Transform Performance Anxiety Into Flow

Cellist in Flow

Source: Ollyy / Shutterstock

Performance anxiety is not all bad.

The psychophysical state is triggered by anxiety-provoking performance situations and is accompanied by increased body tension, attention, mental focus, and intensified emotional experiences (Spahn, Krampe, & Nusseck, 2021). According to the Yerkes-Dodson Law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908), when kept within a certain threshold, the mental arousal accompanied by performance anxiety may improve performance. Beyond the threshold, however, performance tends to deteriorate. That means, at a moderate level, it can repel boredom and spice up the performance, thereby improving the odds that a person will experience flow. At an extremely low or high level, however, individuals may experience boredom or suffer from panic attacks in performance situations, which hinders optimal performance (Mihaly, 1975).

Flow is conducive to creativity and predictive of life satisfaction.

Flow states are often reported by expert athletes and musicians (Biasutti & Philippe, 2023). Flow is not only linked to peak performance, but it also predicts life satisfaction and creativity (MacDonald, Byrne, & Carlton, 2006). This is hardly surprising. With a sharpened mental focus and heightened emotional experience, an individual in a flow state will likely be experiencing life to the fullest extent. The removal of boredom and constraint of mundane existence (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) can unleash untapped creativity when one is in tune with one’s inner voice.

Transform performance anxiety into the flow.

But what makes one more likely to experience flow? What strategies can help us get into the zone? Because of the non-linear relationship between performance anxiety and flow, maintaining the optimal level of performance anxiety to be in a flow state is an intricate art in itself. Flow is more commonly experienced in group settings than in individual performance situations. Males, on average, are more likely to experience flow than females (Habe, Biasutti, & Kajtna, 2019). Why so? Group situations may provide a protective shield to those who are prone to debilitating levels of performance anxiety. Furthermore, group members who are in synergy with one another during a live performance can amplify the effects of flow. Regarding gender differences, it is possible that social conditioning and gender expectations may restrain creative expressions that are more individualistic in nature in females.

Recommended strategies:

Based on what we know about the curvilinear relationship between performance anxiety and flow and the factors that influence this relationship, we can transform performance anxiety into flow a flow state by:

1. Cultivating a nonjudgmental mindset.
2. Cognitively reframing the experience and challenge.
3. Matching task difficulty with an individual’s skill level.
4. Assigning creative projects that can be co-created by group members.
5. Encouraging individualistic creative expressions in females.
6. Providing constructive feedback.