Writing works

Performance anxiety can be crippling. Entertainers who suffer from it come up with creative defenses. Bono has his purple shades. The indie rock singer Cat Power faces away from the audience. Others turn to more standard solutions like Xanax.


But there might be a healthier quick fix: writing. Because new research reveals that writing about your specific worries just before a performance can reduce the risk of blowing it due to anxiety. The work appears in the journal Science. [Gerardo Ramirez and Sian Beilock, Writing About Testing Worries Boosts Exam Performance in the Classroom] (from Scientific American)

To read the entire Scientific American piece, click the above hyperlinked text.