I started to sweat before I even stepped on stage.
Sweat was dripping from my armpits. Sweat started to bead on my forehead. My heart was acting like I just run up a set of stairs. I walked on stage more nervous than I have ever felt.
I got my first sentence out and something changed.
I delivered my first line and got a laugh. Exhale...
I reminded myself "What is my gift to this audience?"
My second line came out and I dropped in.
I stopped sweating and started enjoying the experience.
My heart was still beating but now it was powering my performance.
Somehow, I effectively dropped in when I could have stumbled through as my nervousness ramped up (my typical experience).
What happened?
THE SCIENCE
What happens when people reframe their physiological stress response instead of trying to suppress it?
Rather than telling yourself to calm down before a high-pressure situation, you can tell yourself something different.
"I'm excited. This energy will help me."
That's it. One sentence.
People who reframed their arousal as excitement performed measurably better on cognitive tasks, public speaking, and high-pressure challenges compared to control groups. The effect held even when the reframe was delivered as a single sentence right before performance (Gomez et al., 2024).
The mechanism is real. What your body does when you're "nervous" and when you're "excited" is almost identical. The elevated heart rate, cortisol, and norepinephrine feels the same in both situations. There is a fine line between excitement and a panic attack. One influence is interpretation. When you tell your brain you're excited, you stop fighting the physiology and start channeling it.
Telling someone to calm down (or telling yourself to calm down), does not work. You are effectively asking someone to to ignore the biology that keeps you safe, a much harder process that reinterpreting the physiological state.
THE TAKEAWAY
Your stress response is not the problem. This response protects you from harm. Your interpretation of it is.
The pre-meeting jitters, the racing heart before a hard conversation, the tension before a big decision, is your body mobilizing resources. You can fight it, or you can name it differently.
Name it differently and harness the energy.
YOUR EDGE THIS WEEK
Try these reframing tactics before your next big event:
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Before your next high-stakes moment, say it out loud. "I'm excited." Or "This energy is getting me ready." It feels weird the first time. Do it anyway. The research doesn't care if you feel silly.
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Teach it to your team. Before a challenging client meeting or a difficult performance conversation, try a 10-second reframe as a group. It works on others, not just yourself.
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Catch yourself when you say "I'm so stressed." That label locks you into threat mode. Try swapping it: "I'm activated" or "I'm energized." Language shapes the experience more than we realize.
Be well,
Eric
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