Your circadian rhythm is your internal biological clock which regulates everything from sleep, eating patterns, mood, hormone regulation, and energy levels during the day. Disruption to your circadian rhythm can lead to insomnia, fatigue, loss of appetite, depressed mood, and decreased physical and mental performance. This is particularly apparent when you are jet lagged - I’m sure you’ve all experienced how bad that can be!

Great performers enter a state of complete connection to the task while remaining completely relaxed. In so doing, they consistently deliver exceptional performance. From a brain science perspective, they are able to access gamma mode, a state of intense brain activity when the entire brain works together at once.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to crack the code of ultra-performance.

I do it by looping back through everything I’ve learned as a scientist and physiologist, and comparing that knowledge to everything I am learning from meeting and working with some of the highest-achieving people on the planet.

What I’ve observed is that elite performers are consistently able to access their full potential.

Your creativity isn’t something you can just turn on and off, but it is definitely something you will undermine if you are in constant go mode. Our brains aren’t designed to ideate and innovate when we are in focused execution mode.

Need to brainstorm or ideate? Need to come up with a radically new idea? Need to be agile and innovative? Step out of execution mode and relax.

Other than the odd remote meeting or conference call, you now have the freedom to set your own schedule. This can lead to something very dangerous: continuous access to food.

Instead of worrying so much about what exactly you should be doing, just get up and MOVE. Moving can be anything - setting an alarm every hour to stand up and stretch, doing a couple flights of stairs, or getting outside for a quick walk (provided you’re practicing social distancing!).

When I criticize our culture of hustle and endless drive, I am not in any way diminishing the importance of focus and execution. In fact, I think a commitment to rest and recovery is, in many ways, about setting you up to deliver results when it matters.

Besides decreasing the risk of numerous chronic diseases, sleep helps to regulate appetite, improves mood and mental clarity, and increases immune function (which is particularly important right now!). Bottom line - sleep is essential for your mental and physical health and performance.

Living in a constant state of hustle and drive is so familiar to most of us that we aren’t always aware of what does – and doesn’t – help us focus.

Given how brains work, there are certain conditions that will cue beta waves when it comes time to deliver results.

Here are five techniques you can use to cue your brain to get into go mode.

Alpha waves are emitted when we learn, reflect, think strategically or engage in metacognition. In this mode, our brains achieve a blend of activation and relaxation. To get into this mode, we have to step out of focused execution, which limits our ability to pull the lens back and see the whole picture.

I learned about this effect firsthand on a trip to Africa for a friend's wedding.

My primary advice to ensure world-class sleep is to defend your last hour. To do so, I developed a comprehensive pre-sleep protocol.

Here are three tactics you can use:

The benefits of optimal sleep are enormous and have a huge impact on performance and health. Along with enabling your brain to wash itself, deep sleep cues delta brain waves, which drive recovery and regeneration.

From every possible perspective – physiologically, psychologically, emotionally and energy-wise – humans need to sleep deeply and regularly engage in proper recovery. To be as inspired and energized as possible in your daily life and work, you need to invest in your recovery.

There is a shift in corporate culture underway toward supporting naps as a high-performance tool that also has massive health benefits.

One of the major side effects of the epidemic of unrelenting drive and constant hustle has been to limit our collective capacity for deep and broad thinking.

When it comes to reflection, learning, strategic thinking and metacognition, our brains need to slow down, focus and trigger alpha waves.

What we know is that there are specific cleaning cells inside the brain called astroglia that are between the neurons. When they are activated, astroglia scoop up waste products and drive them towards blood vessels so they drain away from the brain.

When you are awake and hustling, this system is shut down. Only when you enter a deep sleep and delta waves prevail, do the astroglia activate and do their work.

We drive ourselves day and night. We never rest. We never step back. We push and push and push.

Why is this a problem? Because that’s not how the brain works. It’s not how the body works. It’s not how performance works. And it’s not what optimizes our health and longevity.

During his remarks, Eisenhower referred to a university president he knew who was fond of saying, “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” This phrase went on to become the basis for what is known as The Eisenhower Decision Principle – a decision-making process for prioritizing tasks and projects.