Feb

18

Stimulate Insights with the Relaxation Response

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I stumbled across an interesting article from the November 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review, titled “Are You Working Too Hard?“. In the article stress is defined as “a psychological response to any change, whether good or bad, that alerts the adaptive fight-or-flight response in the brain and the body“. Stress plays an important role in our lives, stress is especially important when it comes to high performance. Too little stress results in poor performance, whereas appropriate stress provide a catalyst for high performance, however too much stress reduces performance and can cause burnout. This relationship is described by the Yerkes-Dodson law a scientific principle developed by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and J. D. Dodson in 1908. The Yerkes-Dodson law, illustrated below, shows that as stress increases, so does performance, up to an optimal point, the top of the curve. If stress is increased beyond the optimal point, at the top of the curve, performance begins to decrease.

Building on this work Dr. Herbert Benson, Harvard Medical School and President of the Mind Body Medical Institute discovered an interesting response…..

“By bringing the brain to the height of activity and then suddenly moving it into a passive, relaxed state, it’s possible to stimulate much higher neurological performance than would otherwise be the case. Over time, subjects who learn to do this as a matter of course perform at consistently higher levels.”

By consciously using this biological response, which Herbert Benson calls the “Relaxation Response“, we can trigger insights to help solve difficult problems. The response is triggered as follows:

  • Focused information gathering and analysis. By increasing your work load and working hard at analysis you increase stress, over time moving along the stress axis of the Yerkes-Dobson curve. As stress increases, your performance will eventually start to decrease, creating a “stress response”, such as frustration, anger, fear, etc.
  • Stop and walk away. Now you stop what you’re doing, walk away and do something different and relaxing, such as, prayer, jogging, swimming yoga, etc. This is the stage that triggers the relaxation response.
  • Sudden insight. This is where you usually experience a “sudden insight” into the problem or challenge you were trying to solve.

This approach of intense analysis, the release of control then removing yourself from the issue allows your brain to rearrange itself increasing the possibility that insights will emerge. According to Dr. Benson about 25% of people trained in the process can reliably reach the insight stage. Although I have not deliberately tried this approach I have experienced this working in the normal course of a work. In the months ahead I will be attempting to deliberately use this technique and see how well it triggers insights into difficult problems.

Benson’s latest book is “The Breakout Principle: How to Activate the Natural Trigger That Maximizes Creativity, Athletic Performance, Productivity and Personal Well-Being” (co-authored with William Proctor).

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