Wednesday 22 January 2014

Performance Anxiety? Get Excited!!

Struggling with performance anxiety?  The key to beating it may be in how your interpret and appraise your anxious thoughts prior to your performance!!


Brooks (2013) conducted a series of studies looking at performance anxiety across different settings including giving a speech, singing karaoke and completing a maths test.
The studies found that individuals who "reappraised" their anxiety into thoughts of excitement, performed better than people who told themselves to remain calm.  

Trying to deal with pre-performance anxiety?  Try re-framing your feelings of anxiety into thoughts of excitement!  Try some positive self talk with simple phrases like "lets get excited!" or "I can't wait to do this!!"  This is more effective than attempting to calm down.  

Also - remember, we have an optimum level of anxiety that helps us to perform better! A little bit of nerves may actually help you!!  (Just don't tell yourself to calm down!!)

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