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6 Science-Backed Strategies to Avoid Choking Under Pressure
Failing spectacularly in a high-stakes situation is a near-universal experience. Fortunately, there’s plenty of research on how to keep a cool head.
Even now, 10 years later, I still remember the moment with excruciating clarity: During the fourth and final round of a high school regional speech competition, after a full day of flawless performances, I went up to the front of the auditorium for my last speech and froze.
In a way, my entire senior had been leading up to that point. For six months, I had painstakingly prepared and rehearsed that piece — a prose reading — in the hopes that I would qualify for the state finals. I had placed in the top three in my event at every competition that season; if I did the same at regionals, I had my ticket to the next round.
Needless to say, I blew it. Although I had fully committed the piece to memory at that point, I couldn’t, for the life of me, recall a single word. Like an amateur, I kept stuttering, stumbling, and looking down at my book. It was a brutal end to an otherwise stellar season.
As humiliating as the experience was, I took some small amount of comfort (and still do) in knowing that some version of this happens to everyone. Choking under pressure is a widely studied phenomenon, one that afflicts speakers, athletes, performers, test-takers — really, anyone who’s in a high-pressure situation.
The process is physical as much as it is mental. Anxiety causes the body to release adrenaline, which acts as a powerful stimulant, and endorphins, which act as a mild opiate. “When you’re anxious, you’re also basically a little high and a little stoned,” says Aimee Daramus, a licensed clinical psychologist based in Chicago. High-stakes situations can also cause neurological reactions like distraction, memory loss, and loss of motor function, all of which can impact performance.
Fortunately, for every reason people choke under pressure, there’s also a rigorously studied, scientific strategy for combatting it. Here are six of them.
