Understanding the mind
Our minds perform best when they are stable and calm. Physiologically, breathing is slow and deep, and air reaches lower into the lungs; muscles are relaxed without tension; thoughts flow smoothly without worry. This state is ideal for processing information and solving problems.
Conversely, a mind beset by chaos and fear will perform very poorly. Breathing is faster and shallow; muscles are tense; thoughts jump from threat to threat. Under stress the fight-or-flight part of our brain hijacks the blood flow. The brain prioritizes self-preservation and limits the creative and reasoning functions in favour of the more primitive “lizard” brain. You stop thinking of solutions and start looking for an exit.
When humans were hunter-gatherers, this primitive function was effective at keeping us alive. However, today it makes us worry excessively about things that are out of our control. The finite resources the brain deploys to solve its problems are instead spent imagining what could go wrong.
Worrying never helped anyone. What’s more, it reinforces to the brain that something is wrong, and keeps the process going in a negative feedback loop. We’re in a bad situation, it could get worse, prepare for a worse situation, and repeat. It occurs in harmless situations like public speaking or under extreme stress like in a marathon.
This is why long-distance running is considered by many to be a mental challenge. Your body will be put through hell, but it can handle quite a bit. It’s your mind you need to worry about. Keeping with the theme of long-distance running, we can examine this process in more detail.
Maybe this has happened to you: You’re running along—maybe 10 minutes in, maybe an hour. A new pain comes to your attention. This pain is not something you’re used to so it’s only normal for you to feel it out, diagnose it, consider your options. How can you make it go away?
But focusing on the pain doesn’t make it go away. Quite the opposite: it feels bigger and bigger the more you focus on it. This results in a negative feedback loop: the pain commands your focus and focusing magnifies the pain. Thus, as the perceived problem gets bigger, the brain reassigns more resources to monitor and resolve the pain.
These resources (i.e. your focus) are pulled from efforts such as maintaining a consistent pace, breathing, and form—all activities that contribute to a calm mind. Instead they are dedicated to managing a small pain that is imagined to be much bigger than it really is. In this way, your brain misallocates its finite resources towards a problem of its own making, rapidly taking a toll on your morale and contributing to a faster burnout rate.
The same pattern occurs in most challenges. It almost always involves moving from a calm mind to fight-or-flight, misallocating the mind’s resources, and draining your energy and focus.
Ultimately, a strong mind is a calm mind. The objective is to maintain calm during difficult or stressful situations. The next sections cover some ideas on how to achieve calm when facing a challenge.