* Most people experience stress via the workplace, which is odd. Stressing your employees should be a terrible thing for productivity. However, stress and pressure actually increase performance and motivation. Many people say they work better with a deadline, or do their best work under pressure. This isn’t just an idle boast: in 1908, psychologists Yerkes and Dodson discovered that stressful situations actually increase performance on a task.13 Consequences to avoid, fear of punishment, among other things, provide motivation and focus, improving someone’s ability to do the job.
But only up to a point. Beyond that, when stress is too much, performance declines, and the more stress, the more it declines. This is known as the Yerkes–Dodson law. Many employers seem to understand the Yerkes–Dodson law intuitively, except for the “too much stress makes things worse” part. It’s like salt: some can improve your food, but too much overwhelms everything, ruining texture, taste and health.
? To clarify, you can be addicted to things other than drugs. Shopping, video games, anything that can activate the reward pathway above normal levels. Gambling addiction is a particularly bad one. Obtaining lots of money for minimal effort is very rewarding, but it’s really hard to undo this addiction. Usually, it would involve long periods of no reward so the brain stops expecting it, but, with gambling, long periods of not winning is normal, as is losing money.21 Consequently, it’s hard to convince gambling addicts that gambling is bad, as they’re already fully aware of this.
? This isn’t remotely possible. I came up with this theory as a student when put on the spot. In those days, I was far more arrogant and would rather make ridiculous wild guesses than admit to not knowing something.
Afterword
So that’s the brain. Impressive, isn’t it? But, also, a bit stupid.
Acknowledgments
To my wife, Vanita, for supporting me in yet another ridiculous endeavour with only a bare minimum of eye-rolling.
To my children, Millen and Kavita, for giving me reason to want to try writing a book, and being too young to care if I succeed or not.
To my parents, without whom I wouldn’t be able to do this. Or anything at all, when you think about it.
To Simon, for being a good enough friend to remind me this might end up being rubbish whenever I got too carried away with myself.
To my agent, Chris of Greene and Heaton, for all his hard work, and particularly getting in touch in the first place and saying, “Have you ever thought about writing a book?,” because I hadn’t at that point.
To my editor, Laura, for all her efforts and patience, particularly for pointing out, “You’re a neuroscientist. You should write about the brain,” repeatedly until I realized this made sense.
To John, Lisa and all the others at Guardian Faber for turning my ramshackle efforts into something people seemed to actually want to read.
To James, Tash, Celine, Chris and several more Jameses at the Guardian, for allowing me the opportunity to contribute to your major publication, despite my certainty that this was due to a clerical error.
To all other friends and family who offered support, help and essential distraction while I wrote this book.
You. All of you. This is technically all your fault.