standing on the start line for school
cross country or in the edge of a pool
ready for swimming carnival or even
standing on stage about to give a TEDx
youth talk can be a fearful place your
hands begin to sweat your heart is
racing and your stomach feels like it
has a bad case of food poisoning you’re
wanting to perform at your best but how
can you when you feel like this fear has
two meanings face everything and rise or
forget everything and run and your hands
sweating and your heart racing is your
body deciding whether it will rise or
see you later now it’s just chosen this
fight or flight response is naturally
occurring and is seen in animals and
humans as a way of preparing the body
for action it occurs when adrenaline is
released into the bloodstream and
essentially it is designed to keep us
alive now because it is so important to
our survival it happens quickly and
without thought this is great if we find
ourselves in real danger but more often
than not we experience this in a safe
environment my life isn’t in any real
danger right now or at least that’s what
I’m trying to tell myself but certainly
my heart is racing my hands are sweaty
and I’m experiencing one of those
fight-or-flight moments many of us
either at school work or on the sports
field know how these feelings can get in
the way of performance read the
newspaper on any given morning and your
read of stories of how athletes have
failed to perform at their expected best
or as as Kiwis call it choked we need to
learn to overcome this fear
and to turn it into a positive energy
rather than let it hinder us learning
takes place in a specific part of the
brain depending on what is being learned
when we learn a new skill the neurons
that are responsible for that skill
communicate with each other the more we
do the skill the more the neurons
communicate until the bond becomes so
strong just like a strong friendship
that conscious thought no longer needs
learning to rationalize and moderate
weather this fight or flight response is
real or appropriate can be a learned
skill we can’t learn to stop it because
it’s automatic but what we can do is
learn techniques that help us moderate
its effect so there are the ones that
you read about online whether it’s heavy
breathing keeping busy or even special
drugs now it’s probably best to stay
away from those though but by breathing
slowly you signal your brain to slow
down relax and decrease the release of
adrenaline but increase the release of
endorphins which are another group of
hormones that have a positive and
calming effect on the body keeping busy
is another great technique since our
body is ready for the fight-or-flight
response due to the build-up of
adrenaline using some of this energy
will help reduce its effect
so a quick teen star jumps will work
wonders when trying to bring the body
back to a calm state both of these
techniques are quite simple and easy to
do but there is one more that’s a little
more complex and interesting and it
involves separating our mind from our
body our body is always in the present
but our mind can either race forward and
think about the future or jump back and
think about the past and the skill is
being able to keep our body in the
present and turn off our brain and trust
that our body has built those
pipe bonds with the neurons we grow up
being reminded to stop and think and yes
in some situations we do need to think
but standing on the start line or doing
something the body has done lots of
times before shouldn’t be some of them
it’s this thinking that encourages our
mind to race forward and think about
what will happen if things go right or
wrong or jump back to the past and think
about what happened last time we’re in
this situation if we had more
opportunities to consciously let a
consciously let our body take over and
to ignore the brain then maybe we would
be better at dealing with the
fight-or-flight response and less
burdened by the consequences of extra
adrenaline so next time you stand on the
start line look at it as an opportunity
to disengage the brain and let the body
run on autopilot and be impressed by how
well it can perform thank you [Applause]
cross country or in the edge of a pool
ready for swimming carnival or even
standing on stage about to give a TEDx
youth talk can be a fearful place your
hands begin to sweat your heart is
racing and your stomach feels like it
has a bad case of food poisoning you’re
wanting to perform at your best but how
can you when you feel like this fear has
two meanings face everything and rise or
forget everything and run and your hands
sweating and your heart racing is your
body deciding whether it will rise or
see you later now it’s just chosen this
fight or flight response is naturally
occurring and is seen in animals and
humans as a way of preparing the body
for action it occurs when adrenaline is
released into the bloodstream and
essentially it is designed to keep us
alive now because it is so important to
our survival it happens quickly and
without thought this is great if we find
ourselves in real danger but more often
than not we experience this in a safe
environment my life isn’t in any real
danger right now or at least that’s what
I’m trying to tell myself but certainly
my heart is racing my hands are sweaty
and I’m experiencing one of those
fight-or-flight moments many of us
either at school work or on the sports
field know how these feelings can get in
the way of performance read the
newspaper on any given morning and your
read of stories of how athletes have
failed to perform at their expected best
or as as Kiwis call it choked we need to
learn to overcome this fear
and to turn it into a positive energy
rather than let it hinder us learning
takes place in a specific part of the
brain depending on what is being learned
when we learn a new skill the neurons
that are responsible for that skill
communicate with each other the more we
do the skill the more the neurons
communicate until the bond becomes so
strong just like a strong friendship
that conscious thought no longer needs
learning to rationalize and moderate
weather this fight or flight response is
real or appropriate can be a learned
skill we can’t learn to stop it because
it’s automatic but what we can do is
learn techniques that help us moderate
its effect so there are the ones that
you read about online whether it’s heavy
breathing keeping busy or even special
drugs now it’s probably best to stay
away from those though but by breathing
slowly you signal your brain to slow
down relax and decrease the release of
adrenaline but increase the release of
endorphins which are another group of
hormones that have a positive and
calming effect on the body keeping busy
is another great technique since our
body is ready for the fight-or-flight
response due to the build-up of
adrenaline using some of this energy
will help reduce its effect
so a quick teen star jumps will work
wonders when trying to bring the body
back to a calm state both of these
techniques are quite simple and easy to
do but there is one more that’s a little
more complex and interesting and it
involves separating our mind from our
body our body is always in the present
but our mind can either race forward and
think about the future or jump back and
think about the past and the skill is
being able to keep our body in the
present and turn off our brain and trust
that our body has built those
pipe bonds with the neurons we grow up
being reminded to stop and think and yes
in some situations we do need to think
but standing on the start line or doing
something the body has done lots of
times before shouldn’t be some of them
it’s this thinking that encourages our
mind to race forward and think about
what will happen if things go right or
wrong or jump back to the past and think
about what happened last time we’re in
this situation if we had more
opportunities to consciously let a
consciously let our body take over and
to ignore the brain then maybe we would
be better at dealing with the
fight-or-flight response and less
burdened by the consequences of extra
adrenaline so next time you stand on the
start line look at it as an opportunity
to disengage the brain and let the body
run on autopilot and be impressed by how
well it can perform thank you [Applause]
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