5 Techniques to Calm Yourself Down to Achieve Peak Performance (part 1) What is Peak Performance? The term Peak Performance comes from sports. It describes a state of optimal functioning. Actually, it can be applied in any area of life and it is not restrained to sports. Extraordinary performance, be it in education, business, sports, or other areas can be described as Peak Performance. What are the characteristics of Peak Performance? There are two important main characteristics than constitute Peak Performance: focused attention and supreme confidence. During Peak Performance, no single thought is wasted on anything else than the task at hand, there is no rumination, no boredom. It is accompanied by supreme confidence which comes from exactly knowing what one wants to do and being absolutely positive about giving one's best to achieve it. When are the techniques helpful? What are their benefits? How do the techniques work? The techniques have cognitive, emotional, and physiological effects I described in my video about them (see below). The techniques should be used directly before or during the task execution. If the task is a very short one, doing the technique during it might not be helpful, rather you would want to do it before. For all other tasks, the techniques can be applied before and during the task. Additionally, it can be helpful to do (some of) these techniques on a daily or weekly basis to be calmer and concentrated in general. Technique 1: Diaphragmatic Breathing Diaphragmatic in this case simply means that you breathe to your stomach (your stomach expands when you breathe in). The breathing should be deep yet slowly. How do I use this technique? I breathe in through my nose for a count of 4 (feeling my stomach expand), hold my breath for a count of 7, and breath out through my mouth for a count of 8. In most cases, I repeat this three to four times. Technique 2: Meditation Meditation is one of the techniques that came (and continues coming) more and more into awareness in the Western world. Because there are heaps of resources to be found online, I will not go into more detail but rather give you some links: [links] You can find many more resources in different languages and on different topics, for example on YouTube. One YouTube channel I really like (in Spanish) is the one of Ivan Donalson (I actually used this guided meditation of his this morning)