Your anxiety should be somewhere between checked out and freaked out…

From WSJ.com: Anxiety Can Bring Out the Best

“Somewhere between checked out and freaked out lies an anxiety sweet spot…in which a person is motivated to succeed yet not so anxious that performance takes a dive. This moderate amount of anxiety keeps people on their toes, enables them to juggle multiple tasks and puts them on high alert for potential problems.”

…How do you find the sweet spot between anxiety that energizes and anxiety that paralyzes?

…Anxiety is especially self-defeating when people focus on the fear itself, rather than the task at hand.

…The best way to stay in the “sweet spot”…is to channel the anxiety into productive activity—like studying and acing the test. “I tell a lot of my patients that Nike really has a great slogan—Just Do It“.

…Identifying and challenging self-defeating thoughts, and gradually facing the source of fears, can provide more lasting relief than antianxiety medications, psychologists say.

…”If you have to take Xanax to get on the elevator, you never learn that the elevator isn’t something to be afraid of,” says Dr. Josephson. “You have to embrace the anxiety to overcome it.”

…That is often how psychologists help performers overcome stage fright or athletes snap out of a slump. Relaxation techniques such as meditation and deep breathing can bring a toxic level of anxiety down, but harnessing it can ultimately be more effective. Rehearsing a scenario repeatedly can help manage and defuse the fear.

…”We’ll say to athletes, ‘You’re going to be anxious. Great. Channel it and use it,” Dr. Josephson says. “Being willing to feel some anxiety and not running away from it is huge.”

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