Why Telling Yourself to “Calm Down” Backstage May Be Counterproductive

Most people intuitively assume that the best way to address performance anxiety is to calm down, but research suggests that this may actually result in worse performances (?!).A 2013 paper describes three studies in different performance domains that give us a counterintuitive - and more effective - way to respond to performance anxiety. Why Telling Yourself to “Calm Down” Backstage May Be Counterproductive====* * *Have you ever wondered why it is exactly that things often sound better a...