- 22 March 2018
This month I have been working on a digital lesson for students called resilience, stress and the grit scale, so it was very timely that I came across the recently published book Endure by Alex Hutchinson.
"Whether it's running a marathon, raising a family, or building a career, human achievement relies upon the ability to endure."
In this book Alex (a world-class runner and award-winning journalist) looks at the science behind endurance, and, how we can most effectively increase it to perform beyond our limits.
The 8 Big Ideas:
1. Limits are an illusion
2. Trick yourself
3. Talk to yourself
4. Tune into your body and mind
5. Rest your mind
6. Make pain your friend
7. Worry less about drinking and eating
8. Believe you can
Conversation Starters from Endure
Favourite stories, facts and statistics from Endure (courtesy of The Next Big Idea Club)
- Seeing happy faces makes you feel like you’re working less. Smiling (or looking at a photo of your friends, family, or even complete strangers smiling) subliminally evokes feelings of ease that bleed into your perception of how hard you’re working on other tasks, like pedaling a bike or studying for a final exam. As a result, your endurance markedly improves.
- Caffeine actually shuts down receptors in the brain that detect adenosine, a neurotransmitter associated with mental fatigue. If your brain can’t detect fatigue, then you don’t feel tired. That’s why that 3 PM cup of coffee kicks you back into gear!
- When you dive underwater, your “mammalian dive reflex” kicks in—your heart rate slows, and oxygen-rich blood concentrates in your core. All it takes to trigger these changes is dunking your face in cool water; in fact, the sensors appear to be primarily around the nose, lending credence to the idea that splashing cold water on your face really can calm you down.
- Human bodies are like machines in one crucial way: for every 100 calories of food you eat, you typically get 25 calories of useful work and 75 calories of heat. As wasteful as that sounds, it’s surprisingly similar to the efficiency of a typical internal combustion engine.
References - Endure by Alex Hutchinson (2018) & The Next Big Idea Club