These science-backed practices can help you stay calm, think clearly, and thrive under pressure.
Ever feel like your brain is working against you during those stressful, high-pressure moments? You’re not alone. But here’s the good news: Neuroscience reveals that our ability to direct and maintain attention is one of the most powerful tools we have for managing workplace stress and emotional challenges. Yet many professionals struggle with effectively deploying this mental resource during high-pressure situations.
In his book Shift: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You, neuroscientist and University of Michigan professor Ethan Kross explains how directing our “mental spotlight” can regulate emotions and enhance workplace performance, offering three practical strategies for better emotional control.
Deploy Your Attention Flexibly
Rather than rigidly forcing yourself to either confront or avoid workplace challenges, develop the ability to shift your attention strategically. This might mean focusing on a difficult project when you have the emotional resources but allowing yourself to pivot to other tasks when needed.
According to research in Psychological Science, people who can flexibly direct their attention—both toward and away from challenges as needed—demonstrate greater resilience in high-pressure environments.
Recognize When Your Strategy Isn’t Working
Pay attention to warning signs that your current approach to a workplace challenge isn’t effective. Kross suggests you instead ask yourself: “Is what I’m doing working? Is it making me feel better about the problem in front of me?” If the answer is no, these are signs your attention strategy needs adjustment.
Watch for patterns of getting stuck in repetitive negative thoughts about work situations; this indicates a need to change your strategy.
Leverage Your Psychological Immune System
Understanding how your mind naturally processes workplace challenges can help you direct attention more effectively. Kross says that “our emotions follow a natural time course: The further you get away from the inciting incident of distress, the more the sharpness of the emotion fades.”
Sometimes, briefly directing attention away from a work challenge allows your psychological immune system to process the situation more effectively. Kross points out, “Instead of firing back a frustrated response to a work email, you slam your laptop shut; when you come back to it the next morning, you find you’re much less angry.”
Deploying your attention successfully in the workplace isn’t about maintaining constant focus but instead sharpening your ability to direct your attention strategically to manage workplace challenges and achieve peak performance.
To learn more about stress, go to stress.org
EXPERT OPINION BY MARCEL SCHWANTES, INC. CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, EXECUTIVE COACH, SPEAKER, AND AUTHOR @MARCELSCHWANTES
