Behavioral Science

The
PressureScience of Choking Under
by Alyson Meister
and Maude Lavanchy
April 07, 2022

Shannon Fagan/Getty Images

Summary.   Nobody is immune from choking in a big moment. Maybe you lost your
voice or your ability to think straight when speaking with an important client,
manager, or audience. To help prevent “the choke” at work, we can apply learnings
form the world of sports to the world of management. Like an athlete ready for the
big game, assuming that you’ve already learned and practiced the skills that you’ll
draw on, there are a number of techniques that can help you reduce the pressure
or boost your ability to cope with it, which will ultimately help you fully access your
well-honed skills and both prevent and navigate through a potential choke. close
Choking under pressure, where one freezes and underperforms
when it matters most — even despite deep expertise and years of
practice — is well known in the world of sports. But we hear less
about the day-to-day chokes that happen at work.

Most of us can reflect on a few of our own choking moments.

Maybe you lost your voice or your ability to think straight when
speaking with an important client, manager, or audience. Nobody
is immune: for example, Mahatma Gandhi had a choking moment
during his first case before a judge and “ran from the courtroom
in humiliation.” To help prevent “the choke” at work, we can
apply learnings form the world of sports to the world of
management.

The science of choking under pressure

When we “freeze,” our bodies are engaging a threat response to
something in our external environment. That “something” is
different for everyone. At work, it might look like a difficult
conversation, a negotiation, a pile of paperwork, or a public
speech.

When you choke, physiologically, your body has entered into

protection from danger mode and has released a cocktail of stress-
related hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These can elevate
your breathing and heart rate, dilate your pupils, and even cause
you to sweat. When under threat, your working memory becomes
impaired, meaning you have trouble making sense of and acting
on new information, become more prone to recalling and reliving
negative emotional experiences, and consciously overthink
behaviors that should be second nature. Ultimately, when
choking, not only does your performance in the moment decline,
but it can trigger a vicious cycle of self-doubt, shame, guilt, and
fear, making it all the more likely you’ll choke again, limit taking
future risks, and even suffer long-term mental health
consequences, such as the PTSD experienced by Olympic
champion René Holten Poulsen.
You’re most likely to choke when the external demands or
pressure of the situation overwhelm your personal resources to
cope with it. This happens, for example, when the stakes are
raised and the situation occurs infrequently. While soccer players
may find a penalty kick relatively simple during practice, the
stakes (e.g., your team’s entire future and funding) and rarity (e.g.,
you have only this one chance) are immensely elevated in
knockout-stage competitions (e.g., a World Cup final). A choke
can also happen even when the pressure remains constant, yet
your ability to use coping resources becomes depleted — for
example, when you feel anxious or begin to question your
abilities. The frustrating part is that this demands — resources
imbalance can happen completely unconsciously, meaning that
while you think you’re ready, your unconscious brain has other
ideas.

How to harness your big moments at work

Like an athlete ready for the big game, assuming that you’ve
already learned and practiced the skills that you’ll draw on, there
are a number of techniques that can help you reduce the pressure
or boost your ability to cope with it, which will ultimately help
you fully access that well-honed skill and both prevent and
navigate through a potential choke.

Be there, over and over.

Golfing legend Jack Nicklaus famously said, “I never missed a
putt in my mind.” The same part of the brain is activated when we
visualize an action (e.g., lifting your left hand) and when we
actually perform the action. That’s why mental imagery is used to
improve motor learning in rehabilitative settings, such as after a
stroke.

In the world of sports, star athletes such as Serena Williams,

Wayne Rooney, and Michael Jordan are all strong believers in
visualization. Visualizing previous successes at crucial moments
has multiple benefits: It prepares athletes for various scenarios
and allows them to manage expectations and emotions more
effectively. There is a significant body of scientific evidence
showing the power of visualization to enhance strength, accuracy,
and endurance, as well as reducing anxiety and increasing sense
of control in emergency situations.

When preparing for a big moment at work, rehearse it in your

mind in as much clarity and detail as you can. What will it look
and feel like to walk into your manager’s office and ask for that
raise? How do the lights feel as you walk out in front of the
audience, into the boardroom, onto the stage, or even sign on to
Zoom? What will be the first words you say?

Practice for pressure.

Athletes train not only for skills and abilities, but also for
pressure. For the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, Team Great Britain’s
mental fortitude training gradually increased pressure on athletes
to intentionally evoke — and practice working with — their
choke-response. Top coaches introduce mental, technical,
tactical, or physical competitive stressors by unexpectedly
changing the usual conditions. For example, they might force
right-footed soccer players to use only their left foot during
practice, or introduce better opponents by surprise. Swimmer
Michael Phelps’ coach, Bob Bowman, once stepped on and
cracked Phelps’ goggles before a race, forcing him to compete
“blind.” This experience proved useful when his goggles filled
with water after he dove during an Olympic race in 2008: “From
the 150-meter wall to the finish, I couldn’t see the wall. I was just
hoping I was winning.” Not only did he win the gold medal, but he
also broke a world record.

Steve Jobs was known for his stellar presentations, but also for the
amount of practice he would put in. Rehearsal is important,
whether you’re alone in your office or in front of a camera or
crowd. You can raise the stakes by asking your audience to
interrupt you, say a negative comment, or switch off your
computer, forcing you to continue without your supporting slides.

Develop a pre-performance routine.

Those sometimes perplexing routines, movements, or sets of
words that you see and hear before an athlete delivers an
important serve in tennis, a free-throw in basketball, or a penalty
kick in soccer have a very important purpose. Rafael Nadal is said
to have an elaborate 12-step court routine that lasts around 30
seconds. NBA star Karl Malone was known for his particular free-
throw routine that involved speaking to himself.

A pre-performance routine can help you clear your mind, get into
the moment, and set that well-honed skill to autopilot. At work,
you might develop a short ritual, such as breathing exercises,
repeating a phrase or mantra, listening to a particular song,
sipping a favorite tea, or doing a few physical stretches in your
office that can get you in the right mindset to tackle those first
moments before autopilot can kick in. Once you’ve got a routine
you’re comfortable with, you can use it whenever you need to
access the knowledge, skills, and behaviors you’ve been well-
trained for. You might also develop a mini-routine that you return
to when you realize you’re choking.

Don’t think, just do.

Most athletes know that overthinking in the moment — or
paralysis by analysis — can make them doubt themselves or focus
too much on every aspect of a movement (e.g., the position of
your leg and foot when kicking a ball) instead of letting it go
(outside of conscious awareness), triggering a choke. To avoid
this, some athletes opt for “self-distraction” in the minutes or
hours prior to a race or a game. Listening to music, reading, or
doing something with your hands to stay out of your head are
ways to escape from the surrounding elements and thoughts that
could add pressure. For instance, in the minutes before a race,
Usain Bolt will randomly think about anything else, until the
moment he hears “on your marks.” He says: “[N]o matter how
much pressure is on, I never think about it, because it starts
creeping in and plays with your mind. That’s why I clown around
before a race. I’m relaxed, I enjoy myself.”

Mindfulness and meditation techniques help train you to

acknowledge your surroundings while remaining alert, attentive,
and present within yourself in the moment. A wealth of research
shows how mindfulness and meditation can calm the brain and
nervous system, reduce anxiety, and improve performance.
Numerous athletes use these techniques before and during big
sporting events. For example, Novak Djokovic practices
mindfulness daily:

Instead of trying to silence your mind or find “inner peace,”

you allow and accept your thoughts as they come…They do
bounce around like crazy, but they’re supposed to, your job is
to let them come and go…I’ve done so much mindfulness
that my brain functions better now automatically…I used to
freeze up whenever I made a mistake. Now when I blow a
serve or shank a backhand I still get those flashes of self-
doubt but I know how to handle them.

Simply writing down your fears can also help alleviate them for
performance. Mindfulness trainings are increasingly popular in
organizations, and supporting apps have been shown to be
effective in reducing performance anxiety (as long as you actually
stick to them).

Develop a stress mindset.

Tennis legend Billie-Jean King has said, “Pressure is a privilege.”
A decorated champion, King saw stress as “earned.” Shifting your
mindset from “stress is depleting” to “stress is enhancing”
actually changes the way your body responds to it. To do this,
next time you’re nervous and feel your heart starting to race, don’t
tell yourself to calm down — your body won’t buy it. Rather, tell
yourself you’re excited and gearing up for optimal performance.
Six-time Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy said, “Never use
the words ‘nervous’ or ‘anxious’; use the words ‘exciting’ and
‘adrenalized.’”

When Djokovic is playing in front of a crowd that’s mostly in favor

of his opponent, he says, “At times you just try to ignore it, which
is quite hard, but I like to transmutate it in a way, so when the
crowd is chanting ‘Roger,’ I hear ‘Novak.’” This is a way to tell your
body and mind that the stress you’re facing is positive, supporting
you.

Seemingly small strategies like self-talk (e.g., saying “I’m excited”

out loud) or inner dialogue telling yourself you’re excited can help
you harness and channel the stress to focus and perform, averting
a choke.

Rationalize the event and your bumps along the way.

It’s important to put your performance into perspective, so the
anticipated results don’t overwhelm your ability to perform (or
your enjoyment). This involves, for example, disconnecting your
identity (i.e., who you are as a person) from the results. That is, a
loss doesn’t mean that you are a loser, and a win doesn’t mean
that you are a winner. For example, after winning gold at the
alpine skiing world cup in 2020, Lara Gut-Behrami said: “It’s just a
victory, it doesn’t change your life. There are more important
things.” Serena Williams highlights that setbacks are part of the
process, and motivation to keep going. Prolific basketball coach
Dawn Stanley has a 24-hour rule for athletes whereby they have
“24 hours to ‘bask in [their] victory’ or ‘agonize over [their]
defeat.’”
You can also put the big moment into perspective by taking what
President Obama refers to as “the long view”: reframing any
immediate “crises” so that you can see the big picture — whether
that’s your values or your long-term goals — which can help you
minimize the effects and importance of a single event.

...
Nobody is immune from choking in a big moment. However, what
we learn from the greatest athletes in the world is that there are
behaviors and mindsets we can all practice to help prevent a
choke and better navigate it when it arrives.

Alyson Meister is a professor of leadership

and organizational behavior at IMD Business
School in Lausanne, Switzerland. Specializing
in the development of globally-oriented,
adaptive, and inclusive organizations, she has
worked with thousands of executives, teams,
and organizations spanning professional
services through to industrial goods and
technology. In 2021, she was recognized as a
Thinkers50 Radar thought leader. She has
recently joined the Scientific Advisory Board
for OneMind at Work, focusing on advancing
mental health in the workplace. Follow her on
Twitter: @alymeister

ML
Maude Lavanchy is a research fellow at IMD
Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, and
a semi-professional volleyball player.
Passionate about sports, economics, and new
technologies, her research is part of the field of
economics and organizational behavior. Her
thought leadership has been covered by the
popular press and media, including Bloomberg,
 World Economic Forum, Fortune, Quartz,
Forbes India, Channel News Asia, and Ouest-
France.