Prevent Choking when your Performance Counts.

Ever choked?

It might have been going blank during an interview, an important exam, at a board meeting or an athletic event. 

Choking is performance way below your ability.

Why does this happen and how can we prevent it?

All choking stems from worry. Negative worry.

Whether you have an important test, an athletic event, a business meeting or presentation - all chocking comes from worrying about the negative consequences of a failure.  Which, oddly enough, creates performance well below our ability - hence a choke!

Studies have shown that although choking can happen in many different types of performance, how we prevent it in sports competition is different than in a test, a meeting, an interview or a presentation.

What happens when we choke?

Our negative thoughts and worries flood the area of our brain that also controls short term memory - our prefrontal cortex.  When our prefrontal cortex is flooded with thoughts of worry, our ability to access our short term memory to take a test, answer a question, or  give a presentation are all compromised.  This is when the choking happens.

Similarly, in an athletic competition, the same negative worries flood our prefrontal cortex but we don't use that part of our brain in physical movement.  What happens is that our intense focus on each step in our event (shooting a basketball, golf swing etc) all become disjointed and slower due to the focus which creates the poor performance.

So - what do we do to prevent choking?

1.  Duplicating the pressure of the situation - timed test, presentation, athletic event helps us to get used to the pressure so that on the big day, we don't choke.

2.  For Test taking, presentations and interviews - writing down our worries for 10 minutes gets them out of our heads lowering the chance of choking.

3.  Meditation - controlling what your mind is focusing on is a great long term solution.

4. For sports - some of the best techniques have to do with distraction.  Sing a song or think of something like a single word mantra that supports a great performance. 

Here is to great performances!