How to Stay Calm Under Pressure

Your favorite athlete closes in for a successful win. The crowd holds its breath, and, at the vital time, she misses the shot. That competitor just experienced the phenomena known as "choking," where despite months, even years, of practice, a person fails right when it matters most. Choking is widespread in sports, where performance typically comes under high pressure and hinges on important moments. And yet, performance anxiety also stalks public speakers, contenders in spelling bees, and even world-famous artists. Most individuals intuitively blame it on their nerves, but why does being nervous affect expert performance?

There are two sets of theories, which both argue that primarily, choking under pressure boils down to focus. First, there are the distraction theories. These show that performance degrades when the mind is concerned with worries, doubts, or anxieties, instead of focusing its attention on accomplishing the task at hand. When relevant and irrelevant thoughts fight for the same attention, something has to give. The brain can only process so much information at once. Tasks that stress working memory, the mental “scratch pad” we use to temporarily retain phone numbers and grocery lists, are especially subject to pressure.

In a 2004 study, a group of university students were assigned to do math problems, some easy, others more complex and memory-intensive. Half the students solved both problem types with nothing at stake, while the remainder did them when calm and under pressure. While everyone scored well on the easy questions, those who were worried performed worse on the more difficult, memory-intensive tasks. Explicit monitoring ideas make up the second category of explanations for choking under pressure. They’re concerned with how pressure can encourage people to overanalyze the work at hand.

Here, the idea goes that once a talent becomes automatic, thinking about its specific mechanics interferes with your capacity to do it. Tasks we do unconsciously seem to be most subject to this kind of choking. A research on competitive golfers compared their performance when taught to merely focus on putting as correctly as possible, versus when they were primed to be acutely aware of the mechanics of their putting stroke. Golfers normally conduct this motion subconsciously, thus individuals who suddenly tuned in to the specific details of their own moves also became worse at producing accurate shots.

Choking may not be inevitable for everyone though. Research reveals that some are more sensitive than others, notably those who are self-conscious, apprehensive, and frightened of being assessed poorly by others. So, how can we prevent choking when it really counts?

First, it helps to train under difficult settings and decreases possible tension. In a study on expert dart players, researchers discovered that those who hadn’t practiced under stress performed worse when nervous, compared to those who had been acclimated to pressure.

Secondly, many performers praise the merits of a pre-performance routine, whether it’s taking a few deep breaths, repeating a cue phrase, or completing a rhythmic sequence of motions. Studies on golfing, bowling, and water polo reveal that short rituals can lead to more consistent and accurate performance under pressure.

And thirdly, researchers have shown that having an outward focus on the final goal works better than an internal focus, when someone is tuned into the mechanics of what they’re doing. A study of experienced golfers indicated that those who hit chip shots while focused on the flight of the ball did substantially better than those who focused on the motion of their arms. So, perhaps we can alter that age-old saying: practice, under pressure, with focus, and with that magnificent end goal in sight, makes perfect.