Stress Less, Accomplish More
Meditation for Extraordinary Performance
Book Edition Details
Summary
Stressed and overworked? Stress Less, Accomplish More (2019) by Emily Fletcher, founder of Ziva Meditation, offers a powerful trifecta of Mindfulness, Meditation, and Manifesting. Learn her 15-minute twice-daily Z Technique to improve focus, productivity, health, and sleep—a practical meditation system for busy, high-achieving lives.
Introduction
In our relentless pursuit of success, we've been conditioned to believe that stress is the fuel of achievement. We wear our exhaustion like a badge of honor, convinced that constant pressure is the price of excellence. Yet what if this fundamental assumption is not only wrong but actually sabotaging our potential? What if the very thing we believe drives our performance is the barrier standing between us and our greatest accomplishments? The revolutionary approach revealed in these pages challenges everything we think we know about productivity and peak performance. Through ancient wisdom backed by cutting-edge neuroscience, you'll discover how dedicating just thirty minutes of your day to a specific practice can transform not only how you work, but how effectively you live. This isn't about slowing down or scaling back your ambitions. This is about unlocking a level of mental clarity, physical energy, and creative insight that makes extraordinary achievement feel effortless.
The Science of Meditation for Performance
Meditation isn't mystical mumbo jumbo reserved for monks and spiritual seekers. It's a scientifically proven technology for optimizing human performance. The research is overwhelming: meditation increases gray and white matter in the brain, enlarges the corpus callosum that connects your analytical left brain with your creative right brain, and literally rewires your neural pathways for enhanced cognitive function. When these two hemispheres communicate effectively, you gain access to what researchers call "flow state" - that zone of peak performance where time seems to slow down and your capabilities feel limitless. Consider the transformation of Lindsey Clayton, a celebrity trainer whose career was skyrocketing but whose health was plummeting. Working eighty-hour weeks with no days off, she found herself burned out, unmotivated, and dealing with a four-month-old knee injury that wouldn't heal. Her skin looked dull, her hair lifeless, and exhaustion was written across her face. Despite her initial resistance, she finally attended an introductory meditation session. Within weeks of establishing a consistent practice, something remarkable happened. Her knee injury healed completely, her frustration evaporated, and she began working smarter instead of just harder. She cut back her crazy hours while actually accomplishing more. The transformation was visible - her skin regained its radiance, her energy doubled, and she rediscovered her passion for her work. Most importantly, she gained the clarity and focus to create the life she truly wanted to live. The key is understanding that meditation provides rest that's two to five times deeper than sleep while keeping your mind alert and aware. During this unique state, your body can focus entirely on healing and restoration rather than standing guard against imaginary threats. Start with just fifteen minutes twice daily, treating it like charging your phone - not as doing nothing, but as powering up your most important tool. Choose a comfortable seated position with your back supported, close your eyes, and allow your mind to settle naturally without forcing it to be quiet. Remember that thoughts during meditation aren't failures - they're indicators that stress is leaving your system. The goal isn't to stop thinking any more than it would be to stop your heart from beating. Instead, approach your practice with curiosity rather than judgment, knowing that every session is contributing to your enhanced performance capacity.
Master the Z Technique Daily Practice
The Z Technique combines three powerful elements: Mindfulness, Meditation, and Manifesting. Think of mindfulness as dealing with stress in the present moment, meditation as clearing stress from the past, and manifesting as consciously creating your future. This isn't three separate practices but one integrated system designed for people with busy minds and demanding lives. Unlike traditional meditation approaches designed for monks, this technique is built for high achievers who want maximum results with minimum time investment. Emily Fletcher discovered this transformative practice during her Broadway career when she was struggling with severe insomnia, premature graying, and constant illness. Despite living her childhood dream of performing in A Chorus Line, she was miserable and her performance was suffering. A fellow actress who seemed to radiate calm confidence shared her secret: meditation. After initial skepticism, Emily finally attended an introductory session. That very first night, she slept soundly for the first time in eighteen months. The transformation didn't stop there. Over the following months, Emily's gray hair returned to its natural color, she stopped getting sick repeatedly, and most importantly, she began genuinely enjoying her performances again. Instead of seeking desperate validation from audiences, she performed from a place of calm confidence. Her enhanced state allowed her to be consistently prepared and present, elevating her professional capabilities beyond what stress-driven effort had ever achieved. Begin each session with one to two minutes of mindfulness, bringing your awareness to all five senses simultaneously. Notice sounds from obvious to subtle, physical sensations from prominent to barely perceptible, what you can see with closed eyes, any tastes present, and the full spectrum of scents around you. This grounds you completely in the present moment. Then transition to fourteen minutes using the word "one" as your mental anchor, allowing it to arise naturally like a whisper in the background of your mind without forcing or concentrating. Finally, spend two minutes manifesting, first expressing gratitude, then visualizing one specific goal as if it's happening right now. Schedule your sessions like crucial appointments because they are. Set your morning practice before coffee or breakfast, when your mind is naturally more receptive. Your afternoon session should fall between noon and early evening, ideally before you hit that energy wall. Consistency matters more than perfection, so commit to showing up twice daily regardless of how busy or scattered you feel.
Transform Stress into Peak Performance
Stress isn't just uncomfortable - it's making you literally less intelligent. When your nervous system operates in chronic fight-or-flight mode, your body diverts energy from higher cognitive functions to prepare for imaginary tiger attacks. Your digestion shuts down, your immune system goes offline, and your creative problem-solving abilities get hijacked by survival mechanisms designed for physical threats that rarely exist in modern life. The result is that you're operating far below your actual capability while burning through your adaptation energy at an unsustainable rate. Dr. Mark Hyman, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, experienced this transformation firsthand. Initially skeptical about meditation's benefits for someone already achieving at a high level, he agreed to learn the technique while attending a conference. Within two months of consistent practice, he felt happier, calmer, and significantly less anxious. His energy levels soared, and he discovered he could recover from poor sleep simply through his meditation sessions. Most remarkably, Dr. Hyman found that his few minutes of daily practice yielded at least three extra hours of focused, quality work. The enhanced mental clarity and sustained attention allowed him to accomplish more in less time, while the reduced stress improved his relationships and overall life satisfaction. He went from feeling too busy to meditate to recognizing he couldn't afford not to meditate. The secret lies in de-exciting your nervous system rather than stimulating it further. Unlike exercise or caffeine, which ramp up your metabolic rate, meditation allows your body to access a state of deep rest while your mind remains alert. This unique combination enables your system to release accumulated stress while building resilience for future challenges. Start viewing your practice as preventive maintenance rather than luxury self-care. Track your adaptation energy like a precious resource. When you're running on empty, even minor inconveniences can trigger disproportionate reactions. Meditation refills this reservoir daily, giving you the bandwidth to respond thoughtfully rather than react automatically. This shift from reaction to response often determines the difference between professional setbacks and breakthrough moments.
Build Your Unstoppable Success Foundation
True success isn't about grinding harder or pushing through exhaustion - it's about operating from a foundation of inner fulfillment that allows you to perform at your peak consistently. When you access your own source of contentment and energy internally, you stop looking to external achievements to complete you. This paradoxically makes you more effective at achieving those very goals because you're no longer operating from desperation or neediness, which are never attractive qualities in any context. Consider the dramatic business transformation of Mari Carmen, an entrepreneur who found herself $70,000 in debt despite burning through $200,000 in savings over two years. Her confidence was crumbling and she felt scattered and needy - qualities that were repelling potential clients and opportunities. Despite her skepticism about meditation's business applications, she committed to the practice during this crisis period. Within one year of consistent twice-daily sessions, Mari Carmen experienced a complete reversal. Her mental clarity allowed her to make faster decisions and see solutions to challenges more quickly. Her energy levels doubled, and her work quality improved dramatically due to reduced mental clutter. Most significantly, her business revenue jumped from $80,000 to $1.2 million in a single year as she began attracting ideal clients who recognized her newfound confidence and capabilities. The foundation of this success wasn't positive thinking or visualization alone, but the deep rest that allowed her nervous system to function optimally. When stress isn't constantly hijacking your mental resources, you can access levels of creativity, intuition, and strategic thinking that seemed impossible before. Build your practice like constructing a house - the foundation must be solid before you can create the life you want on top of it. Commit to your twice-daily practice as non-negotiably as brushing your teeth. Set alarms as reminders until the habit becomes automatic, and protect these times from interruption. When family, colleagues, or circumstances try to encroach on your meditation time, remember that taking care of yourself isn't selfish - it's the most generous thing you can do for everyone around you, because they get the best version of you as a result.
Summary
The path to extraordinary achievement doesn't require more hours, more caffeine, or more stress. It requires the wisdom to understand that peak performance emerges from a calm, clear, and energized state of being rather than from chronic overwhelm and exhaustion. As the ancient wisdom teaches: "The mind thinks involuntarily, just like the heart beats involuntarily" - the goal isn't to stop this natural process but to work skillfully with it. When you give your body the deep rest it needs and your mind the clarity it craves, you unlock capabilities that seemed impossible when operating from stress and depletion. The most successful people aren't those who can handle the most stress, but those who have learned to accomplish more while experiencing less internal friction and resistance. Your next level of success is waiting on the other side of this simple but profound shift in how you care for your most valuable asset - your consciousness itself.
By Emily Fletcher
