Q: How can I overcome performance nerves and anxiety?
Part 1. Activate a Challenge Response
This will be a 2-part article! Here’s what you can expect in part 1:
Why you experience nervousness in sport
Challenge vs Threat response
Mental Drill #3. Power Phrases
Was I nervous as a figure skater? HA! You don't even know the half of it.
On competition day, my stomach was in knots. So much energy and adrenaline surged through me that my body would shake (not the most helpful when trying to move gracefully across the ice).
My coach knew I was nervous. She’d say things like, “Chill out! There’s nothing to be nervous about.”
Unfortunately, I never learned how to manage my symptoms and eventually lost my love for competing. I felt so much shame around my performance anxiety. I believed something was wrong with me.
What I’ve come to learn is every athlete has felt nervous before an event.
High-performers who cope well under pressure, despite the presence of nerves, have learned three important things:
1. Why they experience nervousness or anxiety in pressure situations.
2. How nervousness impacts them physically and mentally.
3. What strategies help them personally regulate performance anxiety and its symptoms.
Why do I get so nervous leading up to competition?
Our brain is constantly scanning our environment for potential threats. Three primal responses are woven into our nervous systems to keep us safe.
Fight. Flight. Freeze.
In a day when we don’t often have to worry about being chased by wild animals, threats can include things like being embarrassed in front of other people, having a coach or parent be extremely disappointed in you, or missing out on the championship win.
Once a threat has been identified, the alarm bells go off in our nervous system and start to manifest in a variety of symptoms.
Physically this can look like increased heart rate, sweating, shorter breath cycles, upset stomach, and tremors.
Cognitively you might notice overthinking, worry or catastrophizing, trouble focusing, and imagining failure.
When occurring in the sport context, we often label these symptoms as performance anxiety. As I help athletes navigate these experiences, I often share that nervousness can be an indicator that there is something meaningful to you on the line.
That said, the fight, flight, freeze response is a protective function of our brains that has its flaws. It frequently identifies situations as a threat when there is no real risk to physical safety. After all, a track meet or figure skating competition isn’t exactly a life or death situation!
So, why do some situations activate our threat response and others don’t?
Challenge response vs. Threat response
In any situation, we unconsciously answer these two simple questions:
What is required of me?
Can I do it? (Appraisal)
As our mind “sizes up” the demands that are in front of us, it takes into account the resources we may have to accomplish the task:
Preparation
Energy levels
Physical abilities
Mental skills
Social support
Belief / confidence
Like solving a math problem, your mind calculates your ability to accomplish the task. When resources are perceived as being insufficient, the brain amps up the experience of anxiety or threat response.
Let’s say you studied for a test that is really important for your final grade. Although you prepared, you find yourself saying over and over, “I’m going to fail. I’m not ready!” In this case, your mind is prompted to anticipate a negative outcome and perceives the situation as a threat. Next thing you know, your nerves are through the roof once the test paper hits your desk.
A threat response is activated when you interpret the demands you are up against as an opportunity to fail.
Meanwhile, a challenge response can be activated when a situation is perceived as an opportunity to succeed.
I like to think of this as operating on a continuum.
How you frame your situation will influence how overwhelming or manageable your nerves feel to you.
Activate a Challenge Response
You may have heard people talk about interpreting nervousness as excitement. One reason why it can be helpful to frame your experience of nerves as excitement is because it can flip the switch for some people from the threat response to the challenge response. Nervousness and excitement have similar body sensations—increased heart rate & higher levels of adrenaline—and can be viewed as something you can harness for higher levels of performance.
Personally, I think one of the easiest ways to activate a challenge response is by shifting your self-talk. This is because you can use self-talk to remind yourself of the reasons why you can accomplish the goal in front of you. Self-talk can also help you feel more confident and excited about the opportunities in front of you instead of harboring a sense of dread.
Mental Drill #3. Power Phrases
Self-talk should be purposeful, productive, and positive. You have the power to intentionally create phrases to help you get through challenging situations and cope with feelings of nervousness. Avoid phrases that start with “I have to”, “I should”, “Don’t mess up,” because these can feel more restrictive.
“I can do hard things. This setback can be my setup.”
“I am able to stick to my game plan and trust my preparation.”
“I am meant to be here. I’m excited to showcase my hard work.”
As a bonus, shorten your power phrase into a word that you can write somewhere on your sport equipment or something you wear to serve as a visual reminder.
Thanks for reading!
- Dr. Di