Why We Choke Under Pressure (and How to Avoid It)
We’ve all been there. This is an important point. The one we’ve been preparing for, visualized, obsessed with for days, weeks or longer. It’s a big interview, presentation, first date, or (in our younger days) a state championship game where we needed to gather all of our skills, practice, knowledge, or charm to operate under high pressure. We’ve worked long and hard for this day, and we’re ready. Let’s go to!
But instead of crushing it, you can barely breathe, you have a terrible dry mouth, and you feel like an emergency is brewing in the bathroom. With a pounding heart and a thin, stuttering voice, you panic, sniff, miss, forget entire paragraphs. In other words, you are suffocating.
As adults, we’ve all experienced performance anxiety. But besides just being “nervous,” what is going on inside the brain and body that causes us to mess up what we’re so good at doing?
The Science of What Happens When We Get Nervous
According to Sian Beilock, cognitive scientist, president of Barnard College and author of Breathlessness: What the Brain Secrets Reveal About Doing the Right Thing When You Need It , “Most explanations can be boiled down to the fact that under pressure, the prefrontal cortex (the most the front part of our brain, which is above our eyes) stops working the way it should.” Instead of doing complex thinking and logical tasks (which is a common job), most of the resources of the prefrontal cortex are spent on anxiety and control.
We not only run through our minds of possible failure scenarios, we also try to control the perpetual crap out of our actions to ensure success. So, as Beilock once wrote for Lifehacker , the details that usually go unnoticed (“in golf, for example, there is too much emphasis on how your elbow bends when you hit with the past”), we track and pay excessive attention to those thereby disrupting what would otherwise be smooth execution.
On the positive side, once we understand the body’s response to high-stakes situations, we can begin to trap some of the culprits that make us perform inefficiently. Here are a few strategies that Beilock recommends.
Reframe your interpretation of your nerves
To begin with, it is useful to remember that the body’s reaction to stressful, nervous situations (borrowing in the stomach, shallow breathing, palpitations) is the same physiological reaction as to excitement. And there is power in how we interpret information. “If you interpret this as a sign that you will fail,” Beilock told The Entrepreneur , “the chances are high that you will fail. But if you interpret it as a sign that you’re ready to go, that you’re excited, you can work better.” The next time you get on your nerves, instead of thinking of it as a problem, think of it as a normal, expected response; proof that you are excited and ready.
Practice under stress
In other words, train in game conditions. You can memorize that big client presentation word for word, but if you don’t practice it in front of people , you’re missing out on a great opportunity to protect yourself from pressure (so you’ll be less scared when the day of the real presentation comes). comes). “We know that if you can mimic what you’re about to experience, you do it much better,” Beilock says. “So propose to a group of friends, or if no one is looking at you, do it in a mirror—anything that will help you get used to being looked at.”
Write down your worries
“We know that journaling can be very beneficial for reducing stress and reducing the amount of stuff that pops into your head in the long run.” Baylock notes. Instead of keeping your worries inside and letting them fester, let them out. Loading them on paper can take away some of their power and help you realize that some of your fears about what might happen are highly unlikely.
Focus on the result
Similar to visualization, Beilock suggests focusing on the outcome of your efforts rather than the process or mechanics. In other words, imagine an end goal, like a handshake to seal a deal, or a soccer ball whistling into the corner of the net. This helps you “practice your skills” to work on autopilot instead of getting bogged down in a puddle of performance fear in your prefrontal cortex. Always think about what you want to happen and what you want to say, not about what you don’t want. (Because what we think we tend to create. Self-fulfilling prophecies are real.)
Give yourself a break before the event
We all give ourselves a chance to exhale or celebrate when we do something that makes us nervous. But it makes sense to give yourself this moment in advance. While this will be a challenge for procrastinators around the world, “just before an event is not the time to focus or cram,” Beilock says. Based on her research, “there’s actually an advantage to stepping back right before what you’re about to do.” So don’t feel guilty about taking a walk, listening to a podcast, or working out before the moment of truth. Science says you can work better for it.