Beating Anxiety By Writing

Do you ever get sweaty palms and a racing heart right before a big test or presentation. Maybe all you need to do to help out is write about it beforehand.

It's called performance anxiety and it's something we've all experienced at one time or another. You have a big test coming up, an important presentation or a job interview, but beforehand all you can do is think about how anxious you are about the whole thing. The problem is that anxiety can make you do worse and blow the whole thing for you.

Some techniques like deep breathing, stretching beforehand or even just positive thinking can help out, but according to this new study, writing about your fears before an upcoming event can help you do better. Researchers had some college students write down their feeling about an upcoming math test. They ended up doing much better on the test. And surprisingly, those sitting quietly before the test, but not writing anything down, actually did worse.

It turns out that worries, like about the upcoming test, take up part of our working memory. This is a type of short term memory we need to do well on tests and when it's already occupied with our anxieties we can't do as well. Writing about them beforehand gets these worries out of this working memory and frees it up so you can do your best.