Flow is when we are energized, motivated, focused, happy, and able to perform at our best.

 It is an incredible experience. It is also difficult to replicate consistently - fortunately swimming with sharks is a rare occurence. Here are a few practices that can help you enter your flow state on demand.

What I’ve observed is that elite performers can achieve a state of being where they can access their full potential especially when they are under pressure, tension and stress.

Simply put, they can find calm in the chaos.

There is a key to helping us to shift from surviving to thriving. This is where we still experience stress, but we have practices in our days that help us to recover, recharge and positively adapt so that stress leads to growth rather than burnout.

One way to turn the key and unlock adaptation and growth is to use the foods that we eat to help us to heal and repair our bodies and brains. We can think of nutrition as healing.

Optimizing our mental health is a challenge. I don’t think we should all be happy all the time, and experiencing life to the fullest can involve being happy, sad, excited, anxious or any one of many different moods and states.

The problem is when we experience chronic stress, anxiety or depression for extended periods of time without relief. 

Therefore, in today’s post I’m sharing ideas on how to use exercise and physical activities to improve your mental health.

Today, we explore how proper nutrition can optimize health and energy. Mitochondria are essential for producing the energy that powers every cell in your body, playing a crucial role in overall health, vitality, and performance. By understanding the key nutrients that fuel these vital organelles, you can make informed dietary choices that enhance your wellbeing and supercharge your performance.

Do you remember the first time you really found a song or artist you LOVE?

Does it sound odd to suggest that there are advantages to stress? Isn’t it just damaging and to be avoided at all costs? Not quite. Interestingly, stress is a lot like food. Not having any at all is bad for us, and too much can make us sick. We need to control our stress levels, as much as we can, and help our bodies and minds to recover between moments of stress in our lives.

If you’re reading this then you are interested in performing at a high level in what you care about the most.

Peak performance is characterized by performing at a very high level while feeling effortless, energized, and calm, with minimal distractions or and deep focus.

My objective with this Protocol that I am sharing today is to help you craft your routine and ritual that you can use before big events so that you can consistently perform to your peak potential in tasks that are meaningful to you.

EPIC podcast for you… This week I’d like to change things up a bit, and instead of an article I am sharing a podcast interview that I posted this week with my dear friend and colleague Dr. James Rouse.

Peak performance is most extensively studied in athletes and has repeatedly been defined as feeling effortless, automatic, and calm, with minimal to no distractions or conscious thoughts during the performance.

This week we’re exploring 7 tactics that you can use to help you direct your attention and energy towards the people / places / pursuits that are the most important to you.

These are the critical factors that, in my experience, make all the difference when you’re trying to make powerful positive changes in your life. Each one will take you some time to think about and implement. Have a read and build them into your life!

This week we’re exploring the impact that fun and play have on our health, wellbeing and ability to perform to our potential. While fun and play are usually NOT what we think about when perform at a high level, there is amazing research that shows that having fun, playing and crafting happiness in our lives is a key determinant of sustainable high performance.

Chronic stress drains our mental capacities, complicating everything from daily exercise to work concentration and interpersonal relationships.

I propose deliberately implementing recovery strategies and fostering an environment conducive to mental and physical well-being at home and at work.

The foods we eat play a pivotal role in either exacerbating or alleviating inflammation. Adopting an anti-inflammatory diet is a powerful strategy to reduce the risk of chronic inflammation and its associated diseases.

We think sleep is really important and apparently so do many of you who read this column! Each week in this space many of your submit questions and almost every week someone asks about sleep and specifically how to fall asleep and stay asleep. So, this week I have a few simple tactics you can use to sleep better. Here is the Q&A!