The Science of Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone (and Why You Need It)
The daily routine can be stable and calming, but over time it can become outdated and limited. All of these inspirational messages telling you to step out of your comfort zone are more than just trying to sell you elastic cords. Doing something new and potentially scary helps prevent burnout and is good for your brain. However, it is quite difficult to get out of the routine, and there is a wealth of scientific evidence to explain why and how to do it.
It’s important to push the boundaries of your comfort zone , and when you do, it’s kind of a big deal . But what is a “comfort zone”? Why are we used to getting used to the familiar and familiar, but when we get to know new and interesting things, the flicker disappears so quickly? Finally, how do we benefit from leaving our comfort zone, and how do we do it? Answering these questions is not an easy task, but it is not that difficult. Let’s start.
The Science of Your Comfort Zone and Why It’s So Hard to Get Out of It
Simply put, your comfort zone is a behavioral space in which your actions and behaviors follow a routine and pattern that minimizes stress and risk. This provides a state of mental safety. You get clear benefits: regular happiness, less anxiety, and less stress.
The idea of a comfort zone goes back to the classic psychological experiment. Back in 1908, psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson explained that a state of relative comfort creates a steady level of performance. However, in order to maximize performance, we need a state of relative anxiety – a space in which our stress levels are low. slightly higher than usual. This space is called Optimal Anxiety and is outside our comfort zone. Too much anxiety and too stressful to be productive and our productivity plummeting.
The idea of optimal anxiety is not new. Anyone who has ever pushed themselves to level up or achieve anything knows that when you really challenge yourself, you can achieve amazing results. Several studies support this . However, too much pressure can actually backfire and reinforce the feeling that challenging yourself is a bad idea. It is our natural tendency to return to an anxiety-neutral and comfortable state. You can see why it is so difficult to get your brain out of your comfort zone.
However, your comfort zone is neither a good nor a bad thing. This is the natural state that most people tend to. Avoiding it means increased risk and anxiety, which can have both positive and negative results (which we’ll talk about shortly), but don’t demonize your comfort zone as holding back. We all need this free space, in which we are least worried and nervous, so that we can master the benefits that we get when we leave it.
What do you get when you break free and try something new?
Optimal anxiety is where your mental productivity and performance peaks. However, “increased productivity” and “increased productivity” sound like “do more.” What do you really get when you’re ready to step outside your comfort zone?
- You will become more productive . Comfort kills productivity because without the anxiety that comes with deadlines and expectations, we tend to make phone calls and do the bare minimum to survive. We lose our drive and ambition to do more and learn new things. We also fall into the “work trap” of pretending to be “busy” in order to stay in our comfort zone and avoid new activities. Pushing personal boundaries can help you succeed faster, get more done, and find smarter ways to work.
- It will be easier for you to deal with new and unexpected changes . In this article in The New York Times, Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston, explains that the worst thing we can do is pretend that fear and insecurity don’t exist. By taking risks in a controlled manner and challenging things that you would not normally do, you may experience some uncertainty in a controlled, controlled environment. Learning to live outside your comfort zone can prepare you for life changes that will force you to step out of it.
- It will be easier for you to expand your boundaries in the future . Once you start to step out of your comfort zone, it will get easier over time. The same New York Times article explains that when you step out of your comfort zone, you get used to this state of optimal anxiety. “Productive discomfort,” as they call it, becomes more normal for you, and you are ready to work harder before your productivity drops.
- It will be easier for you to brainstorm and use your creativity . It’s a mild advantage, but it’s a fairly common (and easily reproducible) fact that finding new experiences, learning new skills, and opening the door to new ideas inspire and teach us in a way that little else can. Trying new things can make us think about our old ideas and the contradictions with our new knowledge, and to inspire us to it, to find out more and to challenge prejudice confirmation , our tendency to seek only the information with which we have already agreed. Even in the short term, positively unpleasant experiences can help us brainstorm, see old problems in a new light, and solve the problems we face with renewed vigor.
The benefits you get after stepping out of your comfort zone may persist. It is the overall self-improvement you gain through the skills you acquire, the new products you try, the new country you visit, and the new job you are interviewing for. Broadening one’s horizons also provides mild psychological benefits.
How to get out of your comfort zone
Outside your comfort zone can be a good place if you don’t tip the scales too far. It is important to remember that there is a difference between the controlled anxiety that we are talking about and the real anxiety that many people struggle with every day. Everyone’s comfort zone is different, and what can broaden your horizons can paralyze someone else. Remember that optimal anxiety can reveal your best qualities, but too much is bad .
Here are some ways to break out (and indirectly expand) your comfort zone without going too far:
- Do your daily activities differently . Take a different route to work. Try a new restaurant without checking Yelp first. Go vegetarian for a week or a month. Try a new operating system . Recalibrate your reality . Whether you’re making a big change or a small change, change the way you do things day in and day out. Look for perspective from any change, even if it is negative. Don’t be put off if things don’t go as planned.
- Take your time to make decisions . Sometimes slowing down is all that makes you feel uncomfortable, especially if speed and quick thinking are valued in your work or personal life. Slow down, watch what is happening, take your time to interpret what you see, and then intervene. Sometimes, simply defending your right to make an informed decision can push you out of your comfort zone. Think, don’t just react.
- Trust yourself and make hasty decisions . We contradict ourselves, but for good reason. Just as there are people who are good at making hasty decisions, others find it more convenient to weigh all the options over and over again. Sometimes you need to make an urgent call , just to get things off the ground. It will help you get started on your personal projects and teach you to trust your judgment. It will also show you how fast and slow decisions can have consequences.
- Do it in small steps . Breaking out of your comfort zone takes a lot of courage. Whether you enter with both feet, you get the same benefits as if you start slowly, so don’t be afraid to start slowly. If you’re socially distressed, don’t feel like you have to work up the courage to ask your loved one out on a date right away, just say hello to them and see what you can do next. Identify your fears and then face them step by step .
There are many other ways to expand your personal boundaries. You can learn a new language or a new skill. There are many benefits to learning a new language , many of which extend to learning any new skill. Connect with people who inspire you, or volunteer for an organization that does a great job. Travel whether you are traveling around the block or around the world. If you’ve lived your entire life looking at the world from the doorway, you’re missing out. Visiting new and different places is perhaps one of the best ways to really broaden your horizons , and it doesn’t have to be expensive or difficult. The experiences you have may be dizzying or regrettable, but that doesn’t matter. The point is that you do this and force yourself to overcome mental blocks that tell you not to do anything.
Trying new things is hard. If it were not so, it would be easy to break out of the comfort zone, and we would do it all the time. Understanding how habits form and how we can break them is just as important as pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone by doing certain things.
Why is it so important to return to your comfort zone from time to time
You can’t live outside your comfort zone all the time. You need to come back from time to time to reflect on your experience. The last thing you want is for something new and interesting to quickly become mundane and boring. This phenomenon, called hedonic adaptation , is a natural tendency to be impressed by new things, but after a short time, the incredible becomes common. This is why we can have access to the greatest repository of human knowledge ever created (the Internet) at our fingertips (on our smartphones) and we still miss so much that all we think about is how quickly can we get new and faster access . On the one hand, it moves us forward, but on the other hand, it prevents us from appreciating the subtle and the everyday.
You can combat this by trying new, smaller things. Ordering something new at a restaurant where you get the same thing, every visit can be eye-opening, just as a visit to a new country pushes you out of your comfort space. Diversify your tasks so that you don’t push boundaries in one direction. If you’ve learned Latin-based languages and get bored, switch to a language with a completely different character set. If you start running, instead of just trying to run longer and further, try challenging yourself to run in different terrain. You are still challenged, but you broaden your horizons in a different way.
Take it slow and make pushing boundaries your own habit.
The point of getting out of your comfort zone is to embrace new experiences and achieve that state of optimal anxiety in a controlled, guided way, not to get nervous. Take time to reflect on your experiences so that you can take advantage of the benefits and apply them to your daily activities. Then do something else interesting and new. Make it a habit if you can. Try something new every week or every month.
Likewise, don’t limit yourself to big, huge experiences. Perhaps meditation pushes you out of your comfort zone as much as bungee jumping. Try the first if you’ve already done the second. The goal is not to become an adrenaline junkie – you just want to learn what you are truly capable of. This is another reason why it is important to sometimes return to comfort and just relax. Just remember to bring back as many of those inspirational, creative, productive, and slightly awkward moments as you can when you do it.
This story was originally published on March 7, 2013 and was updated on September 26, September 19 with new photos and more relevant links and information.