It’s estimated that 30 to 50 million people around the world will watch today’s Super Bowl game.  Whether your team is playing or not, or whether you even know which teams are playing, we all know it’s the best versus the best in a climactic winner-take-all showdown.  It’s one of the things about sports that most people love to debate and provides the irresistible drama:  Who is best in the clutch and who is likely to choke?  Which team will rise to the occasion and which will fall flat?  It’s so easy to judge and criticize from the sidelines, but I think we all have that moment while watching a player when we ask ourselves “how would I do under that kind of pressure?”  It got me thinking about performance anxiety, and while I will never be expected to throw a touchdown pass with time running out (thank goodness), we all have our own moments in which we have to put our fear aside in order to come through in a challenging moment.

Nearly any situation can trigger performance anxiety, including taking a test in school, giving a presentation to your coworkers, or even parallel parking while people are watching.  Performance anxiety involves performing more poorly than expected given your skill level in the heat of the moment.  Remember those times you studied all night and then your mind went blank the day of the exam?  Or when you complete a tennis serve perfectly most every time in practice but double fault in the match?  In fact, the more you are invested in how you will do in a situation, the more prone you are to having your own worry derail you.  It’s your own fear that disrupts your flow and causes you to hesitate, tense up, or even freeze up all together.  Our thoughts interfere with the way our brain’s have practiced and results in an unexpected outcome.

Normally during a highly practiced performance, brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is important for decision making and attention, is suppressed.  This allows the brain circuits responsible for routine and intuitive responding to engage without interruption.   But when we become anxious about how we’ll do, the prefrontal cortex activates and actually causes disruptions that lead to errors, especially in activities that require quick reactions and a flow of engagement, like making music or throwing a free throw.  In other words, as soon as we begin to think about the possibility of failure, our bodies tense and our mind goes into a different mode of operating, literally, our brain gets in the way of our practiced flow.  Emotionally, we move from approaching success to a state of avoiding failure.  Thinking about a potential mistake causes a change in your brain processing that is disruptive and actually makes it more likely that you will make a mistake.

Even if we’re not in the NFL, we can all benefit from what sport’s psychologists teach competitive athletes. Learning to manage your anxiety is a key to performing well in whatever challenges you. The first step is to embrace and befriend your nerves.  When we feel anxious we have the opportunity to interpret the anxiety in different ways. Top athletes can remind themselves that the tension they feel is the thrill of competition and focus their stress into heightened awareness and focus.  When they make a mistake, they put it behind them and move on to the next play with an anticipation of success. For us mere mortals, we can remind ourselves that the sweaty palms we experience prior to our presentation is a sign we are excited and ready.  It’s important to catch ourselves from predicting or anticipating failure.  Imagining and allowing our minds to play out the possible paths to potential problems will only take our focus in that direction and away from our practiced flow.  Dwelling on a mistake will only increase the chance of making another mistake.

Researchers show that distracting ourselves away from details of our performance can help us stave off the interference of our prefrontal cortex.  For example, rather than imagining someone asking us a question we can’t answer, we can look at the wallpaper in the room or what dessert we’ll choose to celebrate our good performance.  It’s also really helpful to practice under similar conditions as the stress we’ll feel on the day of our performance.  If we’re worried about performing in front of an audience, give our speech in front of some friends.  If we’re going to be videotaped, practice being videotaped.  Learning to normalize the stress of the situation to desensitize ourself is quite beneficial.  The more success we have in coping with the stress, the less our avoidance mindset will be triggered to derail us.

So when you watch the game today, remember what it takes for any of the players to have reached this moment and celebrate their effort.  Imagine both the physical and mental toughness they have already demonstrated to compete to be a champion.  And as one who grew up with a family that yelled at the tv when our team dropped a ball or missed a tackle, while safely eating our chips on the couch, I remember the wise words of my Grandmother Rose.  “Darling,” she would say, “don’t be upset.  They’re doing the best that they can.”