Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal about Getting It Right When You Have to [Hardcover]

This is a very well researched and written look at the Neurological Basis of performance.

I had one very frustrating issue with it though. Nowhere in the promotional material for this book is there any indication that it will be about scientific research that disproves the biological explanation for the differences between Men and Women in the Math and Science fields. Yet, for some reason, a full quarter, verging on a third of text is devoted to this topic.

It's a strange experience to read this. The author establishes a thread about the neurological basis of choking, and then goes on a nearly 100 page tangent. While this is certainly an interesting, significant, and necessary topic, it doesn't fit in well with the rest of the book.

It seems as if it would have worked better on its own.

Other than this issue, the book is a great read.

I found this book to be both intellectually impressive and thoroughly enjoyable. The topic is one that should matter to everyone: how we perform -- or sometimes fail to perform -- under pressure. Whether your interest is in improving your golf game, understanding why your very bright and talented kid just bombed the SATs, or how to do a presentation at work, this book provides tremendous insight into the science of how people perform under pressure. Most important, the author uses that scientific insight as a basis for designing practical ways to improve your performance in pressured situations. The author has a gift: the ability to present scientific explanations of how our brains function under stress in a style that is comprehensible to a lay person. (I have not taken a science class since junior year of high school, so that I particularly appreciate her style.) The tone is just right. The author finds a way to explain and simplify without condescending in any way. Best of all, the author offers a great reward to those who read her book: with the understanding of how people function under stress comes a very practical guide to ways we can use that understanding to improve our performance levels in the vast, diverse realm of activities that are the stuff of everyday life. This book represents a practical application psychology at its very best, more powerful and more useful than any "sef-help" book you will ever read.

Ever feel betrayed by your brain?

It's the day of the big test, and even though you've aced every practice test, you can't even get through the first few problems on the actual test. Or, you've mastered your speech, and could practically recite it in your sleep, and then on the day of your performance, you freeze. Or, you've been flawlessly making every putt on the greens during practice, but when the pressure's on during the game, you can't putt to save your life.

We're all too familiar with the ways the brain can choke. Fortunately, Sian's book _Choke_ provides us with insight into why our brains can get derailed, and also offers techniques for getting things back on track. In essence, there are two ways the brain can choke. The first happens when worries and anxieties interfere with the brain's horsepower needed for complex-thinking and reasoning tasks. The second happens when we over-focus too much on a performance, disrupting the natural flow of what normally happens outside of our conscious awareness. _Choke_ addressees both types of brain bonks, and shows what we can do about each.

The book is packed with plenty of food for thought to help nourish the brain and prevent choking. To whet your cognitive appetite, here's just a sample:

The curse of expertise:
*As we get better at performing a skill, our conscious memory for how we do it gets worse and worse. (p. 16)

Training success:
*Practice can actually change the physical wiring of the brain to support exceptional performance. (p. 43)
*Athletes' tendency to overthink their performance is one big predictor of whether they will choke in important games or matches. (p. 60)

Less can be more--Why flexing your prefrontal cortex is not always beneficial:
*Adults are better at acquiring a new language--that is, adults look more like kids with underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes--when they are distracted and not concentrating too hard on what they are learning. (p. 77)
*Having a golfer count backwards by threes, or even having a golfer sing a song to himself, uses up working-memory that might otherwise fuel overthinking or a flubbed performance. (p. 78)

Brain differences between the sexes--A self-fulfilling prophecy?:
*Just being stereotyped negatively is enough to drive down performance. (p. 103)
*Stereotype threat is most dramatic for those girls who are the most skilled and most interested in excelling at what they are being tested on. (p. 103)

Bombing the test--Why we choke under pressure in the classroom:
*Practicing under the types of pressures you will face on the big testing day is one of the best ways to prevent choking. (p. 147)

The choking cure:
*Writing about your worries before a test or presentation prevents choking. (p. 159)
*Putting your feelings into words changes how the brain deals with stressful information. (p. 161)

Choking under pressure--From the green to the stage:
*Heightened attention to detail can actually mess you up. (p. 190)
*Paralysis by analysis occurs when you attend too much to activities that normally operate outside of conscious awareness. (p. 192)

Fixing the cracks in sport and other fields--Anti-choking techniques:
*Training in stressful situations minimizes the possibility of the choke as you gradually become accustomed to the pressure. (p. 213)
*Focusing on what to do (a strategy focus) rather than how to do it (a technique focus) can help prevent cracking under stress. (p. 222)

So, whether you want a test score that reflects your true abilities, you want to be able to speak eloquently (or at least flub-lessly) in front of an audience, you want to be able to make that putt when it really counts, or you just want to figure out how to get your brain on your side, getting your hands on a copy of _Choke_ should be a no-brainer.