5 Great Ways to Neutralize Performance Anxiety
Did you know that stars like Adele and Beyoncé struggle sometimes with performance anxiety? Adele has spoken openly about the stage fright she endures before she performs in front of packed stadium audiences on tour.
Even the most talented or accomplished people will find themselves in a high-pressure situation and underperform because of performance anxiety. This is true in every area of performance, from stepping to the line to take a free throw, to completing an important surgery, to taking a high stakes test.
To learn how to overcome performance anxiety, it’s first important to understand what it is. Most of us have experienced what it feels like to lose a train of thought or walk into a room and forget what it is you’re supposed to be doing. But performance anxiety is more complex than just freezing up.
Psychologist Sian Beilock says that performance anxiety is “a pressure that compromises procedural and explicit memory.” Procedural memory is the retaining of the mechanics of an action. Explicit memory is recalling specific details and information needed for a task or question.
Performance anxiety in the office or classroom isn’t any different than performance anxiety experienced by an athlete or famous singer. The setting may be different, but the loss of memory, potential to choke, or failure to implement calming techniques you’ve spent hours and hours practicing are all results of the same mechanism. So what do we do about it? How do we overcome those feelings?
Here are a few ideas and strategies proven to help with performance anxiety:
1. Focus on the outcome, not the mechanics.
Oftentimes, we get so in our heads about what we’re trying to accomplish in the present that we completely lose sight of the overall goal. Especially in high-stakes scenarios, focusing too much on the minutiae of what you’ve practiced can result in making careless mistakes. Remaining relaxed in your thinking will help you clearly recall how to implement everything you’ve practiced leading up to the big day.
2. Write down your worries and concerns.
In a study at Michigan State conducted with university students, psychology researcher Hans S. Schroder determined that “expressive writing about one’s worries reduced the size of the negative brain wave signal in people who worried a lot.” Schroder’s experiment found that “offloading” your worries into free form writing makes your brain less reactive and frees up mental resources that you can then use to complete tasks more successfully.
Taking some time to write down what is making you feel anxious is a great starting point to overcoming performance anxiety. Removing some of the mental stress makes space for you to focus on the task at hand.
3. Focus your attention away from your anxiety.
Mindful activities that focus on the breath, like meditation, can help train the mind to not focus on distractions and to remain calm. Frank Diaz, a professor of music education at Indiana University, found in a recent study that students who practiced meditation on a regular basis were significantly less prone to music performance anxiety. This is a coping mechanism that takes practice and patience, so don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t “work” the first time.
If grounding techniques aren’t your thing, you can try focusing your attention away from the task at hand through distraction. Psychologists say that intentional activities, such as mental or physical exercise, can help you shift your focus away from anxious thoughts or feelings, allowing you to redirect your attention to something else. This reduces the intensity of anxiety symptoms and improves your ability to perform under pressure. Essentially, it helps to “take your mind off” the stressful situation by engaging in a different activity. Try listening to your favorite song, picking up a book, or going on a walk!
4. Reinterpret your anxiety as excitement.
If you’re someone who finds it nearly impossible to distract yourself from nervous thoughts, try putting a positive spin on your feelings. Psychology student Mollie Trainor, who is currently working towards her masters degree at the University of Edinburgh, recently discussed the phenomenon in a viral TikTok. Trainor says that “if you have pre-performance anxiety for something coming up, you can trick yourself into thinking you’re excited rather than nervous by just saying out loud to yourself: ‘I am excited.’
Trainor explains that the reason the two feelings are so easily interchanged is because excitement and nervousness are “high-arousal states.” Alison Wood Brooks, a professor at Harvard Business School who has also studied the phenomenon backs Trainor up claiming, “the heart beats faster, cortisol surges, and the body prepares for action, with the only difference being excitement is a positive emotion.” This theory, also known as anxious reappraisal, has proven successful in using adrenaline for good!
5. Make your practice as real as possible.
As you prepare for any sort of performance, simulate the real environment as much as possible. When it comes down to it, practice is the best way to acclimate yourself to the pressure of a high-stakes performance. Taking that practice to the next level by simulating the real environment as closely as possible is going to help you do even better. As you acclimate more and more to the pressures surrounding your performance, the better you’ll perform when it really counts. If you’re feeling nervous about an upcoming admissions test, we recommend making use of some of our practice resources. Our website includes a variety of prep materials to help you combat performance anxiety, so you can feel confident and ready on test day.
Originally published on March 11, 2019. Updated on February 19, 2025.
