Stress & Performance: Yerkes-Dodson's law 2

In the last byte, we looked at the diagrammatic presentation of Yerkes-Dodson Law. In today’s byte, we attempt to understand why this behaves the way it behaves.

If we look at the structure of the curve (as indicated in the last byte), we realize that the performance dips after the optimum point. Could there be a reason for this? One approach o understanding this has been suggested by Joseph McGrath. He says the performance dips beyond the midpoint in the curve because of the increasing difficulty of the task to be performed. This is also attributes the peak performance of athletes in competition or other events.

It has also been researched that specific stressful activities, including aerobic exercises, weight training, and flexibility raining help improve health and enhance the individual's ability to manage stressful demands and situations.

It should be noted that stress response is not inherently bad or destructive. It is the confusion of the world distress with stress that creates the confusion. It is time we understand distress a bit better, over the next few bytes we shall attempt it.