Losing Your Cool Under Pressure, Excerpt

Excerpt from Sian Beilock’s article in Psychology Today:

When the worries start, if you are doing something that demands a heavy dose of working-memory (say, solving a difficult test problem or reasoning through a tough on-the-spot question from a prospective boss), you performance can suffer.

Says Sian Beilock, Author of Choke, and also A University Of Chicago Psychology Professor.

As it happens, both of these types of failures have to do with the fact that, under pressure, the prefrontal cortex (and the working-memory housed there) stops working the way it should. This malfunction of the prefrontal cortex also wreaks havoc on our ability to control our emotions. A major component of working-memory is inhibition, which helps us keep what we want in mind and what we don’t want out. It also helps us control our thoughts, emotions, and behavior. When the stress is on, our inhibition is one of the first things to go. When you lose your temper or say something you shouldn’t in times of stress, it’s often a sign that your prefrontal cortex isn’t able to keep the emotional centers of your brain under wraps.

Click here to read the article in full from Psychology Today/Sian Beilock