Is this the key to coping with pressure?

Taking tips from athletes: is this the key to coping with pressure? Being able to make snap-judgements and overcome mental barriers is a make-or-break skill in the modern world. It’s something that plays a part in everyone’s life, from the decisions you make when driving to managing your workload, and for professional athletes this skill can make all the difference.

To find out just how important mental performance is when coping with high pressure conditions Dunlop Tyres and UCL’s Professor Vincent Walsh designed a study that had five professional extreme athletes and five members of the public performing under a series of external mental and physical pressures.

The professional group included multiple Isle of Man TT winner John McGuinness, free climber Leo Houlding, motorsports driver Sam Bird, wing suit athlete Alexander Polli and skeleton bob gold medallist Amy Williams. These athletes need to have skills to help them perform under immense pressures. Similar traits exist in people from all walks of life, but this study exposed the edge these athletes have.

Feeling the pressure
In a timed visual task that required the participants to react quickly after being place under physical pressure, the professional extreme athletes were 82% quicker than the members of the public. This can often mean the difference between success and failure in high-risk situations. 

The tests under physical pressure showed another remarkable advantage for the high-risk sportspeople: their individual performances actually improved by 10% after fatigue, while members of the public felt the heat and their results dropped by 60% compared with their baseline scores. In short, the professionals actually benefitted from being under pressure!

‘What often sets sportspeople apart from the rest is not how good they are in the practice arena, but how good they are under pressure,” says Professor Walsh. While we can’t all be elite athletes, we can certainly learn from them: ‘These skills can definitely be improved. It’s a case of exposing yourself to these conditions and challenges on a regular basis to get better…all these areas of the brain can make connections in later life so we can enhance ourselves.’

See it happening
Practice makes perfect, but there are also some great techniques you can use to help you keep your cool when the pressure is on. Visualising is a classic technique that many athletes use to focus when performance is everything. Life coach Liz Goodchild suggests ‘creating a moving image in your head of exactly how you want the situation that’s currently putting you under pressure to go. Visualise that you’re watching a replay of how it went, the best it could have been, and really take notice of how you act, what you say and how you behaved’. Liz continues, ‘Athletes do this all the time. Watch videos of Usain Bolt on YouTube, moments before he flies out of the starting blocks, he looks ahead, to the finish line, slowly going through step-by-step, the 100-metre race, until the moment he passes the finish line, first place.’ So whether it’s a race or an exam, next time you’re under pressure focus on how awesome the outcome will be, the steps you’ll take to get there, and then get out and be awesome.

Pause for effect
Pressure can really impact how we react to events and situations. Sometimes when things start for feel like they’re hotting up, the best options is to take some time out to pause. While it might feel counterintuitive, Liz explains that ‘when we’re under pressure, it’s easy to say or do the first think we think of. Something we often kick ourselves for it later on. It’s OK to pause. To take 30 seconds. To take three long deep breaths to centre yourself, so that you can speak or act from a place of rationale and calm as opposed to sheer panic’. When the world is swirling around you it can be scary to stop, but it might be the best investment you make.

Fancy seeing how well you perform under pressure? Dunlop Tyres has made the same tests the study participants took available to you. You can apply for the test by visiting the Dunlop Facebook page.