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.

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.

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.

Conventional wisdom has always said that achieving more means pushing harder. It’s not true. Why? Because that’s not how brains work.

I’d like to challenge you to think differently about performance and health by embracing what seems like a counter-intuitive notion: slow down to speed up. Being deliberate about how you live and work can enable you to be more effective and efficient.

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.

Though body and mind are typically thought of as being separate, it’s helpful to consider them as a unit because they work together. For your mind to be engaged, your body needs to be energized. There is a growing body of research showing that physical activity improves brain function and facilitates learning, creativity and problem solving among other key functions. Even simple movements like walking get you physically energized and open up the possibility of creating beta wave activity in the brain, which is reflective of the brain state you need to be in if you have to work at a task or perform an action that requires your concentration.

If you want to live a world-class life, you’ll need an exercise plan, because physical activity can dramatically improve your health and performance. In particular, you will want an approach that capitalizes what I call the 4Fs: Fitness, Force, Fast and Flexible.

In the #hustle culture of manic busyness, it can be hard to remember the basic facts about personal growth. Mentally and physically, human beings are built to adapt to stress, but it will not happen if we don’t take time to rest and recover. That’s when the growth occurs. We cannot grow, let alone heal, if we are constantly on the go.

There is widespread agreement that one of the common pathways involved in all human disease, especially chronic diseases, is inflammation. We also know that chronic stress is one of the primary contributors to elevated inflammation levels in the human body. As a result, any conversation about optimal health and performance needs to include an exploration of how we can decrease systemic inflammation. We all need to make an effort to recover and regenerate more effectively so we give ourselves the best chance to avoid conditions such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and depression.

In the last six months, I have been exploring ways that exercise can facilitate a change in mindset when it comes to improving physical and mental health and performance. To take advantage of this shift, I want you to think about exercise in a new way.

There are several ways you can alter your physical environment to change the way you work. You might not be able to change the state of your building, but you can make small changes to workspaces or rooms that make a big difference. And you don’t have to spend a ton of money—you can work with what you have to create a space more conducive to improved focus and productivity.

Science shows that when our creativity is peaking, we emit theta waves and several regions of our brains interact to make new connections and come up with novel ideas. But how do we get into that state, keep track of the ideas we generate and stimulate a long-term source of ideas?

As the foundation of all health and performance, sleep is something you need to take seriously. And while you may not have access to a sleep coach like the pro sports teams do, you can still put a protocol in place to help you achieve optimal sleep.

Optimizing the functioning and growth of your brain is essential to your performance and health. In particular, it’s important to understand the role of two kinds of tissues – white matter and grey matter – and how you can make them grow.