There are many important situations that can increase our anxiety to levels that test our ability to control, such as a job interview, a public presentation, a review, or the first day of a new project. Right now, almost everyone, needs an extra dose of self-confidence, and we don’t always find it.
For some it is just an extra voltage that they can solve quite easily, for others it is a time of instability difficult to overcome. There are also those who see these high-tension episodes as an experience that borders on trauma, the truth is that almost no one can go through these moments before a major event without a little nervousness.
- It is inevitable to feel a certain degree of fear when faced with an important situation.
- However.
- There is a trick.
- Or rather a method.
- Which can help us prevent anxiety from betraying us.
- Was created by Harvard University experts and its effectiveness.
- Has been proven.
The method, developed by psychologists at Harvard University’s School of Business, was based on a series of studies on these momentary crises, according to their conclusions, what should be done in these cases is a ritual, that is, a sequence of actions. of high symbolic value.
Experts have found that when a person creates and performs a ritual to overcome anxiety it usually works very well, to verify their hypotheses with real data they performed an interesting experiment, they wanted a group of people to be very nervous. this, they said that in a few minutes they should sing a song in front of an audience of listeners.
They noticed that many participants had a kind of ritual on their own. Most of them repeated aloud: “Calm down!”Isn’t it true, or even the classic?They did so with the intention of reducing the anxiety they felt, however, these actions do not seem to be very effective.
The researchers selected a group of people to apply a different strategy, asked participants to draw a picture showing how they felt at the time, then broke it into pieces and thrown it away, who performed this simple exercise were able to better control their anxiety.
Psychologists have said that remembering the obligation to stay calm is not the right thing to do, they said that what we achieve with this strategy is the same thing we achieve many times when we ask someone outside of it to calm down. it’s the exact opposite: to irritate that person even more. The same goes for anxiety itself, what do you say?and gets even more nervous because in addition to anxiety, you still have to deal with the frustration of not getting what you want.
What generates more anxiety in the moments leading up to this important event is the anticipation of a control, not knowing what will happen or knowing how to control all the variables that can produce a negative result, therefore an automated ritual, like the one proposed in the study, helps us eliminate this feeling of uncontrollability over what is to come. In addition, if the sequence of actions has a special meaning for us, it will be even more effective.
In conclusion, creating and performing a ritual before facing a stressful situation reduces anxiety, so that it is considered a ritual should always be performed in the same way, usually the singers simply warm their throats before a performance. Football players touch the turf, make the sign of the cross or enter the field with a specific movement. Some TV presenters drink tea or even sleep five minutes before watching a live broadcast.
Below are some examples of effective rituals. Doing a series of breathing exercises while retrieving from our memory symbolic moments of our ability, or taking and looking at photographs of people who can inspire us, can even be a photograph of ourselves at a different stage in our lives.
If it’s a photo itself, it’s better to remind us of a moment similar to the one we’re going to live on, we also had a complicated challenge, over which we didn’t have all the control, and yet it was enough to get over it. .
It’s also worth noting our greatest fear, chewing this paper and then spitting it out. None of this has anything to do with magic or spells. Such rituals simply point to conscious and unconscious forces. In any case, you’d better believe in your own symbolic ritual. As absurd as it may seem, it is an important brake on the anxiety and negative thoughts that feed it.