Medicine and Peak Performance

The following is curated content I hope you will find helpful in your journey to performing your best at home and work. Please leave comments for more suggestions, and I will update the page.

Lessons in the Peak Performance Series

  1. What is Peak Performance?
  2. Defining Flow and peak performance
  3. Growth versus fixed mindset – in all your life
  4. Becoming a burnout-proof medic
  5. Sleep 101
  6. The ultimate calendar
  7. Saying No
  8. Active recovery
  9. Positive psychology basics
  10. Building your team (and relationships)
  11. Peak Performance Fuel
  12. Feedback loops
  13. Body versus the mind
  14. Mindfulness and Gratitude
  15. Strengths and Invisible skills
  16. Motivation and goals
  17. Unlocking pristine clarity
  18. Eliminating the unnecessary
  19. Increasing productivity through leverage
  20. Rush avoidance
  21. Time myths
  22. Optimisation through simplification
  23. Controlling your autonomic nervous system
  24. Antifragility and traumatic growth
  25. The flow cycle
  26. Flow triggers
  27. Building grit
  28. Eliminating distraction
  29. Overwhelm Assassination
  30. The 1-day work month
  31. VUCA – how to survive in chaos
  32. End procrastination
  33. Gamifying work and life
  34. Wake up and flow
  35. Preventing self-sabotage
  36. The Dark Side of Flow
Courses
Work in progress…
  • The course that started it all was from the Flow Research Collective Z2D; it is currently on pause as the company is focusing on research.
  • Created by Steven Kotler and Rian Doris, the men behind everything I know in this series and the modern-day polymaths on flow science.
  • Please contact me in the comments section with your email, and I will collate a list of interested participants while I find a course worth attending. Honestly, Z2D is the best course on flow science I have been on, and worth every dollar. There are many others out there that are not. Hopefully it’ll be reborn like the phoenix soon.
Books
Podcasts/Lectures
  • Andrew Huberman – explores the neuroscience of sleep, optimising learning, motivation to name a few.
  • Finding Mastery – Dr Michael Gervais – is a high performance psychologist working with the NHL, Fortune 50 CEOs and Olympic medalists, learn from the best.
  • Flow radio – the Flow Research Collective podcast
  • Stimulus – who doesn’t know and love Rob Orman? Previously an EMRAP presenter, now offering his soothing tones and poignant questions for our benefit. He also offers personal coaching sessions.
  • The Mind Full Medic Podcast – Dr Cheryl Martin explores health, wellbeing, optimal performance and professional fulfilment
  • The Tim Ferriss Show – a self-experimenter and bestselling author, best known for The 4-Hour Workweek. Weekly interviews with peak performers.
  • Robert Sapolsky lecture series (Stanford) – Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky gives an amazing course entitled Human Behavioural Biology.
Apps
  • Brain.fm: scientifically proven music to improve concentration
  • Headspace: With one mission, to improve the health and happiness of the world
  • 5 minute Journal: Make your daily gratitude practice habit
  • Smiling Mind: a not-for-profit web and app-based meditation program developed by psychologists and educators to help bring mindfulness into your life.
  • Waking Up: Sam Harris holds a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and is a Five-time New York Bestseller. He guides us through his journey of meditation, moral philosophy and rationality so we can gain a better understanding of ourselves. It’s a costly app but well worth diving into at least once; I usually switch between a yearly subscription of headspace and waking up.
  • Way of Life: Start gamifying the habits you want to form in your life.
  • Wim Hoff Method: Have you heard of the ICE MAN? – check this guy out and start your daily practice of cold showers.
Websites
  • WRaP EM is a group of ordinary but passionate clinicians and medical educators who want to promote the concepts of Wellness, Resilience and Performance, from being considered “the soft stuff” to becoming a core part of Emergency Medicine practice.
  • ACEM Wellness Week: One of ACEM’s strategic priorities is to develop, support and implement wellbeing initiatives that contribute to the wellbeing of doctors and other health professionals delivering emergency medical care.
LITFL posts
  • SMILE2: Better Healthcare Mind improvement in healthcare
  • LITFL mindfulness series with A/Prof Andrew Dean MBBS FACEM. New and innovative teaching methods for emergency medicine education; mindfulness meditation, and the nurturing of emotionally intelligent clinical teams in health care.