Latest / Man In Your Corner with Shaun Tucker / Your Nervous System Is Your Most Underutilized Performance Tool | Ep. 139
Transcript
- Shaun: Welcome back to the reset. I am Sean Tucker, human performance scientist and authority architect. We are here in the Living Lab documenting the science, the struggle, and the shift for every high performance dad and founder who is ready to bridge the gap between their presence and their ambition. Your nervous system is your most underutilized performance tool. Let me explain. The threshold that you have that you think is your max. Is only capped because your nervous system doesn't feel safe enough to go any further. When you train, when you learn to perform at the level you so claim to be at, if you are an elite performer or if you really care about what you do and you want to go to the next level, you need to be able to understand what the nervous system can do for you and what your nervous system already has done for you and what's actually keeping it. Stock. Your nervous system, this is the thing that tells your body and your mind that it's safe to continue. Essentially it's the peace between your mind and body. We're not talking about just your central nervous system. We're talking about how your mind and body interact with one another. And there's really two pieces to it, right? The first one is your mind. You might have a really, really strong mind. You might be really good at disciplining yourself and getting yourself to do hard stuff. But what happens when you fall off? When some matter of change or something comes in and disrupts your routine, how are you affected by that? That's the first question I would I would ask. When you go out of your routine, are you as productive and can you perform as well? If the answer is no, there is a lot more work to be done. Because the idea with your nervous system is it needs to be adaptive. It can't be one way or the highway because what will happen is your body will f eventually it will fail to catch up. It will struggle to keep up at the workload that you give it. And there will be a pattern that you could fall into that would actually be very hard to pull yourself out of. I can say that because I was there. The second thing I would do is I would actually start measuring what is important to me. What actually gives me energy versus what drains my energy? When you understand what drains your energy, you can probably start to understand the work that you need to do within your nervous system. For me, I know it's my health. I spent the last decade a decade and a half working on my health. I then, for the last decade or so, have been helping other people on their health. What I didn't realise is it was costing me my health. And so for me to really integrate what I know and how I can help others is to be able to take a break from that and work on myself more intensely. Not doing more, but actually being able to learn how to rest. Because the problem is I care too much. And I'll tend to overgive. Which leads to my system Crumbling. It's really reaching for rest, but it can't rest because it's too stimulated. And you're probably reaching for that next hit of caffeine, probably arguing the same like your body's arguing the same thing. It's saying, I don't want more caffeine, I actually need more rest, and I need to learn how to rest more and l rest better. So that's point number two. If you don't know how to rest properly, you'll eventually get to the point where your mind and body are very separate. They're very far away from each other. And I don't want you to get there because that leads to burnout and it leads to all sorts of ⁓ mood disorders as well. Step three is learn what tools you have available just to monitor how you are responding. So understand your breath is a vehicle for training your nervous system. When you go into high stress situations. Do you notice that your breath changes? I mean, most of this is awareness training, right? It's not rocket science. It's actually just looking at and paying attention to what's already happening in each moment. Because it's our response to stress that matters, not necessarily the stress itself. It's how we respond to it. Cause some people can work in high pressure situations and be cool, calm cucumbers. Right? And so you think F1 drivers or people on the motorbike like doing supercross or motocross. These guys are very relaxed because they understand their nervous system can go to that point and keep them relaxed. If you go into high stress stress situations and you find that you can't relax, that's you resp reacting to the stress. That's you reacting to the pressure, which internalizes it more, which means that your nervous system needs to learn how to rest even more. So learn how to use the tools that are available to you, such as the thing right here in front of your nose, the thing that keeps you alive, if you held your breath for long enough, you'd probably die. You can go without water for a much longer period than you can go without air. I'll just say that. So learn how to use your air. That's very, very crucial in understanding how to use your nervous system for performance. Step number four stop. Actually stop. Can you take time off coffee? Can you take time away from energy drinks? Can you take time away from alcohol or cigarettes? All those things you use to cope with your stress, can you take time away from them? 'Cause if you can't, the problem's bigger than what we than what I can give you advice on here or give suggestions on here. That's step number four. The last thing I would do is seek help. Seek help in understanding how you can train yourself to handle better pressure, more stress, be more relaxed, so you can perform your very best. It is literally the most underutilized tool when it comes to performance. Learning how to regulate your nervous system. And you see all of the elite athletes and elite performers, not all of them, I shouldn't say that. Most of them, majority of them, when they perform their best, they're absolutely cool as a cucumber. They are relaxed because their mind and body are in sync. And that's what we're talking about when we're talking about nervous system regulation. There doesn't become this massive separation of someone living in their head. Not knowing how to use their body. Don't be like me in my 16th second octagon debut. Don't let your body freeze and just get stuck in your head. Anyways, I hope that has been helpful. That brings us to the end of the episode. So if you're ready to stop being a passenger in your own life and start being the architect of your legacy, make sure you comment the word reset and I'll send you the seven day integrity reset. Remember, most people wait for their life to change. We are the ones who architect our choice. Change your state, choose how you show up. I am Sean Tucker. I will see you in the next one.