam. Not the pressure of public speaking. Not the pressure of asking someone out on a date.

I’m talking about the other pressure. The extremes. The type of pressure that life promises at some point in our lives. The points in life where trauma is born. The 1% of events that will truly alter the direction of your life. The type of pressure firefighters feel when staring at a burning building, deciding to walk forward or stand ground. The type of pressure soldiers feel when the commander shouts “CHARGE!” in the trenches. The type of pressure one feels when it’s no longer butterflies in your stomach, but maggots, consuming your entire being for minutes that feel like eternity.

Ask yourself: How do I act under extreme pressure?

We all know people who perform under pressure.

We also know people who shut down under pressure.

Ask yourself: Am I an asset or a liability when shit hits the fan?

You should already have a taste of how your body reacts to stress just through living life. Maybe your palms get sweaty. Maybe your stomach starts to hurt. Maybe you go mute. But these are uninteresting. The real question is this: What happens to your mind? Your thought? Your ability to solve problems?

For those that shut down, this needs to change. You are a liability. If it is true that life promises stress, I believe it is a responsibility of every being to take control over their response to immense pressure. Because often you are not alone during high pressure circumstances. Your response to pressure affects those around you. Your response to pressure can cost people their life. Your response to pressure can harm people who otherwise wouldn’t have been harmed.

I will emphasize this again: You are a liability if you freeze, scream, or shut down under pressure. You must be able to solve problems. To act quickly. To find creative solutions. To make use of what you have. To know what people need and effectively give it. To take control of an unknown domain as quickly as possible.

You must use your mind effectively when life reaches its extremes.

Now that I’ve stressed the importance of being effective under pressure, how do we make sense of this?

If a liability wants to become an asset, what can they do?

There are three tools we’ll discuss: A psychologic tool, a physiologic tool, and a tool for preparation.

There are many more tools we can discuss to regulate stress, but I want to talk about the most relevant tools. The tools I’ve personally found to be immensely powerful in regulating my mind during intense stress.

Let’s start with the psychologic tool: Understanding that stress is self-fulfilling

It is well known that stress can either be debilitating or enhancing based on our beliefs about stress itself [1]. It is not the stress that debilitates you, it’s your beliefs that lead to the detrimental impact. Pressure creates diamonds, but that same pressure can also collapse buildings, implode submarines, or cause bombs to explode.

Stress is simply an ingredient. I remind myself often that “stress is enhancing” to ensure I reap positive benefit from stress. During intense stressful situations, I take a step back, even for a moment, to remind myself that stress is enhancing, then dive back into the moment, leaning INTO the stress, not running away.

This helps focus the mind. You are not worrying about the stress itself, rather you can have faith that the stress is helping you THROUGH the situation, which in turn allows you to allocate more thought to the stressful circumstance at hand.

Your response to stress is directly tied to your beliefs around stress.

Your response to stress dictates your usefulness during extreme pressure.

So, take control over your beliefs around stress. It’s important.

Next.

Physiologic tool: The Physiologic Sigh

While it’s important to take control over your mind during stressful circumstances, clarity of thought is influenced by your physiologic state. Learning strategies to calm your body will in turn calm your mind—a skill that offers immense ROI during life’s most stressful moments.

There are very few strategies we can employ in real time to alter our physiology, but there is one that stands out. In the midst of a stressful occurrence, we need something potent, quick, and always on hand. Supplements take too long. Meditation can be ruled out. Drugs are dangerous to leverage.

Luckily, we have breath. Breath contains everything we need. Coined by Dr. David Spiegal, the “Physiologic Sigh” is a pattern of breathing the body performs regularly every 3-8 minutes to regulate our physiology. We can use this tactic consciously to do the same.

The pattern of breathing is as follows:

• Deep inhale to maximum capacity.

• Once inhaled to maximum, perform an additional small inhale, filling the lungs even further.

• Then, exhale slowly, through pursed lips, as if you’re blowing through a straw.

• Repeat as needed.

Try it right now. Get comfortable using this tool during daily life, so that when shit hits the fan, you immediately have a potent tool to calm your physiology to help gain clarity. Don’t forget it. This tool can be used in ALL aspects of life: Trying to fall asleep, before a presentation, before an exam. Anytime you feel stress or want to relax, this tool can be used.

How wonderful is it that one of the most potent means to combat physiologic stress is something we always have on hand?

Next.

Preparation.

Firefighters, police, military, martial artists. They all run drills to methodically recite responses to stress. Through this practice, their response becomes second nature.

We should strive to do this with ourselves.

But, most of us don’t have the means to put ourselves into stressful circumstances. In fact, some of the most stressful circumstances in life are novel stressors. Things we have no idea how to tackle, but require tackling. These situations may vary, but they all affect the body the same—through the intense release of adrenaline in your body.

Well, lucky for us, we ALL have access to a potent tool that floods your body with adrenaline the same way a stressful situation would. It’s a tool you’ve probably heard before, used for it’s myriad of health benefits, though here we are leveraging it for a different purpose.

The cold plunge.

Whether it’s a cold shower, a lake, a river, an ice bath, a pool, sudden exposure to cold temperature causes intense adrenaline release. This is immensely useful for us.

Ask yourself: Can you do it? Can you endure an ice cold shower? Think about what it means if you can’t. How does it feel to let external circumstances break your mind? If an ice cold shower is able to do it, what would extreme pressure do? Again, ask yourself, do I want to be an asset or a liability?

When we think about our desired goal—to be able to calm ourselves and think clearly under pressure—practicing effectively requires the presence of adrenaline. With access to cold temperature, we get to run game-like scrimmages without the danger. We get to modulate our stress response. We get to dissect how clearly we think under the presence of adrenaline. We get to actively track, across sessions of practice, our improved response to stress, giving us confidence that when life’s most stressful events walk in the door, we rise to the occasion, leveraging our ability to maintain a calm mind and body, to be a sharp asset, not an unpredictable liability.

I have used these tools before. To get people out of situations of physical abuse. To get people away from weapons. To help people who are on the verge of committing suicide.

These tools may seem inappropriate for the average day, but investing in your ability to perform under pressure will pay dividends where it matters most. You can do it, but it requires practice.

Don’t let your inability to perform be the reason someone suffers.

It matters, so treat it like it does.

Now go practice, I’ll be there alongside you.

Til next time,

sapoots

_(┐「ε:) 🤍🌱

(On a side note, here’s a cool tool on the stanford website to start reworking your beliefs and attitude toward stress. https://sparqtools.org/rethinkingstress/ ).

Give it a try and see where you are at in your journey to become unbreakable under pressure.

Under Pressure by sapoots