PDF Summary:Peak Performance, by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness

In virtually every domain—be it corporate jobs, athletic pursuits, or even college admissions—top performers are pushing the boundaries of human possibilities. But this relentless quest for excellence often leaves us suffering from chronic exhaustion and burnout, harming our performance and even our health. In Peak Performance, human performance experts Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness attempt to remedy this situation. They argue that sustainable elite performance is possible by implementing cycles of stress and rest.

In this guide, we’ll break down Stulberg and Magness’s formula for maximizing performance into two sections. First, we’ll discuss their formula for growth and highlight optimal strategies for subjecting your body to stress and recuperating afterward. Next, we’ll examine their recommendations for converting this growth into maximal performance by developing a consistent routine, intentionally structuring your time, and harnessing your purpose. We’ll also supplement Stulberg and Magness’s recommendations with other works on self-improvement and discuss actionable steps to implement these recommendations.

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Strategy #2: Prioritize Sleep

According to Stulberg and Magness, sleep is another crucial form of rest for intellectuals and athletes alike. Stulberg and Magness relate that numerous studies have shown that sleep helps us consolidate information—in other words, it reinforces the information that we know and forges connections between new pieces of information. However, they point out that sleep’s key benefits are derived from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which largely occurs between hours seven and nine of sleep. Consequently, intellectuals need copious amounts of sleep to reap its full benefits.

Stulberg and Magness also note that, for athletes, sleep is crucial for activating the anabolic state—a state in which hormones like testosterone and human growth hormone flood our bodies and help repair our muscles and bones. These hormones are released during REM sleep, meaning sleep-deprived athletes can enjoy outsized physical benefits simply by sleeping a couple hours longer to spend more time in REM sleep.

Concrete Strategies for Getting High-Quality Sleep

Although Stulberg and Magness emphasize the importance of sleep in the recovery cycle, they don’t provide any actionable insights to promote higher-quality sleep—insights that are especially important since about one-third of Americans struggle with sleep deprivation. To that end, experts recommend several concrete strategies to improve your sleep hygiene and get better sleep:

• Maintain a consistent sleep schedule.

• Turn off electronic devices 30 minutes prior to bedtime to prevent blue light from interfering with your sleep hormones.

• Avoid consuming alcohol and caffeine in the evening.

• Minimize light exposure before bed to prevent interruptions to your sleep cycle.

• Eat snacks before bed rather than large meals.

While none of these individual strategies are foolproof, they can collectively maximize your chances of getting a good night’s rest.

Strategy #3: Take Short Walks

Stulberg and Magness argue that taking short walks is an underappreciated form of rest. They note research showing that these walks can spark creative ideas. The researchers separated workers into three groups—one that didn’t go on a walk, one that went on a six-minute walk outdoors, and one that went on a six-minute walk indoors—and had everyone take the same creativity test. Those who walked outdoors and those who walked indoors scored 60% and 40% higher than those who didn’t walk at all, respectively.

(Shortform note: In addition to sparking creativity, health experts have found that walking has a score of other unexpected health benefits. For instance, studies have shown that regular walks are associated with better immune function and thus fewer sick days. For those suffering from arthritis, regular walks have been shown to assuage joint pain. And for women in particular, walking is associated with a significantly decreased risk of breast cancer later in life.)

Converting Growth Into Performance

While utilizing a consistent cycle of stress and rest sets the foundation for performance by fostering growth, Stulberg and Magness acknowledge that growth alone doesn’t ensure elite performance. For this reason, they offer three additional steps for converting growth into performance: developing a pre-performance routine, intentionally structuring your resources around your goals, and harnessing your purpose.

The Importance of Routine

According to Stulberg and Magness, an essential part of optimal performance in any domain is a consistent pre-performance routine. To craft your own routine, they recommend cultivating a positive mood, incorporating your environment into your routine, and personalizing your routine.

Make a Positive Mood Part of Your Routine

Stulberg and Magness contend that putting yourself in a positive mood is beneficial for both intellectual and athletic pursuits. Regarding intellectual work, they cite a study that assessed participants’ moods and then subjected the participants to creative problem-solving tests—participants whose moods were positive before the test consistently outperformed those whose moods were negative. Regarding athletic work, Stulberg and Magness point to a study of elite cyclists in which experimenters briefly flashed a happy or sad face to the cyclists during an intense workout; they found that those who saw the happy face performed significantly better than those who saw the sad face.

(Shortform note: Even if you aren’t actually experiencing a positive mood, simply feigning a positive mood can have beneficial effects. In particular, sports scientists found that runners who force themselves to smile during runs process oxygen more efficiently and decrease their perceived exertion levels compared to those who are frowning. For this reason, two-time Olympic marathon gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge is known for smiling throughout his races, even when he’s in severe pain.)

Stulberg and Magness suggest that there’s no foolproof path to putting yourself in a positive mood. However, they do recommend that you avoid things that you know will put you in a negative mood, since such factors will make it difficult for you to optimize your routine.

(Shortform note: Simply avoiding negative mood triggers may not be enough to change your mood—experts emphasize that cultivating a positive mood also requires taking affirmative steps to become more positive. For example, they recommend consciously appreciating little joys in your daily life, like the scent of your coffee or a crisp morning breeze. Additionally, they suggest celebrating others’ accomplishments and victories, since that opens up a new source of positivity beyond your own accomplishments.)

Incorporate Your Environment Into Your Routine

In addition to cultivating a positive mood, Stulberg and Magness advise intentionally creating an environment that’s conducive to success, since insights from ecological psychology show that our environment conditions our behavior. They point out, for instance, that merely seeing a photo of a chair stimulates the area of our brain associated with sitting in a chair. More generally, Stulberg and Magness contend that our brains can associate our working environments with high performance, priming us to succeed. For example, if a writer always writes in the same leather chair with a coffee on the desk, the very sight of that particular chair and coffee will prepare their brain for the act of writing.

(Shortform note: For remote workers who have greater flexibility in structuring their work environment, experts offer a wide array of strategies for crafting an effective one. For instance, they recommend choosing a workplace with significant natural light, since natural light can increase your energy levels and productivity. Further, they suggest including small plants at your workplace to lift your mood, and reducing additional clutter on your desk to minimize distractions and make yourself more efficient.)

Personalize Your Routine

Finally, Stulberg and Magness acknowledge that no two routines are identical, so you have to develop your own ideal routine. For instance, LeBron James is known for reading a book in the locker room before playoff games to calm his nerves, while Stephen Curry performs the same 20-minute on-court workout before every basketball game. So, according to Stulberg and Magness, as long as your routine involves a positive mood and an intentionally constructed environment, you’re free to craft the routine that suits you best.

(Shortform note: Although Stulberg and Magness emphasize that routines must be personalized to each individual, experts point out that effective routines often have a lot in common. For example, healthy routines involve scheduled breaks to give you time to recuperate and incorporate concrete goals that you seek to meet each day. Further, they emphasize that strong routines are often centered around solid sleeping habits and a healthy breakfast to fuel your workday.)

The Importance of Intentionality

In addition to Stulberg and Magness’s recommendation that you intentionally structure your pre-performance routine, they also recommend that you intentionally structure your day-to-day life around your goals. Specifically, they offer the following concrete recommendations for intentionally pursuing your goals: Work in line with your chronotype; surround yourself with those who motivate you, and perform your best every single day.

Recommendation #1: Embrace Your Chronotype

First, Stulberg and Magness write that you should work in line with your chronotype to optimize your time. Your chronotype, they explain, is your body’s natural pattern of high and low energy throughout the day. For example, larks are most alert and energized in the morning, whereas owls are most energized at night. Consequently, the authors argue that for optimal performance, you should complete your most demanding work when your energy is highest—in the morning for larks, and in the evening for owls. But, because creative insights are most common when your energy is lower, as we previously saw, they note that you should instead perform creative tasks during your off-time—in the evening for larks, and morning for owls.

(Shortform note: While Stulberg and Magness focus exclusively on larks and owls to illustrate their point about chronotypes, sleep experts recognize several other chronotypes in addition to these two. For example, dolphins tend to be notoriously light sleepers who struggle to sleep through the night and have inconsistent bedtimes. Moreover, bears strike a middle ground between larks and owls, as their sleep schedule generally aligns with the sun’s rise and fall, making them most productive in the middle of the day.)

Recommendation #2: Find Encouraging Friends

While capitalizing on your chronotype can help you best structure your time, you might nonetheless work inefficiently if you’re surrounded by those who drag you down. In turn, Stulberg and Magness argue that you should surround yourself with friends who encourage and motivate you to strengthen your performance.

To defend this claim, they point to a study that investigated why some Air Force squadrons are significantly more fit after training than others, despite every squadron undergoing the same training. The determining factor, according to the study, was how motivated the least fit cadet was in a squadron; if the least fit cadet was highly motivated to improve, the whole squadron improved, and vice versa. Thus, the researchers concluded that motivation is contagious, as the least fit cadet either improved or diminished the other cadets’ motivation.

(Shortform note: Although Stulberg and Magness recognize the importance of surrounding yourself with encouraging friends, they don’t offer concrete recommendations for finding these friends in the first place. To that end, Dale Carnegie’s strategies in How to Win Friends and Influence People are helpful. Carnegie explains that making friends requires you to be likable, and he offers several recommendations for becoming more likable. For instance, he suggests cultivating a genuine interest in other people, since people like to feel as if you’re interested in them. This might involve going out of your way to learn about and discuss their interests, rather than simply talking about yourself.)

Recommendation #3: Consistently Perform Each Day

Finally, Stulberg and Magness write that to maximize your performance, you have to consistently perform each day rather than making excuses that impair your habits. They clarify that by sticking to your routine and performing every day, you’ll form habits that make it easier to perform in the future.

(Shortform note: In Atomic Habits, James Clear offers an explanation of habit formation that can help you form the habits that lead to peak performance. He writes that habit formation has four stages: First, a cue signals to the brain that there’s a possible reward. This causes a craving to manifest to earn this reward. Then you respond to this craving by taking action, which causes you to receive the reward. For example, long distance runners’ pre-running routine might be a cue that endorphins (the reward) are looming, causing them to crave going on a run and receiving these endorphins.)

The Importance of Purpose

Having shown how an optimal routine and daily intentionality are conducive to top performance, Stulberg and Magness argue that one final factor is crucial for exceeding our limits: purpose. They contend that having a purpose that goes beyond our own interests is essential to maximizing performance, because such purposes help us overcome our perceived psychological limitations.

For context, Stulberg and Magness explain that physical fatigue lies not only in our bodies, but also in our minds. To show as much, they cite an experiment that asked weightlifters to perform leg exercises until physical exhaustion—the point at which they could no longer lift. Researchers then ran an electric current through their legs and found that their leg muscles could still contract, suggesting they weren’t truly depleted, even though the weightlifters believed they were.

(Shortform note: Researchers have found that because our mind plays a role in our perception of fatigue, mental fatigue itself can cause decreased physical performance. In particular, researchers found that individuals suffering from mental fatigue reported increased levels of exertion during physical exercise, which in turn caused their overall performance to suffer.)

Because fatigue lies partially in our minds, it stands to reason that if we could shift our perception of fatigue during stress, we could increase our performance. And, Stulberg and Magness report, one study suggests we can do just that. In this study, researchers scanned the brains of participants who were exposed to threats, asking one group to think about their core values beforehand. Those who thought about their values displayed brain activity showing that they perceived the threats positively. In other words, reflecting on their values allowed them to shift the brain’s perception of threats.

(Shortform note: In a similar vein, researchers have found that the practice of mindfulness can increase pain tolerance by causing us to dissociate from the painful experience. In one study, researchers applied painful heat to the skin of two groups of individuals, the first being a control group and the second being a group who had performed four mindfulness sessions. They found that this latter group reported a 32% reduction in pain relative to the former group, despite still being relative novices at mindfulness meditation.)

For this reason, Stulberg and Magness note that individuals with stronger senses of purpose performed better at their jobs. For example, one study of hospital janitors found that janitors who believed their job was crucial for helping patients heal performed better and were more satisfied than those who lacked this sense of purpose. Further, in a separate meta-analysis of over 200,000 employees, scientists found a significant positive association between increased job performance and employees’ belief that their job positively impacted others.

(Shortform note: A strong sense of purpose can also be crucial in life-or-death situations, according to Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl. In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl recounts his own observations from concentration camps, in which he found that individuals oriented toward some greater purpose were more likely to survive than those who lacked such a purpose. According to Frankl, such individuals were less likely to succumb to despair and resignation, instead surviving at all costs to pursue their purpose.)

How to Find Your Purpose

Having highlighted the importance of purpose, Stulberg and Magness explain that you can find your purpose by identifying your core values and distilling them into a purpose statement.

Your core values, Stulberg and Magness explain, are values that are most central to your identity. To outline your core values, they recommend reflecting on the five values that are most important to you—for example, you might decide that education, relationship, spirituality, positivity, and loyalty are essential to who you are as a person. Afterward, they advise you to write a sentence or two about each of these values and rank them in terms of importance. For instance, you might conclude that deep relationship is your defining value and write “I hope to deepen my understanding of and empathy for people by cultivating vulnerable, lasting relationships.”

Stulberg and Magness write that the final step after writing these sentences is incorporating them into a coherent purpose statement—a declaration of your perceived purpose that reflects the values you previously selected. Because this process is so individualized, Stulberg and Magness provide no concrete tips for crafting your own purpose statement. However, a sample purpose statement for the previous set of values might look like this for a teacher: My purpose is to form lasting relationships with my students so that the process of education can extend beyond the mind and into the heart.

Victor Frankl’s Three Paths to Meaning

For those who aren’t sure of their core values, Frankl’s proposed paths to meaning in Man’s Search for Meaning can be helpful. Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and psychologist responsible for developing logotherapy—a school of therapy that emphasizes the importance of purpose for enduring hardship—explains that most people find their meaning via three paths:

• Path #1: Action. Frankl points out that many find their purpose through the actions that they perform, such as an artist discovering meaning through her paintings.

• Path #2: Love. Frankl explains that love, whether platonic or romantic, is another common means of finding one’s purpose. For example, parents might find meaning because of their overwhelming love for their children.

• Path #3: Suffering. Frankl contends that suffering can be an additional means to finding purpose. For instance, children who have suffered in foster care might later find purpose as social workers aiding children in similar circumstances.

Nonetheless, Frankl acknowledges that the world is rife with obstacles to finding meaning. For example, many people succumb to nihilism, the belief that life has no greater meaning, and others may feel disillusioned by the inevitability of death. To mitigate these philosophical challenges, Frankl recommends that you prioritize concrete action over abstract thinking, since concrete action can reorient you toward your purpose and pre-empt nihilistic thoughts.