Why Excitement Beats Calm Under Pressure

Ryan Halloran

So I, I, I was looking at this survey data, Maya, and it is like, ninety, ninety-one percent of people, when they get that pre-speech panic, the racing heart, the sweaty hands, they tell themselves, just calm down. Just take a deep breath and calm down. And, and the thing is, it is a total biological trap.

Dr. Maya Chen

Oh, it absolutely is. I mean, we we tell ourselves to calm down as if we can just, like, flip a switch, right? But physically, when your body is dumping adrenaline and cortisol into your system, your heart rate is, say, ninety-five beats per minute, trying to force yourself to calm, to get down to a low-arousal state, is like slamming your car into reverse while you are going sixty miles an hour down the highway. It is a biological fight you are going to lose.

Ryan Halloran

Right, because you are trying to fight the energy itself. But there is this concept, arousal congruency, which basically says you do not have to fight the energy. You just have to change the label on it. Because physically, anxiety and excitement are, they are like identical twins.

Dr. Maya Chen

Yes. Yes, exactly. They are physiological twins. Both of them have that elevated heart rate, the high energy, the, you know, the butterflies. The only difference is the cognitive valence, the story you tell yourself. Anxiety is a threat mindset, like, oh no, what if I fail? Excitement is an opportunity mindset, like, what could go right here? It is so much easier for the brain to pivot the label from threat to opportunity than to extinguish the physical fire altogether.

Ryan Halloran

And there is this hilarious study by Dr. Alison Wood Brooks in two thousand fourteen where she actually tested this with, of all things, karaoke. She made people sing, uh, Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, in front of a stranger. I mean, talk about high anxiety.

Dr. Maya Chen

Oh, that is a nightmare scenario. I would, I would honestly rather give a keynote to a thousand people than sing Journey in front of a stranger.

Ryan Halloran

Right? It is brutal. But she had them say one of three things out loud before they started. Either, I am anxious, I am calm, or, I am excited. And when they ran their voices through this automated analysis software to measure pitch and accuracy, the I am anxious group scored fifty-three percent. The I am calm group, they did better, sixty-nine percent.

Dr. Maya Chen

Okay, sixty-nine percent. But what about the excited group?

Ryan Halloran

They averaged eighty percent. Eighty percent pitch accuracy just from changing three words before they started. That is a massive jump.

Dr. Maya Chen

It is incredible. And it shows that just changing that cognitive label, saying I am excited, it actually frees up your motor performance. So, Ryan, how do we actually, you know, use this? Because when your chest tightens up, your instinct is still to gasp for air and try to force a calm state.

Ryan Halloran

Yeah, and, and I had to do this myself recently. I was backstage at this corporate gig, about to go on for a keynote. My chest was tight, and my watch buzzed to tell me my heart rate was at one hundred and ten beats per minute. Just standing there. And instead of doing the whole, okay, breathe, calm down, relax, which, let's be honest, never works, I literally looked in the mirror and said, I am excited. This is game-day readiness. That energy is not fear, it is fuel. And the second I stepped out, the delivery felt totally different.

Dr. Maya Chen

See, that is the pivot. You are not denying the physical sensation. You are just saying, my body is getting ready to do something big. But, okay, we do need to put on our researcher hats for a second. Because as a psychologist, I have to look at the broader data. There was a big meta-analysis published in Scientific Reports in twenty-four, twenty twenty-four, that looked at forty-four effect sizes on this exact thing, stress arousal reappraisal.

Ryan Halloran

Oh, interesting. What did they find? Is it actually a silver bullet?

Dr. Maya Chen

Well, no. And we should be honest about that. The results revealed an overall small significant improvement in task performance. The overall effect size was d equals zero point two three. And when they adjusted for publication bias, that actually dropped to zero point one four. So, it is real, it is significant, but it is not magic. And specifically, they found it works way better for public-facing performance tasks, like your keynote or a pitch, than it does for solo, analytical tasks, like, say, a math exam.

Ryan Halloran

Huh. So if you are sitting alone doing calculus, telling yourself you are excited might not help as much as when you are standing in front of a crowd.

Dr. Maya Chen

Exactly. Because the performance anxiety in public has that social threat element that responds really well to reframing. And, and we should also talk about the boundary conditions here. This is for acute, short-term performance pressure. If you are dealing with chronic stress, clinical generalized anxiety, or deep burnout, your nervous system is depleted. Saying I am excited when you are actually exhausted is just gaslighting yourself. That requires rest and boundaries, not a re-label.

Ryan Halloran

That is a really important distinction. Do not use a performance hack to cover up systemic exhaustion. But for those short-term spikes, instead of trying to force calm, just ride the wave and call it excitement. I think that is a wrap for today. Good chatting with you, Maya.

Dr. Maya Chen

Yeah, great chatting, Ryan. Talk soon.