It comes crashing through the bushes. You recognize the silhouette and the terrifying rumble from the gigantic throat! The abyss opens up in front of you! A couple of gnarled branches: a ledge underneath you; it’s too late. The beast is already lowering its skull and the massive body is closing in on you: you jump! –
Two hands clinging on to creaking branches; you pull yourself up onto the turf with your last ounce of strength, - while the roaring below dies away after you hear something land with a thud.
Reflex! The marvel of a perfect unity of power and motion, which hits what we can’t hit, which manages what we can’t manage; which saves our life when our
mind fails us and all is dark in front of our eyes. Thousands of years ago this was the highest of all aims!
Today soft music wafts through the soft foam, which seeps into our ear muscles and whilst the aroma of a café latte drifts up into our nostrils, the abyss of
tomorrow’s exam opens up before us. I know that everything depends on it; it is my very last chance. I feel smaller and smaller, can’t hold my thoughts together; my cheek muscles are working; my hand grasps the chair arm, my toes expand and it goes dark in my head.
Thousands of years ago this was all fine, as only then could the reflexes work perfectly and undisturbed. But neither my expanded toes nor my clenched fist can help me through the exam tomorrow… Where the hell is the light switch? Who’s turned it off in my head?
It is this very mechanism, which helped our ancestors to survive, that is causing our downfall today.
Stress pulls the entire cerebral cortex out of the socket and if it lasts long enough even the cells can die out!
Hence:
Step 1: build up your self-confidence and belief in your own capabilities, so that the light switch in your brain stays on and you don’t suddenly find yourself in the dark.
Step 2: learn.
Whoever believes you can only learn through pressure and then self-confidence follows as a consequence, may well have been right in the Stone Age…
Two hands clinging on to creaking branches; you pull yourself up onto the turf with your last ounce of strength, - while the roaring below dies away after you hear something land with a thud.
Reflex! The marvel of a perfect unity of power and motion, which hits what we can’t hit, which manages what we can’t manage; which saves our life when our
mind fails us and all is dark in front of our eyes. Thousands of years ago this was the highest of all aims!
Today soft music wafts through the soft foam, which seeps into our ear muscles and whilst the aroma of a café latte drifts up into our nostrils, the abyss of
tomorrow’s exam opens up before us. I know that everything depends on it; it is my very last chance. I feel smaller and smaller, can’t hold my thoughts together; my cheek muscles are working; my hand grasps the chair arm, my toes expand and it goes dark in my head.
Thousands of years ago this was all fine, as only then could the reflexes work perfectly and undisturbed. But neither my expanded toes nor my clenched fist can help me through the exam tomorrow… Where the hell is the light switch? Who’s turned it off in my head?
It is this very mechanism, which helped our ancestors to survive, that is causing our downfall today.
Stress pulls the entire cerebral cortex out of the socket and if it lasts long enough even the cells can die out!
Hence:
Step 1: build up your self-confidence and belief in your own capabilities, so that the light switch in your brain stays on and you don’t suddenly find yourself in the dark.
Step 2: learn.
Whoever believes you can only learn through pressure and then self-confidence follows as a consequence, may well have been right in the Stone Age…
