It is quite common to experience performance anxiety before an important task or experience. This can manifest as a pounding heart, rapid breath, sweatiness, and racing thoughts. However, according to a recent article in the Scientific American Mind, new studies at Harvard University have found that by interpreting these sensations as excitement instead of anxiety, people actually performed better on difficult tasks.
In these experiments, participants were told to either try to calm down or get excited before the assigned stressful situation, which included singing in front of strangers, speaking in public, and solving difficult mathematic problems. Individuals who viewed their anxious arousal as excitement not only reported feeling more excited, but also performed better (sometimes by as much as 30%) than the other participants on all of the tasks.
Most people try to calm down in the face of performance anxiety, but it appears that this approach can actually weaken your performance. Instead, research suggests that you should try to focus on something you can get excited about—such as the feeling of accomplishment following a presentation or knowing how to solve problems on a test. That excitement may actually increase the likelihood of a positive outcome and improve mood before and during the task.