How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

Part III
) and communications (
Part
V
). And in 
Part VII
, we’ll see how to weave these rewards into an everyday
strategy for boosting your energy at work.

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Things to know about the discover-defend axis:
You’re constantly moving along a discover-defend axis in your daily
life, as your brain scans for threats to defend against and rewards to
seek out and discover.
In 
defensive mode
, you become less smart and flexible, as your brain
devotes some of its scarce mental energy to launching a fight-flight-
freeze response to a potential “threat”—leaving less energy to power
your brain’s deliberate system. Defensive mode can even be triggered
by small personal slights.
In 
discovery mode
, you’re motivating yourself with rewards: a social
sense of belonging or recognition; a personal sense of autonomy,
competence, or purpose; or informational rewards that come from
learning or experiencing new things.
To be at your most resourceful in handling workplace challenges, it
helps to become adept at recognizing when you’re sliding into
defensive mode. Refocusing attention on potential rewards in the
situation at hand can also help to reengage your deliberate system and
shift you back into discovery mode.
THEME 3: THE MIND-BODY LOOP
There’s one more theme that comes up frequently throughout this book: the
constant interplay between our bodies and our minds.
On one level, we know there’s a link between our mental and physical state.
I’ve already talked about the way that stress can set our heart pounding. We can
admit that it’s hard to think clearly in the seconds just after we’ve painfully
stubbed a toe. We’re all aware that being sleep-deprived makes it harder to be
patient and witty. And so on.
But in practice, we often behave as if there’s no link between our physical

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health and mental functioning—at least, not enough to seriously affect our
achievements at work. We catch ourselves saying “I don’t have time to take a
break right now” or “I’ll exercise once I’m through this busy patch,” acting as
though physical refueling were a luxury rather than a way to boost our
performance.
In reality, decades of research suggest that the way we treat our body has a
huge effect on the way our brain performs, thanks to the way it affects the
brain’s blood flow, the balance of its neurochemicals, and the degree of
connectivity between different brain regions. As a result, studies have found we
can reap immediate intellectual and emotional dividends from investing in
exercise and sleep, or even from taking a moment to breathe deeply, smile
broadly, and stand a little taller. In just about every section of the book, from