Quick Biohacks for prepping for a high-stress situation

As much as we hate it, stress is a part of life. It’s a powerful mechanism we evolved to prepare our body to run away from a predator (flight) or to hunt a prey to feed our families (fight). It shuts down activity in our prefrontal cortex (PFC) to focus mental energy on the immediate physical threat.

The challenge (or blessing) we face in the modern developed world is that it is rare that we need to actually physically fight or flee to resolve problems in our lives. We need to be able to think clearly so we can make the right decisions — yet this shift has happened too quickly for evolved response to change. Your body reacts the same whether the trigger is seeing bear in the woods or seeing a difficult question on a calculus exam. It has the same response to someone threatening physical violence and someone criticizing you in a meeting.

This creates a lot of problems — at the precise moment you need your PFC to help you make rational decisions about how to solve that integral or how to constructively respond to your boss, it’s got virtually zero blood supply.

So what’s a homo sapien to do? I’ve written at length about strategies to improve our equanimity in general, be it goal setting, finding meaning, meditation, gratitude, exercise, diet, and sleep, but this article isn’t about that, it’s about…