HOPE: A Performance Enhancing Drug

Psychological and scientific studies in the 1900’s were pretty crazy. I mean borderline torturous and cruel, multiple studies were conducted at prestigious Universities worldwide in the name of progress and discovery. One of these studies, however cruel it may have been, gave us a scientific gauge on the idea of Hope. 

In the 1950’s, a study at Harvard conducted by Dr. Curt Richter placed rats in a container of water in order to test how long they could tread water. They found that on average a rat could stay above water for 15 minutes before it would give up and start to sink to the bottom. Which is honestly kind of a long time for those little legs to be kicking. 

The researchers would pull them out, let them catch their breath for a few minutes and then stick them back in the water for a second round (see… kind of cruel). But you won’t believe what happened next. The rats on average were able to tread water for an average of 60 hours having just swam until failure less than 10 minutes prior. Yeah… 2 ½ days straight of treading water which seems like an unimaginable task.

The researchers concluded that because the rats believed that they would eventually be saved, like they were the first time, they were able to push their bodies far past their previous paradigm. Their change in mental state was able to give them a superhero type physical effort that is hard to fathom.

I tell you all of this to emphasize the importance of belief in yourself and your abilities. Often times we are simply limited by the environment we have created for ourself and if you are able to harness the idea that you are much more capable then you believe yourself to be in this moment then BOOM… paradigm shift.

We are all capable of much more than what we tell ourselves. Let hope drive you to become better and evolve.