I trust everyone had a great and restful holiday season. During my break I read an interesting article entitled How Successful People Squash Stress by Travis Bradberry. As many of you know Bowlby’s attachment theory has moved in many directions since the 1970s and 80s. One of these directions is affect regulation. The chief animator here is Allan Schore, who, back in the 1990s, wrote the seminal book Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self. Schore puts forward the idea that successful affect regulation rests in large part upon a foundation built from safe and secure attachment relationships early in life. As I read Bradberry’s article I could not help but wonder to myself, “Heck, without mentioning it, Bradberry is talking about not only Bowlbian attachment theory but Schore’s extension into the area of affect regulation.” I should mention that Bradberry does cite work being done at UC Berkeley in the area of stress regulation. A lot of attachment research comes out of UC Berkeley. So, suffice it to say that Bradberry’s article does support many of the research results that have come from the area of affect regulation. Lets take a look.
Bradberry states: “The ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance.” If we bring Schore’s work into the equation, then one’s ability to manage emotions starts with early attachment relationships, especially the mother–child attachment relationship. So goes one’s early attachment relationships, so too his or her ability to manage emotions later in life. Bradberry points to research conducted by TalentSmart. TalentSmart reached out to over a million people through their research and found that “90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control” (quoting Bradberry). Bradberry is quick to point out that some intermittent stress is good. Intermittent and manageable stress motivates us to act and to perform. Consider this quote by Bradberry:
Intermittent stressful events actually increase your performance by keeping the brain more alert, and most top performers have well-honed coping strategies that they employ under stressful circumstances to lower their stress levels and ensure that the stress they experience is not prolonged.
Things go terribly wrong once stress is prolonged and chronic. “As soon as the stress continues beyond a few moments into a prolonged state, it suppresses the brain’s ability to develop new cells,” writes Bradberry. According to Schore’s work, affect regulation and brain development go hand-in-hand. In essence, the mother acts as an outside affect regulator for the infant not only to impart affect regulation strategies but to also encourage development of brain centers that are open, flexible, and adaptive. So, when Bradberry tells us that “top performers” in adult life “have well-honed coping strategies,” more than likely there was an early caregiver who was also a top performer, that is to say, who was able to appropriately regulate the emotional exchange that takes place within an attachment relationship.
All is not lost if you were not fortunate enough to have early safe and secure attachment relationships. Bradberry spends the second half of his article talking about behavioral strategies that an adult can use to develop affect regulation. In essence, and adult can “earn” secure attachment. I’ll briefly mention a few of these strategies to close out.
They say No — Being able to say no is part and parcel of Executive Functioning. The higher EF cognitive functions are concerned with such things as planning, appropriately focusing attention, appropriately shifting attention, time travel, reflection, and empathy. In order to regulate affect, we need these higher EF cognitive skills. As Bradberry puts it, “Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them.”
They Disconnect — As Nicholas Carr tells us in his book The Shallows, extensive connection to the digital world tends to erode our Executive Function skills. Where EF goes, so too affect regulation. So, it makes sense that top performers regulate their connection to worlds that could potentially erode their affect regulation skills. Carr told us during his RYOL Lecture here at the Foundation that many Silicon Valley CEOs send their kids to Montessori School so that they can learn in a disconnected environment.
They Limit Their Caffeine Intake — Here’s Bradberry’s take on caffeine intake:
Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight-or-flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email.
Again, from Bowlbian attachment theory and Schore’s affect regulation theory, the above applies to early attachment relationships. A caregiver should take care to not allow a child to go into dysregulated “fight-or-flight” responses. Not only do such states make it hard for the child to learn affect regulation strategies, but, as mentioned above, such states impede proper brain development and growth.
They Sleep — According to Bradberry’s research, “sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on its own, even without a stressor present.” The presence of stress hormones, such as cortisol, are what make it difficult for us to learn successful affect regulation. Stress hormones also impede proper brain development and growth. Sadly, insecurely attached children often have a very hard time getting to sleep and staying in a restful sleep state.
They Exercise — Bradberry states: “Getting your body moving for as little as 10 minutes releases GABA, a neurotransmitter that reduces stress by soothing you and helping you stay in control of your emotions.” Enough said here. I will point you to this article by Valerie Strauss entitled Why So Many Kids Can’t Sit Still in School Today. In essence Strauss points out this irony of child development: if you wish for kids to sit still and pay attention, you have to let them move about vigorously for long periods of time. Exercise and movement are key components of not only affect regulation but also Executive Function skills. Take away gym class, recess, and sports, and you’ll have a bunch of kids (and, increasingly, adults) who have a hard time regulating affect and engaging in EF skills such as appropriately focusing attention. In her article Strauss talks about how she witnessed a class of kids many of whom were using autistic or stereotypical behaviors to self-soothe. As Strauss writes: “I’ve never seen anything like it. Kids were tilting back their chairs back at extreme angles, others were rocking their bodies back and forth, a few were chewing on the ends of their pencils, and one child was hitting a water bottle against her forehead in a rhythmic pattern.”
They Practice Mindfulness — Bowlbian attachment theory has also moved in the direction of mindfulness. The chief animator here is Dan Siegel who in 1999 wrote the book The Developing Mind. The idea here is that the ability to engage in mindfulness as an adult—like our ability to regulate affect—rests in large part upon a foundation built from safe and secure attachment relationships early in life. I’ll end with this quote by Bradberry on mindfulness. Maybe TalentSmart should run a study to see how many of their top performers started out with safe and secure attachment relationships. As Bowlby put forth often in his work, early safe and secure relationships are key for success later in life.
Mindfulness is a simple, research-supported form of meditation that is an effective way to gain control of unruly thoughts and behaviors. People who practice mindfulness are more focused, even when they are not meditating. It is an excellent technique to help reduce stress because it allows you to reduce the feeling of being out of control. Essentially, mindfulness helps you stop jumping from one thought to the next, which gives you laser-sharp focus and keeps you from ruminating on negative thoughts. Buddhist monks appear calm and in control for a reason. Give it a try.
