You can’t perform at your best when your body thinks it’s under threat. That’s just neuroscience. Performance lives at the opposite end of the nervous system from survival mode.
I grew up as a ski athlete. Later, I studied sport science, so I knew the go-go-go mentality by heart. No pain, no gain. Push harder. Rest is for the weak. And for a long time, I believed it. I lived it.
Until my body said no.
Years of overriding signals left me with injuries, constant colds, chronic fatigue. I thought, “Why can’t I perform like others do?”
I didn’t realize it then. My nervous system was shot. I was stuck in fight-or-flight. Not lazy. Not weak. Just stuck in survival.
My wake-up call came during an ultimate frisbee tournament in 2016, when I had a mid-level muscle fiber tear. I didn’t even notice the damage until later. I’d played through it, I didn’t feel pain, just fog. Like my body wasn’t mine anymore. I’ll never regain full capacity in this muscle. That injury made me change.
We think performance comes from pushing harder. But when your nervous system is in survival mode, all it knows is how to protect — not how to create, decide, lead, or recover. That’s when burnout creeps in. Or injuries. Or both.
True performance requires presence. And presence starts with regulation. With knowing how to connect to your nervous system and how to assess it. With feeling safe enough to access flow that leads to performance.
You don’t need to push through. You need to tune in, regulate, and recover — so your full capacity can actually show up.
Imagine what your work could look like with a calm, regulated body behind it. Let’s retrain your system.
– Michi