Is Anxiety our Friend or Foe?
By Halley Weinberger
Your hands are sweaty. Your heart races, and you can hear your heartbeat in your ears. You stare at the basketball hoop in front of you and dribble the ball twice. Suddenly you find yourself struggling to breathe. You feel the eyes of the audience on you, and the pressure to perform weighs on your shoulders. Finally, you lift the ball above your shoulders, then launch it toward the hoop . . . and miss.
Whether playing basketball or taking an exam, we face high-pressure situations every day. In these situations, we recognize that how we perform is crucial in determining the outcome of the situation. We either win the game or we do not. We either get an A or we don’t. Knowing that something is on the line based on our performance often produces feelings of anxiety in us. We get sweaty palms and miss the shot. We get nervous about the thought of getting nervous. Ultimately, we feel like anxiety is the one thing standing between us and the outcome we want. We see anxiety as the enemy.
You might be surprised to know, however, that anxiety can actually be a good thing. In some situations, anxiety can help improve performance. This idea is based on the Yerkes-Dodson Law, which describes that performance is achieved through moderate levels of anxiety.
Moderate anxiety can contribute to increased attention and focus, helping achieve optimal performance on a given task. Increased attention and engagement are what help you concentrate on dribbling the ball around the defender instead of thinking about what you’re going to eat for dinner after the game. As Clark (2018) describes, you can “hack your anxiety” and use your increased attention and focus to outsmart the other team, and win the game.
But if this is true, why do people in high pressure situations miss the buzzer beater shot? And why do we blank on the answer to the short answer question we studied for the night before? While moderate anxiety can be beneficial, extreme anxiety can be debilitating. This is described in the Yerkes-Dodson Law as well, where high stimulation and levels of anxiety contribute to restlessness, the inability to focus, and straight up panic. Extreme anxiety hurts our performance.
Krumer (2022) also notes that people in high pressure situations tend to be hyper focused on the skills or actions they are carrying out, like shooting a basketball, in attempts to minimize anxiety. However, this kind of hyper focus has been shown to further hurt performance, as people actually overthink actions that are normally automatic to them. It goes without saying that overwhelming anxiety and overthinking are not helpful when trying to perform well, and they distract us from the task at hand.
For many people, extreme anxiety seems impossible to escape. You know that it’s possible to experience anxiety at a healthy level, but when you’re mid-exam or about to go for a lay-up, you feel debilitated and doomed by anxious thoughts. So how do we balance these feelings of extreme anxiety while still maintaining some level of focus and attention? Well, there are a few specific things that we can do to turn our anxiety from foe to friend.
Interpret anxiety as a positive feeling. The first step in finding the sweet spot of optimal performance is understanding that experiencing anxiety is not a bad thing. When your heartbeat increases or your hands start to sweat, it does not mean you are doomed to miss the free throw or fail the exam. Otten (2020) describes that anxiety can actually feel good if it is reframed as excitement and anticipation. Instead of mentally associating those sensations with stress, label those feelings as excitement. Challenge yourself to see your next exam as an opportunity, not a threat.
Don’t overthink the task at hand. Whether you’re running down the basketball court or trying to remember what the definition of psychology is, don’t waste energy focusing on the specific actions you are taking. Hyper focusing on putting one foot in front of the other is not helpful, as you are using effort to process movements you would normally process automatically. Instead of overthinking your actions, allow your mind to wander. Trust that you know how to perform the action. You have practiced circling exam answers, you have practiced hundreds of free throws. You are ready to perform the task at hand.
Reframe how you feel about anxiety. Oftentimes, when we think of anxiety, we already feel defeated. We know how it feels to lose the battle in our own mind. We’ve been overwhelmed too many times before. But just because you’ve lost the battle once doesn’t mean you’ll lose it every time. It’s not over yet. Simply believing that you can handle the stress and anxiety protects you against fearing anxiety itself. It can be easy to count ourselves out when we feel a hint of stress, but I challenge you to enter situations with confidence in your ability to handle anxiety.
Anxiety can be a friend or foe, but my hope is that next time, when you’re dribbling the ball down the court and your heart starts to beat and your hands start to sweat, you feel the excitement of anxiety energize you. You don’t feel that anxiety stands in the way of your success, and as you transition the ball from the floor to your hand, you don’t overthink how to shoot a basketball. As you lift the ball above your chest, you lock eyes with the net, launch the ball toward the hoop and . . . swish! You’re performing in your sweet spot.
References
Clark, A. H. (2018, December 18). 7 Ways to use anxiety to improve performance. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hack-your-anxiety/201812/7-ways-use-anxiety-improve-performance
Krumer, A. (2022, February 11). Why do top athletes choke under pressure? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/sports-and-psychology/202202/why-do-top-athletes-choke-under-pressure
Otten, M. P. (2020, October 2). Anxiety, performance, and life in 2020. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-be-clutch/202010/anxiety-performance-and-life-in-2020
Wampold, S. (2018). Yerkes-Dodson law [Digital Image]. Bouncyband. https://bouncyband.com/blogs/news/yerkes-dodson-the-science-behind-woboo-s-effectiveness
Watters, P. A., Martin, F., & Schreter, Z. (1999). Caffeine and cognitive performance: The nonlinear Yerkes-Dodson law. Human Psychopharmacology, 12(3), 249-257. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1077.