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Getting excited can help you with performance anxiety- 25-Dec-2013
Nervous before giving a speech? Don't try to calm yourself down! People who tell themselves to get excited rather than trying to relax can improve their performance during anxiety-inducing activities such as public speaking and math tests, according to a new Harvard study.
"Anxiety is incredibly pervasive. People have a very strong intuition that trying to calm down is the best way to cope with their anxiety, but that can be very difficult and ineffective," said study author Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School.
"When people feel anxious and try to calm down, they are thinking about all the things that could go badly. When they are excited, they are thinking about how things could go well," Brooks said.
Several experiments conducted at Harvard University with college students and members of the local community showed that simple statements about excitement could improve performance during activities that triggered anxiety.
In one experiment, 140 participants (63 men and 77 women) were told to prepare a persuasive public speech on why they would be good work partners.
To increase anxiety, a researcher videotaped the speeches and said they would be judged by a committee. Before delivering the speech, participants were instructed to say "I am excited" or "I am calm."
The subjects who said they were excited gave longer speeches and were more persuasive, competent and relaxed than those who said they were calm.
In another experiment, 188 participants (80 men and 108 women), were given difficult math problems after they read "try to get excited" or "try to remain calm." A control group didn't read any statement.
Participants in the excited group scored 8 per cent higher on average than the calm group and the control group, and they reported feeling more confident about their math skills after the test.
In a trial involving karaoke, 113 participants (54 men and 59 women) were randomly assigned to say that they were anxious, excited, calm, angry or sad before singing a popular rock song on a video game console.
A control group didn't make any statement. All of the participants monitored their heart rates using a pulse meter strapped onto a finger to measure their anxiety.
Participants who said they were excited scored an average of 80 per cent on the song based on their pitch, rhythm and volume as measured by the video game's rating system.
Those who said they were calm, angry or sad scored an average of 69 per cent, compared to 53 per cent for those who said they were anxious.
Participants who said they were excited also reported feeling more excited and confident in their singing ability.
The study was published by the American Psychological Association's Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
