Don’t Calm Down

Instead of trying to calm your way out of anxiety, reframe the feelings as excitement and convert performance-related anxiety into goal-busting arousal congruency—a fancy term for channeling that sense of adrenaline that comes from high-anxiety situations into a positive effort.

The crucial part is to simply accept you are anxious. It’s easy to waste time and energy trying to fight anxiety on all fronts. So don’t do it.