Hasta La Gadget!

This tip for improving your performance is the most simple and straightforward method I’ve provided thus far. For many people, this tip has the potential to have a bigger impact than any other single action. The catch? You have to cut down on caffeine, and as any caffeine drinker can attest, this is easier said than done.

For those who aren’t aware, the ability to manage your emotions and remain calm under pressure has a direct link to your performance. TalentSmart has conducted research with more than a million people, and we’ve found that 90 percent of top performers are high in emotional intelligence. These individuals are skilled at managing their emotions (even in times of high stress) in order to remain calm and in control.

The Good: Isn’t Really Good

Most people start drinking caffeine because it makes them feel more alert and improves their mood. Many studies suggest that caffeine actually improves cognitive task performance (memory, attention span, etc.) in the short-term. Unfortunately, these studies fail to consider the participants’ caffeine habits. New research from Johns Hopkins Medical School shows that performance increases due to caffeine intake are the result of caffeine drinkers experiencing a short-term reversal of caffeine withdrawal. By controlling for caffeine use in study participants, John Hopkins researchers found that caffeine-related performance improvement is nonexistent without caffeine withdrawal. In essence, coming off caffeine reduces your cognitive performance and has a negative impact on your mood. The only way to get back to normal is to drink caffeine, and when you do drink it, you feel like it’s taking you to new heights. In reality, the caffeine is just taking your performance back to normal for a short period.

The Bad: Adrenaline

Drinking caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline. Adrenaline is the source of the “fight or flight” response, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyper-aroused state, your emotions overrun your behavior.

Irritability and anxiety are the most commonly seen emotional effects of caffeine, but caffeine enables all of your emotions to take charge.

The negative effects of a caffeine-generated adrenaline surge are not just behavioral. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that large doses of caffeine raise blood pressure, stimulate the heart, and produce rapid shallow breathing, which readers of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 know deprives the brain of the oxygen needed to keep your thinking calm and rational.

The Ugly: Sleep

When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams), so that you wake up alert and clear-headed. Your self-control, focus, memory, and information processing speed are all reduced when you don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. Your brain is very fickle when it comes to sleep. For you to wake up feeling rested, your brain needs to move through an elaborate series of cycles. You can help this process along and improve the quality of your sleep by reducing your caffeine intake.

Here’s why you’ll want to: caffeine has a six-hour half-life, which means it takes a full twenty-four hours to work its way out of your system. Have a cup of joe at eight a.m., and you’ll still have 25 percent of the caffeine in your body at eight p.m. Anything you drink after noon will still be at 50 percent strength at bedtime. Any caffeine in your bloodstream—with the negative effects increasing with the dose—makes it harder to fall asleep.

When you do finally fall asleep, the worst is yet to come. Caffeine disrupts the quality of your sleep by reducing rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the deep sleep when your body recuperates and processes emotions. When caffeine disrupts your sleep, you wake up the next day with an emotional handicap. You’re naturally going to be inclined to grab a cup of coffee or an energy drink to try to make yourself feel better. The caffeine produces surges of adrenaline, which further your emotional handicap. Caffeine and lack of sleep leave you feeling tired in the afternoon, so you drink more caffeine, which leaves even more of it in your bloodstream at bedtime. Caffeine very quickly creates a vicious cycle.

Withdrawal

Like any stimulant, caffeine is physiologically and psychologically addictive. If you do choose to lower your caffeine intake, you should do so slowly under the guidance of a qualified medical professional. The researchers at Johns Hopkins found that caffeine withdrawal causes headache, fatigue, sleepiness, and difficulty concentrating. Some people report feeling flu-like symptoms, depression, and anxiety after reducing intake by as little as one cup a day. Slowly tapering your caffeine dosage each day can greatly reduce these withdrawal symptoms.

Want to learn more? Consider TalentSmart’s emotional intelligence certification program.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Offering a mea culpa mere hours after her feud with Taylor Swift seemed to reach a fever pitch, Katy Perry has said “it’s time” to move on. Another one in the casket.

During an interview on HuffPost namesake Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global Podcast, Perry said she is ready to put an end to her three years of bad blood with Swift:

I’m ready to let it go. Absolutely, 100 percent. I forgive her, and I’m sorry for anything I ever did, and I hope the same from her, and I think it’s actually ― I think it’s time.

There are bigger fish to fry, and there are bigger problems in the world. I love her and I want the best for her, and I think she’s a fantastic songwriter, and like, I think that if we both, her and I, can be representatives of strong women that come together despite their differences, I think the whole world is going to go, like, ‘Yeah, we can do this.’

Maybe I don’t agree with everything she does, and maybe she doesn’t agree with everything I do, but like, I just ― I really, truly, want to come together, and in a place of love and forgiveness, and understanding and compassion.

Perry then belted out a line from “Frozen” anthem “Let It Go” before adding, “There’s a lot of other things out there in the world that people need to be focused on. God bless her on her journey. God bless her. Honestly. I want to operate in a positive, kind space. I want to be an example of kindness, compassion, love, and I forgive and forget. That wasn’t easy for me.”

HuffPost reached out to Swift’s representatives for comment, but we did not receive an immediate response. Swift has been relatively quiet during this round of the pop singers’ public disputes, aside from releasing her catalog on Spotify, Tidal and other streaming services on Friday, the same day that Perry’s new album debuted. In the past, Swift had declined to join such platforms because of their chintzy compensation for artists’ work. 

In case you need a refresher, this whole fracas dates back to 2014, when Swift said she had co-written the song “Bad Blood” about a onetime friend who “did something so horrible” and “tried to sabotage an entire arena tour.” That “horrible” thing involved Swift’s dancers leaving the singer’s roadshow to join Perry’s, per their contract agreements. 

After that, Swift and Perry’s flap escalated, with each taking shots at the other in both subtle and direct ways. Two weeks before her new album’s arrival, Perry amplified the situation again during a Carpool Karaoke appearance on “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” saying, “Honestly, it’s really like she started it, and it’s time for her to finish it. It’s about backing dancers. There were three backing dancers. I tried to talk to her about it and she wouldn’t speak to me.”

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

It’s hard to talk about EA’s multiplayer Star Wars shooter without accidentally stumbling over your words and mentioning the company’s other large-scale war series: Battlefield. It’s only natural. Long before Disney gave Electronic Arts the exclusive…

You think you’re safe from malware since you never click suspicious-looking links, then somebody finds a way to infect your PC anyway. Security researchers have discovered that cybercriminals have recently started using a malware downloader that inst…

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants to bring President Donald Trump’s show to Capitol Hill, he said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.

During a news conference Friday, Trump offered to testify under oath about his account of his encounters with then-FBI Director James Comey, who told the Senate intelligence committee Thursday that the president pressured him to back off an investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russia and other foreign powers.

“We have the former director of the FBI under oath saying one thing, President Trump saying another. There is a cloud over the presidency, the president said, and that’s rightly so,” Schumer said.

“I’d like to invite the president to testify before the Senate,” Schumer said, in consultation with Robert Mueller, the special counsel the Justice Department selected to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The probe includes looking into whether Trump or anyone connected to his presidential campaign or administration colluded with Russia or sought to obstruct law enforcement inquiries into the matter.

“We could work out a way it could be dignified, public, with questions,” Schumer said.

Schumer also said Trump could clarify much that is in dispute between Comey’s and his versions of what transpired between the two men by disclosing whether there are recordings of their meetings, as he insinuated on Twitter in May.

At his press conference, Trump declined to confirm or deny the existence of such tapes, telling reporters he would answer the question in the “very near future.” He added that reporters could be “very disappointed when you hear the answer.”

Schumer said that “if there are tapes ― [Trump] alluded to the fact that there are tapes, maybe as a threat or taunting Comey ― he should make them public right away. If there aren’t tapes he should let that be known. No more game playing.”

Earlier on the same program, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Trump shouldn’t appear before the Senate.

“I think it’s inappropriate for the president to testify publicly,” Graham said. 

“Mr. President, let’s not make a circus out of your presidency. If you want to come to the Judiciary Committee and testify under oath, we’ll put Comey by you. It’d be the highest rated TV show in the history of the world, but it’s not good for our democracy,” he said.

Politics hurt too much? Sign up for HuffPost Hill, a humorous evening roundup featuring scoops
from HuffPost’s reporting team and juicy miscellanea from around the web.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.