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BLACKOUT

Why We Choke under Pressure and the Secret Formula for Fending Off Stage Fright

THE YEAR IS 1998. On April 25th, Comdex, one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, is underway in Chicago. Bill Gates is about to premiere his new super operating system, Windows 98, to the world. His colleague, Chris Capossela, plugs a scanner into the PC to demonstrate just how flawlessly the device is able to recognize the new Windows system. But what happens next is not supposed to happen. Zap! The computer crashes. An enormous blue-screen error message is projected onto the screen behind the two men, an embarrassing error clearly visible to every single journalist who is present to cover the event. The hall erupts with laughter, and somewhere in California, Steve Jobs rubs his hands together in delight. Bill Gates pauses for a moment before quipping: “That must be why we’re not shipping Windows 98 yet.” In spite of everything, he still manages to crack a joke. No computer in the world would be able to improvise in the same way. After all, mistakes can happen to anyone. In this regard, a computer is only human. And without such innocent mistakes, the world would be much less colorful (or blue, in the case of the Windows error message). You might be interested to know that Chris Capossela was not fired over this incident but continues to work for Microsoft as chief marketing officer—where he now premieres the latest software all by himself. Because anyone who is able to survive a moment like that can surely handle tough times.

Take heart. A mental blackout at the worst possible moment can happen to even the best of us. You can practice and train as much as you’re able, but the truth is that under pressure, we all make the worst mistakes. It is an embarrassing truth for sure, but one that is also human. Adele blanks on the lyrics to her song in 2016 in Manchester. Christina Aguilera mixes up the second and fourth lines of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the 2011 Super Bowl. Italian player Roberto Baggio misses the all-or-nothing penalty kick at the 1994 soccer World Cup against Brazil. These are all examples of what can happen if one relies too much on one’s brain. Even a person who is a master in their field is not exempt from such intellectual blunders.

For those of us who are mere mortals, mistakes seem to happen precisely at the moment when we would most like to avoid them. The more pressure we feel, the harder it is to perform flawlessly. This happens not only up on stage in front of thousands of screaming fans, but also when we are taking exams, or being interviewed, or while making a presentation to our colleagues. Our brain turns to mush in the very moment when we need it to do its job well. The brain is reminding us, once again, of its very impractical neural characteristic—namely, that it is not an organ like the heart or liver that functions evenly and regularly and always at the same pace (though a case might be arguable for the latter). No. The brain’s performance fluctuates. And sometimes it even fails in its primary task.

But why does this happen? Why does our brain become particularly prone to fault whenever it faces heavy external pressure or stress? And is there a secret formula that we might employ to help us conquer our stage fright, test anxiety, or public-speaking jitters and instead give us a boost so we can put our best foot forward at the critical moment? Because there are people who seem to be exceptional performers—whether they are entertainers or athletes—who appear to shine in the do-or-die moment. How do they do it?

The step-by-step trap

THERE ARE MANY situations that carry the risk of choking under pressure. This is the reason why there is variation in the brain’s processes. Some moments are in fact predetermined for us to lose our mental cool and to tense up. Allow me to pause here to list the Top 3 most typical mental misfires that we experience under pressure.

Mental misfire #1: the step-by-step trap. This tends to happen especially often whenever practiced and precise movements or procedures are required. Typical examples are precision sports such as golf, billiards, gymnastics, but also hurdling, ski jumping, or soccer penalty shootouts. Surgeons, musicians, and other artists also regularly follow an automated program that does not allow for mistakes. Their necessary actions are either simple (such as during a soccer penalty shootout) or well practiced (such as the hand movements of a surgeon or concert pianist). One therefore practices these actions extensively in advance in order to avoid error at the moment when it really counts. It takes an estimated 10,000 hours of practice to gain mastery over an individual skill, regardless of how talented someone might be. In other words: if there’s one thing all skilled people have above anything else, it’s that they have put in a lot of time.

Through training and practice, one is able to automate a sequence or motion. After this, the motion is no longer located in the cerebrum’s conscious but rather in our cerebellum’s subconscious, where our inner autopilot is seated, so to speak. But even when we have managed to almost perfectly master an action, we still find that we are unable at times to call it up when we need to. This is because we have a tendency to become especially attentive under pressure in order to avoid making mistakes. Conscious attention, however, is processed in our cerebrum, and this area of our brain works a lot slower and more inefficiently than our motion-optimized cerebellum. Thus, at the most inopportune moment, we start concentrating on the concrete process that our action requires, causing our clumsy cerebrum to get in the way of our pre-automated and efficient cerebellum. The result is that, instead of allowing our polished movements to simply flow, we suddenly think about every single step, which in turn causes us to lose our fluidity of motion. It’s not really that hard to kick a penalty shot into the net. But when it comes down to the crucial moment of performance, even the easiest task becomes a near-impossible feat. Just ask the English soccer team, which has one of the worst penalty-kick records in international soccer.

Whatever you do, don’t picture a red plush rabbit!

SIMILAR TO THE English soccer team’s tendency to choke when faced with an all-or-nothing penalty kick, the Italian player Roberto Baggio’s brain wasn’t working all that badly during the high-pressure situation in the 1994 FIFA match against Brazil. In some ways, his brain was working too well. Why? Let’s zoom in a bit closer on that penalty kick moment. The player is standing concentrated and ready to shoot in front of the penalty area. His only task is to get the ball past the goalie and into the net. And not to hit the post or go outside of it. And in that moment, in the very second that he doesn’t want to, he kicks it straight at the net’s crossbar. A phenomenon that neuropsychology calls “ironic effect on performance.” One ends up doing exactly the thing that one wanted to avoid.

The cause of the missed shot can be attributed to the fact that our brain has two systems of action: an operative and an observant system. The operative system is responsible for planning and carrying out all possible movements for an operation (i.e., during a penalty kick, calculating each step and ensuring that the foot is turned at the correct angle in the correct moment). Meanwhile, the observant system is scanning external conditions to recognize any problems, such as a crossbar that one might accidentally hit with the ball. In this case, it informs the operative system that it should adjust its movements accordingly to take this potential problem into account. So far, so good. If everything always went as smoothly as this, no one would ever choke up under pressure.

But the working capacity of the operative system is limited. Especially under pressure, some of its thought resources are exhausted by feelings of stress or anxiety. The observant system, however, continues to run and to offer up threatening loser-scenarios to the brain’s consciousness. The result is that our focus on precisely the mistake we wish to avoid becomes stronger and stronger and eventually overwhelms our operative system. The operative system can no longer defend itself because too many resources have been taken over by our anxiety. You end up kicking the ball straight at the crossbar because you are thinking of not kicking the ball at the crossbar. Interestingly, this tends to happen most to those players who have neurotic behaviors¹ or who try their best to veil their insecurity by acting cool. But this only makes matters worse, since such an act of coolness only uses up more thought resources from the cerebrum. Maybe this is one explanation as to why Argentinian soccer superstar Lionel Messi’s penalty-kick record is less than perfect. But that’s just a guess.

The more one concentrates on the step-by-step process, the easier it is for us to focus on the one thing we don’t want to do. It’s similar to what happens when you picture a red plush rabbit right when I tell you not to do so. When you read the above subtitle, your brain’s observant system generated the message of the red plush rabbit so that your operative system would know what it is supposed to suppress. Perhaps this worked well at the beginning, and you instead pictured a yellow squeaky duck before continuing to read. But by processing each of the written words here step by step, your operative system is left with less and less capacity until it finally capitulates to the constant warning of the observant system (“Whatever you do, don’t picture that silly rabbit!”) and suddenly the picture of a red plush rabbit springs into your consciousness.

What helps is to turn your attention away from the concrete threat. A little bit of distraction at the right time can help the overactive observant system to relax. If this is done with little warning, the operative system doesn’t have time to go in the wrong direction either. However, this only applies to simple and automated types of activities—for example, golf. The basic movement of golf—though I don’t mean to offend any readers who might be golf fans—is relatively simple. Nevertheless, when one is under pressure while putting, it’s possible to miss the shot even at close range. But if experienced golfers suddenly stop paying attention to the action of tapping the ball, but instead focus on playing faster, they tend to hit better than when they are concentrated on hitting the ball into the hole.² The result is the same when golfers are told to listen for a particular tone while they are putting. This small amount of distraction reduces mistakes, as long as the physical action is well rehearsed and can be done on autopilot. When our cerebrum is suddenly given a new task, it can no longer interfere with our cerebellum.

If you find yourself concentrating too much and thereby tensing up under pressure, it might therefore be wise to try distracting yourself a little with something else. Pause and look out the window briefly, let your thoughts drift to something else, recall a pleasant memory, play it through and linger for a few seconds and then, as you turn back, don’t concentrate on your task deliberately but simply act. Just as my track coach always said to me: “Henning, you think too much.” Such a criticism is offered far too seldom in the modern world.

The distraction trap

Mental misfire #2: the distraction trap. This typically occurs whenever we are required to carry out a sophisticated mental performance during an exam or in an interview. While it’s best in a penalty kick or golf tournament to avoid thinking directly about the step-by-step process and to allow ourselves to carry it out automatically, an exam is a totally different situation. In this case, conscious thought can actually help, and requires focus rather than distraction. Someone who loses their concentration during an exam risks sacrificing mental strength to unbeneficial nonsense thoughts. For example, you start thinking about the consequences of the exam, pondering everything that could go wrong, or wondering what type of impression you might make on your potential future supervisor during an important job interview. Or, even worse, you get scared of saying something wrong and in that very moment you really start to freeze up.

As we have just learned, our brain does not have unlimited mental reserves for a task. The more complicated the problem, the more we require the frontal region of the cerebrum (the so-called prefrontal cortex) to find the solution. The only thing is—the reckoning capacity of this brain region is limited and distracting thoughts eat up its mental resources.