5 Key Reasons You Want To Stay Calm Under Pressure

Stress. Pressure. The hotseat. Whatever you call it we have all been there. Many times in life depending on our occupation or circumstances we are met with the challenge of staying cool under pressure. The worst feeling in the world is feeling like an anxious mess when these moments come up in life. It does not have to be that way.

We all want to be calm and collected when it counts. No one wants to crumble under pressure. It’s not as hard as you might think to learn to be calm under pressure. The benefits of developing the ability to keep calm are many. The main thing is that the calmer that you are the easier it is to make sound decisions and act effectively.
Check out some of the benefits of staying calm under pressure.

Benefits Of Being Calm

● You will feel more in control of your experience.
● Less stress.
● Able to stay analytical in a crisis.
● Rediscover your creative flow.
● You have clearer communication.
● Enjoy better health.

Reasons To Stay Calm Under Pressure:

 1. You Will Feel More In Control Of The Moment
No one likes to feel out of control. Keeping calm under pressure reduces your body’s adrenalin fight or flight style response. Feeling in control contributes to feeling calm. Being able to handle yourself reduces anxiety, gives you more self-confidence, and gives you a sense of being able to control a pressure-filled situation. As you get accustomed to thriving in pressure filed situations, your stress response becomes less pronounced. This basically means although you are still aware of a pressure filled situation, you ability to handle it is greater.

2. You Will Be Able To Make Better Decisions.
Staying calm makes it easier to make good decisions. Tunnel vision is often a consequence of panic and fear. Calmness helps you see the big picture. Try taking a deep breath and focusing on the task at hand. The quality of the choices that you make will improve by keeping calm.

3. Mental Clarity
Mental clarity can be paired with decision making. Being able to think clearly, objectively, and analytically are key to handling yourself in a situation where calmness is critical. Consider this an advantage you have over the situation. Strive to stay calm and keep your head in the game in stressful situations.

 4. Creativity
When you are calm you are able to come up with creative solutions for problems more effectively. When you are anxious, or uptight creativity does not come as easily. Strive to channel creativity through calm collected thinking.

 5. Problem-solving.
Similar to creativity it is easier to objectively solve problems if you are not stressed out or anxious from pressure. Seeing the big picture is a part of problem-solving that definitely works best when calm. Learning how to problem solve in the heat of battle is a skill that will set you apart. This is a great tool for your career, academia, or personal life.

These are just some of the reasons to develop skills that allow you to stay calm under pressure. Learning to use these skills can keep you sane, help you level up in life, and benefit you all other areas of life. The more you practice staying calm in stressful situations the better you will be able to handle high-pressure situations.

Don’t strive for perfection or set unrealistic expectations. If you are not naturally calm under pressure know that it will take practice. Once you start to focus on being calm under pressure and building these skills it gets easier. Practice brings calmness.

6 Signs That You Are Under Too Much Pressure

The majority of people are under the impression that they recognize the signs of stress. The reality, though, is that we often fail to recognize the signs until we're so deep in our stress that we're making ourselves sick. When you're under pressure, you overthink, you worry, you struggle to cope with your emotions, and ultimately, your body responds. The better you recognize the symptoms, the earlier you realize you are dealing with too much pressure, which means you can manage it sooner to ensure it is under control. With that in mind, let's highlight six signs that you are under too much pressure.

1. Headaches
When you're stressed out and under pressure, the muscles in your neck and shoulders tense up. This, in turn, can cause a headache. Generally, tension headaches are typified by pain in the back of the neck, head, and forehead. While it's generally a dull pain, it is a constant one and you might also feel pressure.

2. Aches & Pains
Our bodies tend to experience more aches and pains as we grow older, but there is a difference between that type of soreness and stress-related aches and pains. When you're under too much stress and pressure, your body's sympathetic nervous system kicks into high-gear, stimulating the fight or flight response. This can result in increased tension in your muscles, thus leaving you with aches and pains.

3. You're Constantly Under the Weather
If you catch every cold, flu, and illness going around, then it's likely because you're stressed out from too much pressure. Cortisol, the stress hormone, negatively impacts your immune system and when you're exposed to it for too long, you become more susceptible to illness.

You may also experience digestive issues, whether it's indigestion and heartburn or issues with your bowels.

4. Skin Problems
Whether it's itchy skin or acne, the stress that too much pressure causes can result in serious skin problems.

You might not think of itchiness as being related to pressure and stress, yet stress can cause inflammation issues in your skin which makes you itchy.

While a poor diet and a lack of hydration can contribute to acne, your problem might be bigger. Have you ever stopped to think why your diet is poor? Too much pressure might be contributing to the problem. The more stressed out you are, the more sebum your body produces, leaving you at risk of clogged pores thus more likely to experience acne (and possibly ingrown hairs as well).

While it isn't strictly a skin problem, something that does come when you're under too much pressure is an excessive sweating problem (which can cause its own skin problems).

5. Irritability
Do you snap easily? Are you prone to lashing out with your friends, family, and co-workers? You might think they're being more annoying than usual, but the reality is more likely related to your stress levels. You're under too much pressure and you are unpleasant to be around because of this.

6. Concentration Problems
If you feel as though you're being pulled in every direction, it's probably because it is. The stress that stems from being under too much pressure tends to negatively impact your concentration.

Of course, your concentration issues could also be related to fatigue. When you're under too much pressure you will likely experience exhaustion. When in a heightened emotional state, the type that comes from too much pressure, your brain struggles to store information and this can leave you feeling more exhausted. Combine that with the lack of sleep you are likely dealing with due to stress, you are creating a toxic state of being for yourself.

Take Charge of Your Habits

There’s an old quote about habits that perfectly shows why you need to take charge of the ones in your life. “The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” by Warren Buffet. If you don’t take charge of your habits, even ones that seem harmless, they will easily control you.

While habits are easily formed and followed through, especially once your brain recognizes them as habits, you can still change them. Always remember that you are in control, not your habits.

Habit expert and writer of the book ‘Atomic Habits’ James Clear has four rules for forming habits that can help you take charge of them. Whether the habits are good or bad, you can still use these rules to gain some measure of control. These rules, according to Atomic Habits, are:

Make it obvious

Make it attractive

Make it easy

Make it satisfying

Make it Obvious

To take charge of your habits, you need to make them obvious. For example, let’s say you want to start running. If your running shoes and gear are in the closet, then that habit isn’t apparent. Instead of sifting through your wardrobe for your shoes, your brain will just want to stay in bed.

So, you can put your running shoes by the door and make sure that they are the first thing you see in the morning. Then you’ll be reminded that you should run today. To break bad habits, you want to hide them away.

Make it Attractive

With habits, most people focus on the long-term goals. You might say, “I will go for a run to get my beach body in ten weeks.” While that goal is noble, it does nothing when running in the cold and feeling miserable.

So, make your habits attractive and give yourself a reward or incentive to get it done. Maybe run with a friend or have your running trail pass by a place where you can have breakfast or see the city’s sunrise. For bad habits, add extra steps or make going the habit very unattractive.

Make it Easy

Remember, the brain always takes on the path of least resistance. If that path happens to lead to your habit, then more power to you. It might seem counter-intuitive, but instead of telling yourself. I will run a mile today; say that you will only run a block.

Having smaller micro-habits will make everything easier and will help you do them. Most people go too big, get discouraged, and then get burnt out. But running a block, reading one page of a book, or doing one push-up is something that takes no time at all. Plus, if you do one small habit, why not do another and another?

For bad habits, add more resistance to them and make them harder to achieve.

Make it Satisfying

Reward yourself along the journey for your habits, and you’ll keep doing them. Maybe if you go running for thirty days, give yourself some type of reward. Have a good meal, watch a movie, do something you wouldn’t normally do, and also reflect on how running has made you a better person than you were 30 days ago.

For bad habits, remove the satisfaction from them, and you won’t see them as a reward.

You Are In Control

Remember that every habit comes from your own brain, and you are the one in control. If you want to make or break a habit, you are the only one who can do so. Follow the four steps, and you’ll find that it gets easier and easier to take charge and make your habits work for you.

Work Off the Grid to Tap Into New Ideas and Focus More

One of the best things about the modern world is all the technology that’s available. You can work online in an office or from the comfort of your own home. But a big downside of using technology for work is that it can severely limit your creativity.

One reason that this can happen is that computers or other forms of technology can provide a lot of distractions. For example, if a friend is texting you while you’re working, you could find it harder to focus on your task because you’re busy reading and replying to the messages.

This is why some people find it helpful to turn their phones or email alerts off when they’re working. Another distraction is that there is so much to do on a computer as well as on a phone.

There are games and social media sites and endless emails, articles and more. Some people find it helpful to turn their internet off while they get work done, but there are other approaches that are better and more fun and allow you to be creative.

Working off the grid is a popular way to get your creativity and focus boosted without sacrificing your work. A lot of people find that their creativity increases when they’re doing something physical while working.

You can do something as simple as going out for a walk and find the answer to a work problem you wouldn’t have found sitting in front of your computer. The change in scenery as well as the activity can relax the mind.

Also consider using a pad of paper and a pen or pencil to create with instead of consistently using the computer. Not only will it help with the distractions, but it’s also a great choice health-wise.

Prolonged digital work can cause a severe strain on your eyes. When you’re in pain or having trouble with your eyes, it can be hard to focus on work. Another problem is that bright screens have been known to make people feel lethargic.

If you notice you’ve been having trouble with fatigue while working, take a break and step away from your desk. Even if you can’t do something more physical like going for a walk it’s important to take frequent breaks.

These breaks give both your eyes and your mind a rest. When you stare at a screen for long stretches of time, you can find yourself having trouble concentrating. When you walk away from the screen, even if it’s just for a few minutes, you’ll find that you’re able to return with more energy and focus.

This is because your brain needs changes and breaks. Without the different scenery, your creativity can feel stalled and you’ll find yourself becoming stuck on projects that shouldn’t take you a long time to complete.

Make a list of all the things that you have to use a computer for. Then see what you can change so that you can do without it. For example, if you write your grocery list on the computer, try using pen and paper next time. If you want to brainstorm ideas to pitch at your next meeting, or you’re coming up with a new product to sell, write it out on paper.

Use a Routine to Help You Weed Out Distractions

By using a routine, you’re establishing habits. When you have habits, it allows your brain to function on autopilot. That means you’ll do things without really giving it much thought because the action is ingrained within you.

Having a routine is good for you because it works to keep distractions at bay. Plus, if you’re currently finding that you do have distractions, establishing a routine can knock those out of your way.

Most people, even if they work from home, are more productive and better focused when they use a routine for everything they need to do. This begins with choosing the right time for setting the alarm.

Having a routine lets you know what you have to do next without really putting much effort into it. For example, your routine should include a time for when you need to need to take a shower.

Some people have a routine where they do it in the mornings after rising because it helps them to wake up. Others feel they get more done when they get dressed first and have breakfast, so they schedule their shower in the evenings.

You can set a routine for when you eat and this can include all of your meals as well as any snack breaks. You’ll be able to cut out distractions when you have a routine for when you work, so set a schedule for starting as well as for when it’s time to leave work behind.

Some people find it’s better to have a schedule that breaks down each part of their workday, such as some time that’s set aside for creative tasks while other time is set aside for administrative tasks.

Using a routine allows you to weed out distractions that impede productivity daily. When you conquer the daily distractions, you gain more hours in your week. To create a routine that fits your life, you would first need to make a note of all the things you need to get done in any given day.

This list needs to have both professional and personal life tasks, since they go hand in hand. For your professional list, you would create a routine that establishes what steps you need to take in order to finish a project.

This routine can be based on daily or weekly habits. Once you have the list written down, you’ll want to look over it to see what can be lumped together. For example, if you know you get distracted from work by returning phone calls, save responding until you’re doing something on your daily routine, such as walking on the treadmill during your exercise regimen.

It can be helpful to use a planner to schedule your routine. Your routine may take some tweaking once you get started, but don’t be afraid to ditch what’s not working for you and changing it up for what will help you.

Make Sure You’re Challenging Yourself Enough

If you find yourself getting easily distracted with work, it could be because you haven’t trained your brain to focus enough. It could be that you’ve developed the habit of daydreaming.

While either of these could be the case, there’s also the possibility that your work is simply too easy for you. For example, an artist could find a certain project too easy and it doesn’t inspire him.

This would lead to the artist to feeling bored and unenthusiastic about the prospect of working on that project. Like artists, all humans need to be challenged in order to grow and to have enthusiasm or motivation to work on something.

When you’re not challenged enough, you’re going to grow bored with your life and job. Not having a challenge in your business life can leave you feeling unfulfilled and restless.

When this happens, you’ll have trouble focusing on your work and getting your projects done. You might even find that you just don’t care. If you find your work is too easy, you can become distracted because you might feel that it’s a project you can do with your eyes closed.

You might feel like it’s mind numbing work. If that sounds like you, then it’s time to start challenging yourself. One of the best ways to do this is to get out of your comfort zone.

If you feel stuck in an office job that just comes too easily to you, maybe try doing something in the creative field like photography.

You can also begin striving to become an expert at an area of your field you find the most interesting. If you work in IT, you could challenge yourself by learning to make websites from scratch or work in a different area of IT.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you have a lot of different things to choose from if you want to challenge yourself. One great way is to begin teaching others. If you’re good at your job and feel that it’s become mundane to you, try teaching others how to do the same kind of work that you do.

It will give you a renewed sense of purpose as well as open up a new challenge. Another great choice is to experiment doing things differently. Find new ways to do the same job.

Try to focus on reaching what you may have previously thought of as an impossible goal. Impossible goals are the ones that you may have always wanted to achieve but you thought just wasn’t in your future because you didn’t have the knowledge or the equipment or whatever.

Challenge yourself to do it anyway and work around any obstacles. When you feel like you have an impossible goal, you’ll find yourself pushing harder to achieve it. Challenge yourself to finish your projects faster but with the same quality.

Challenge yourself to take on opportunities that you never imagined you’d go after. Not only does this beat boredom but it also builds self-confidence.

Small Things That Can Disrupt Your Focus

Having your focus disrupted can interfere with your creative process as well as make you lose productivity. While you might immediately think about all the big things that can do this, such as people interrupting you or your phone ringing, more often than not, it’s the small things that end up stealing your focus.

If you’re trying to work in a room that’s too cold, this can be a culprit because your body is forced to use more energy to keep you warm. If you feel chilled or reach the point of shivering, it means your body is using energy.

In order to focus more, keep the room where you’re working a comfortable temperature. Noise can be a problem for some people. You might hear other people talking, the noise of kids at play if you work from home or dozens of other sounds and this might bother you.

While there are people who can’t stand to have noise when they’re working, silence can be a distraction as well. You need to figure out which sound it is that helps you to focus.

You might have to choose a few options to see which sounds work best for you if silence is a distraction.

One of these is a coffeehouse background noise. This is the quiet sound of dozens of conversations taking place in the background. You can often hear trays being set down, silverware clinking and soft laughter.

This kind of noise deals with silence but at the same time remains in the background so it doesn’t disrupt your creative flow. Some people use white noise. White noise is the same continual sound at a specific intensity level.

What this frequency does is it hides the other sounds that would disturb you. The brain tunes in to the white noise sound and blocks other disruptive noises. Video game music is another option.

This kind of music raises your focus because it stimulates the brain. If you listen to a recording that features several different kinds of video game music, it also works to prevent sound boredom.

The lighting in the room you’re working in needs to be right. Otherwise, it can cause eye strain. You want to make sure that the lighting you use doesn’t make you drowsy. For example, fluorescent lights can bother your circadian rhythm and make you sleepy during the day.

What you eat or drink can have an impact on your focus too. Foods and beverages that are high in calorie or salt content can make you feel drowsy and give you brain fog. Too much salt interferes with the amount of blood flow the brain receives, and steals focus.

If you want to boost creativity and focus, think about your décor. It’s a fact that certain colors have been known to help with both. Green is known to boost concentration. The color red stimulates the mind. Yellow is known to boost creativity and blue is known to help with alertness.

Use Brain Training Exercises to Increase Your Focus

Many people don’t realize that one of the most important parts of your body that needs strength-training is your brain. Just like how you strengthen your arms by lifting weights, you have to do the same with your brain.

If you don’t, you can end up having poor focus and concentration. This can make your mind wander consistently throughout the day, and the end result is that you suddenly realize you haven’t accomplished everything you needed to do.

Several studies have been conducted to prove that brain training exercises and games can increase your focus and strengthen your cognitive functions. These cognitive functions in the brain are what allow you to receive, store, develop, and remember information.

Without strengthening these functions, you can have trouble focusing and concentrating because your information feels scattered rather than organized. One study in Saudi Arabia followed fifty-one healthy subjects for months while they used brain training exercises.

At the end of the study, it was found that several of the test subjects showed improvement in their cognitive functions, especially with their attention span. This means the people who used brain training exercises were able to keep attention and focus on things longer than before they’d practiced the exercises.

One of the most important things you need to train your brain to do is focus. It’s natural to daydream when you’re in an office or doing repetitive work. But you can train your brain to make focusing a habit as well.

When you don’t train your brain to focus on your work, then you can end up with the problem of not getting your to-do lists finished which means you could miss work deadlines.

Some people who don’t train their brains with exercises might have a problem with procrastination. There are several brain training exercises you can use to increase your focus so that this isn’t an issue for you.

However, remember to start at a low level. Just like how you wouldn’t start exercising by bench-pressing three hundred pounds or running five miles, you have to stretch your brain first before it can start focusing properly.

A great thing about brain training techniques is that you can do them anywhere. For example, there are several apps, including the highly popular Luminosity, that allows you to do brain training exercises and games on the go.

By training your brain every day, you’re building it up to handle more. This will help in all areas of life, but especially with work and creativity. When you have a busy day ahead, it can be difficult to remember everything that needs to be done.

But if your mind is already prepared from brain training exercises, you’ll find it easier to remember the tasks you need to get done, and by improving your focus, you’ll boost your productivity.

Don’t Use Your Work Space for Other Things

There’s a reason that the IRS says if you have a home office it should be used solely for that purpose and nothing else. It’s because using a home office for multiple purposes can lead to a crossover between professional and personal use.

If you have a workspace, you should be working. Mixing up the space can happen anywhere that you’ve set aside to work. It happens when you let boundaries slide. But it really is best just to use it for the intended purpose and not for any other reason that people commonly choose to do.

For example, some people choose to eat at their desk or whatever their workspace is. This is a bad idea - not just for health reasons, but it’s also bad for productive purposes. You get less done physically and mentally.

When you mix work with eating or any other habit, it blurs the lines between what’s work and what isn’t. You can easily make the mistake of setting yourself up to think that it’s okay to work and it’s okay to not work when you’re in your space.

At your desk, your purpose should be to focus and to be productive to work on whatever task or project is before you. But when you choose to eat or to do something else instead, it steals that focus and productivity.

This happens because the brain is straddling two functions when you do that. You need to have boundaries between personal tasks and professional ones. Otherwise, your brain remains in the work mode and doesn’t relax and get a break from the work.

This can lead to overwhelm, which in turn can lead to brain fog. On the other hand, if you’re constantly using the space for other things in addition to work, the brain won’t want to get into work mode.

It’s important to establish what your workspace is for and what it’s not for. Your space isn’t supposed to be a spot to hang out and watch TV. It’s not meant to be the area where you play with your pets or your kids.

It’s not supposed to be the place where you play games or wonder what you’re going to have to eat for dinner. When you treat your workspace like any other space, you lose the benefit of conditioning the mind to fall into the habit of work recognition.

You can establish the work habit to create a routine in the mind. As soon as you sit down in your chair, your brain automatically kicks into thinking, “It’s time to work now,” but if you use the space for other purposes, it won’t do that for you. Save the relaxing activities and tasks not related to work for other spaces. You’ll get more done.

Carve Out Time to Gain Perspective and Strategize

Lining everything up and getting it done isn’t something that as easy as it sounds because the full speed ahead method doesn’t usually work on a project. You might be someone who likes to choose your project, write out all the steps, then try to plow through from start to finish.

While that sounds great in theory, you can miss things along the way. Or, you can end up not doing the best job that you could have done with a system check in place. When you’re working on a project, you need to pause to make sure you have the right perspective.

By strategizing, you can make your project have the best possible outcome. When you’re working on something, take the time to think carefully about what you’re doing. Look at what you’ve done so far.

Check to see how what you’ve worked on lines up with the goals you’ve set. This will allow you to see if anything is veering off track. It’s better to catch that periodically throughout working on the project rather than reaching the end and find that you’ve missed a lot of important steps or completely missed your goal.

Look at the work that you’ve done so far. Study it to see how you’ve performed. This can show you if you’re struggling in any part of the project. It can also allow you to check to see if what you’ve done so far meets your expectations.

Or, see if it meets consumer expectations. Creating anything is a two-fold step of having the vision in your mind, then bringing it to life. What can happen is that what you see in your vision can be totally different once you start working on it because you might find that you’ve inadvertently gone in a different direction.

While this might not be a bad direction, if it doesn’t line up with your vision, then it’s not in line with your goals and you have to steer things back onto the right track. When you take the time to gain perspective, this can help you see if improvements need to be made at specific points.

For example, when working on something, give yourself check-in points at certain places in the work. Some people check in at the third of the way mark while others check the work or results when they’re halfway done.

By having a strategy in place to check your work, you’ll be able to tweak what’s not working or to make improvements on what is working. When you pause to gain perspective, this can help to give you new strength for working on the project.

It can also allow you to make sure all of your goals line up. Or, if a goal you’ve previously set needs to be changed or brought back into focus, you’ll be able to make a change at that time.