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The Bulletproof Musician

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

12 min • 27 november 2022

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

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