Dealing with Performance Anxiety

Performance anxiety has the potential to affect job or school performance and can ruin a career.  Performance anxiety can physically freeze your body to the point where you feel as if you can’t move, or perform. 

The overwhelming panic may come on suddenly or gradually.  There are several degrees of performance anxiety but it narrows down to the same point, no matter what you are doing you can’t go on.

Performance anxiety may be brought on by stress.  Stress is unavoidable in life and it is important to find ways to prevent or decrease stressful events and to decrease negative reactions to stress. 

Time management skills will help to reduce stress and increase your performance and productivity and also allow you to spend more time with your family and friends.  To improve your time management skills, focus, concentrate, delegate and schedule time for yourself. 

Keep a record of how you spend your time, including work, family and leisure time.  Use a day-planner, break large projects into smaller ones, and set short term deadlines to help with procrastination. 

Manage your commitments by not over committing to future events.  Don't commit to anything that isn't important to you.  Prioritize your time by rating tasks that are important and/or urgent, and redirect your time to the those things.

Symptoms of Performance Anxiety

Some of the symptoms of anxiety disorder is:

-          Unrealistic or excessive worry

-          Dry mouth

-          Lump in the throat

-          Jitteriness

-          Sweating

-          Rapid heart beat

-          Fatigue

-          Trembling of the body

-          Sleep disturbances

-          Being easily startled

-           

In the workplace, these symptoms can cause difficulty with co-workers and clients.  Being preoccupied with anxiety may make it difficult to concentrate on assigned job duties.  Worries can get in the way of everyday life, like fear of getting into elevators, flying, public speaking, forgetfulness or failure.

Build healthy coping strategies by recording stressful events, your reaction and how you coped in a daily journal.  You can work to change unhealthy coping strategies into healthy ones.  This allows you to focus on the positive and what you can change or control.  

Lifestyle and some behavior choices affect your stress level.  They can interfere with the body's way of coping with stress, so make an effort to make the right choices.

Ways to Deal with Performance Anxiety

Try to balance family and personal needs against work and obligations.  This helps you with having a sense of purpose in life.  A positive mental state helps quite a bit with overcoming performance anxiety, because it increases self esteem.

Also remember to strive for physical health.  Get enough sleep, since your body recovers from the stress of the day while you sleep.  Eat a balanced diet for good nutritional defense against stress.  Exercise daily, do deep breathing exercises, and practice meditation.  Limit alcohol, caffeine and stop smoking.

Talk with family members or friends and see your family physician to rule out any physical problems, such as thyroid problems, anxiety, or depression.  Your physician can give you the best medical advice and refer you to a professional for counseling and medication if necessary.

You may experience anxiety, fear, depression, rage, guilt, insecurity, and a sense of powerlessness or worthlessness when an event triggers negative thoughts.  These emotions trigger a threat response, but seeing a counselor and dealing with negative thoughts and how you see things can drastically reduce stress.   

If you have any questions about performance anxiety, talk to your doctor first to explore the many ways that you can treat this anxiety disorder.  Try home treatments first before trying prescription medication.  Learning to deal with your performance anxiety may take a while, but in the end you will be much happier.