Stress and Recovery

This also comes from The Art of Learning.

Josh talks about how he had to train his entire body to handle the stress of a chess match. One must learn how to quickly and efficiently recover from stress in order to remain focused on the next event. He would get a drink of water during an opponent's move or even go to the hallway and sprint up and down it. As he matured, he began doing interval training (fast then slow repetitions) to train his body to recover. He talked with Jim Harbaugh (Colts Quarterback) and other athletes. The best QBs completely relax when they are off the field. No matter how stressful the game is, they must remain relaxed in order to perform the best when its their time. Recovering, rather than stressing, during a period of waiting is an invaluable skill.

"Not only do we have to be good at waiting, we have to love it. Because waiting is not waiting, it is life" (p. 187).

This quote focuses on living in the moment. Even action movies have many more scenes without excitement than they do with it. Life is not a constant and never-ending series of events. Trying to focus on each upcoming and past event causes one to ignore and not take advantage of the period of waiting. If you ignore the waiting, you often miss the moment when it finally comes.