42 – The thin line between anxiety and excitement in the brain

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Emotions connect directly to parts of the body. Now, I'm not great at necessarily understanding,

but from reading an analysis, which is such a great way of learning about emotions,

physical sensations that are related to anxiety and excitement are actually almost the same.

Like things like racing hard and getting sweaty hands, really being alert, having that heightened

alertness and breathing really shallow, all of that restless energy in your body. And the only way those

things differ is the story that the human brain attaches to those sensations, the mental bit.

So you really get to name whatever that activation means. And I learned a lot about doing this in improv. For

many scenes I'll just go with whatever my body is feeling which I rarely understand. That's why I have to

read about it. And then I'll just sort of start to attach a story along with my scene partner and that's what

becomes the scene, the reality. But what's behind all of this helps me understand myself better and that's

neurosis.

We're not actually talking about toxic positivity or anything because the physiological signature of

anxiety and excitement are so similar. Again, those researchers have trouble distinguishing them

without actually asking the people participating in the study what they actually feel. For example, when

I taught dance fitness, I went on stage about four to eight times per week, depending on where I lived at the

time.

And I always felt the same thing before the class started. Basically, I felt anxious, but I was fine as soon

as I could turn the music on. And I didn't know why I was feeling that way at all. I didn't know what I was

feeling either. I didn't know if I was excited because I loved teaching that class, which I knew. It wasn't

stage fright. I knew I didn't feel that. And then I figured out through a lot of analysis, it was actually

social anxiety. I was anxious about

talking with the other people in the room before I talk, which that made sense. But basically those

feelings needed a story attached to them in order to make sense because those same physiological things

apply to a whole bunch of different stories. So you can't just make this activation go away no matter what.

Your body's going to do it anyways, even if you don't understand it. So trying to calm down before you start

recording can even make things worse.

because now you have to kind of fight your body what it's already feeling while also trying to be like

present and articulate and say what you need to say. So adding that framing and understanding ourselves

can really help you out since we can use whatever that energy is that's there and exists when we record and we

can use it in a positive way if we attach that story to it. So if there's anxiety we can understand and then we

can channel and use it.

We can also sort of shift the story once we understand it better. We can say that we're gonna record this shit

instead of attempting to calm our nerves. We can accept it. We can label it. And we can also accept the things

that might change for us story-wise when we hit record, even if the physical sensation is the same. So

getting anxious isn't always bad. It shows that you care about the outcome of what you're doing, which is a

really good thing.

for your listener or your audience. So we can understand what we're working with better if we analyze

ourselves a bit. And we can use that to sharpen our skills and ultimately improve our performance. I'm Jen

DeHaan and this is a Credibility Minute. You can find more episodes and get in touch with me at

stereoforest.com slash minute.