Stress can be a game-changer for you but only if you’re intelligent enough to channelise it better. A century-old psychological model called the Yerkes-Dodson Law tells you about the relationship between stress and task performance. It suggests that you reach your peak level of performance with an intermediate level of stress, or arousal. Too little or too much arousal results in poorer performance.
It is not a scientific law as much as it is a psychological concept. The theory has been around since 1908, when psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson performed experiments on mice. Let’s delve a little deeper into how the Yerkes-Dodson law relates to stress and anxiety.
The scientists formed their theory while performing experiments on mice. They were able to teach the mice to learn a task using mild electric shocks. They called it a “habit”. As the shocks got stronger, the mice took longer to learn the task. It was maybe because they were more focused on avoiding the shock than on completing the task.
The optimal amount of arousal depends on the task. A simpler task requires a higher amount of arousal, while a more challenging task requires a lower level of arousal. Having no stress at all isn’t necessarily a good thing in terms of performance.
For example, when your job is all about routine and nothing ever changes, boredom sets in. There’s no stress, but there’s also no motivation. You’re not being challenged and have no incentive to go above and beyond. Your work feels meaningless, so you do the bare minimum.
