Performance Anxiety and the Athlete’s Brain: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us

The moments before a competition can feel overwhelming: rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, racing thoughts, and the fear of letting others down. These are classic signs of performance anxiety, and they happen to athletes at every level. Even Olympic champions like Simone Biles, Michael Phelps, and Naomi Osaka have openly described their struggles with anxiety, reminding us that nerves are not a weakness but part of the performance experience. The exciting news is that neuroscience is helping us understand why anxiety happens in the brain and body, and how athletes can use this knowledge to perform better.

What the Brain Tells Us About Anxiety in Sport

When an athlete feels anxious, the brain’s amygdala (the alarm center) lights up, sending signals that trigger the fight-or-flight response: faster heart rate, shallow breathing, and tense muscles. While this is useful for survival, too much activation can interfere with focus and motor coordination. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps with planning, decision-making, and focus, can actually be “hijacked” by anxiety, making it harder to think clearly under pressure.

At the same time, the autonomic nervous system (ANS) is working in the background, influencing heart rate, breathing, and energy regulation. When athletes learn to calm the ANS through breathing and grounding techniques, they can restore balance and access their full skill set. Neuroscience shows us that managing anxiety isn’t about eliminating nerves, it’s about shifting the brain and body back into an optimal state for performance.

Neuroscience-Informed Strategies for Athletes

1. Reframe nerves as energy. Studies show that when athletes interpret arousal as excitement instead of fear, the brain re-engages the prefrontal cortex, improving focus and performance.

2. Train the breath to calm the nervous system. Slow, deep breathing activates the parasympathetic branch of the ANS, signaling safety to the brain and reducing over-activation of the amygdala. Techniques like box breathing (inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4) are especially powerful.

3. Visualization to “prime” neural circuits. Mental rehearsal activates many of the same brain regions (motor cortex, cerebellum) as physical practice. Athletes who visualize themselves staying calm and executing skills strengthen those neural pathways.

4. Acceptance and Commitment Technique (ACT): Defusion. From a neuroscience lens, thoughts of failure activate stress circuits, but practicing “cognitive defusion,” or noticing thoughts without attaching to them, helps athletes return focus to the task. An example is the “Leaves on a Stream” exercise, where athletes imagine placing anxious thoughts on leaves and watching them float away.

5. Cue words to re-engage focus. Short words or phrases like “steady,” “push,” or “breathe” activate language centers tied to movement and attention, helping athletes bypass unhelpful thought spirals.

6. Pre-performance routines. Routines reduce uncertainty, calming the amygdala and allowing the prefrontal cortex to stay engaged. They also signal to the brain: it’s time to perform.

Why This Matters

When athletes learn about their brain and body, they gain powerful tools to reframe anxiety. Instead of fighting nerves, they can understand them as natural signals that the brain is engaged and ready. Neuroscience shows us that anxiety doesn’t have to block performance, in fact, with the right strategies, athletes can transform stress into focus, resilience, and energy.

References

• Beilock, S. (2010). Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To. Free Press.

• Birrer, D., Röthlin, P., & Morgan, G. (2012). Mindfulness to enhance athletic performance: Theoretical considerations and possible impact mechanisms. Mindfulness, 3(3), 235–246.

• Jones, G. (1995). Research developments in competitive anxiety in sport. British Journal of Psychology, 86(4), 449–478.

• Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 1–26.

• Moran, A. (2016). The psychology of concentration in sport performers: A cognitive analysis. Routledge.