Don't Let School Or Work Performance Anxiety Hold You Back

By Matthew Ryan, MA, LPC, NCC

Ryan Counseling, PLLC

. https://www.ryancounseling.com/

More Mental Health Articles

Don't Let School Or Work Performance Anxiety Hold You Back

Now more than ever, American students are expected to perform at their highest level at all times. These expectations create a competitive environment in which some thrive while others get left behind. While competition is all well and good, constant failure stemming from high expectations inhibits perfectly capable students from achieving their full potential.

What are they to do? They are knowledgeable on the material they are being tested on but when it is time to perform, they freeze. Why is that?

Anxiety is primarily characterized by its physiological symptoms. The most common are perspiration, heart palpitations, flushing skin, and difficulty sitting still. While debilitating as these may seem, they pale in comparison to the cognitive symptoms of anxiety.

Racing thoughts make it difficult to focus and the inability to focus leads to making poor choices. Imagine a time when you were “stressed” or “nervous”, chances are you experienced these symptoms. It is normal to experience anxiety, however, anxiety becomes a problem when it inhibits us from moving forward in our lives.

Think of your brain as a computer. Within that computer you have billions of files from which you are able to retrieve very quickly. When we study for a test or prepare for a presentation, our brain encodes this information into memory and how well we encode this information affects the rate at which it is retrieved. We can memorize material and practice it over and over again but when anxiety becomes debilitating, it is almost as if we cannot and will not retrieve this information and consequently perform poorly.

Fortunately there are strategies when dealing with performance anxiety. Learning more about our anxiety, such as its triggers, how it is manifested, and the duration of its symptoms is the first step. Such information allows us to gain insight into why we are anxious and can help us avoid or cope with risky situations for anxiety attacks.

Sometimes a simple deep breath flooding your body with fresh oxygen to slow your heart rate helps maybe even a brief distraction to interrupt the racing thoughts will help. If these simple methods do not help then it is time for you to get help.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is one of the most widely used techniques used to treat anxiety disorders. Addressed irrational beliefs and cognitive distortions improve our ability to cope with anxiety symptoms allowing us to perform better in stressful situations. In fact, CBT is so effective that it may be preferred over pharmacological intervention and other theoretical orientations of talk therapy.

If you, or a loved one, suffer from pathological anxiety, research qualified healthcare providers in your area. Education on anxiety and enrollment in therapy at an early age helps equip individuals with the necessary tools and coping skills to reduce the frequency and intensity of their anxiety and allows them to perform at their highest level.