Picture a stranger handed a microphone and a karaoke machine, told to sing a rock song for a score. In a 2014 experiment by Harvard researcher Alison Wood Brooks, 113 people did exactly that. Those who said "I am anxious" beforehand averaged 53 percent. Those who said "I am excited" averaged 80 percent. The only difference was the one emotion they stated beforehand.

That result points to the idea behind this article: anxiety may not be a verdict on your game. The research describes it as energy plus attention, and you may be able to steer both. By the end, you will have a pre-match line and a shot-by-shot habit to try at your next league night.

The short answer

Anxiety hurts some players some of the time. A review of 48 studies found a small average link between worry and results. Attention matters: one review describes anxiety pulling attention toward threat and away from the task. Reframing your nerves as excitement, and giving your attention a specific job on the target, are two ideas to try.

Does anxiety make you play worse?

Sometimes, but the link is weak on average. A meta-analysis of 48 studies found an average correlation of r = -0.10 between worry before competition and performance. The effect was larger at high standards of play. Confidence, by contrast, tracked results more closely, at r = 0.24.

The meta-analysis was by Tim Woodman and Lew Hardy, published in the Journal of Sports Sciences in 2003. It pooled studies of competitive sport that measured worry (the authors call it cognitive anxiety) and self-confidence. The effect also differed by group: r = -0.22 for men and -0.03 for women, and -0.27 at high standards versus -0.06 at low ones.

Two cautions apply. A correlation shows a link, not a cause. And the studies were not about bar leagues, so your own numbers may differ. The useful takeaway is that worry alone does not decide a match. Confidence in your shots tracked results more closely.

Should you calm down or get excited?

Excitement, according to one set of experiments. In studies by Alison Wood Brooks, people who told themselves they were excited outperformed people who tried to calm down. Brooks argues that nerves and excitement are both high-energy states, so switching the label is easier than switching off the energy.

Brooks, writing in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General in 2014, ran several lab studies. In the karaoke study, people who said they were excited averaged 80 percent, against 69 percent for those who said they were calm, angry, or sad. In a math study of 188 people, those told to "try to get excited" scored 8 percent higher than both a calm group and a control group. In a speech study of 140 people, the excited group spoke longer and was rated more persuasive, competent, and relaxed by independent evaluators.

Keep the limits in view. The participants were adults, the tasks were lab tasks, and the paper's abstract reports no numbers, so the figures above come from a news release on the research. These studies did not test pool players. Treat it as a cheap experiment worth running, not a guarantee.

What does anxiety actually do to your stroke?

It can pull your attention off the shot. A 2012 review describes how anxiety biases attention toward threat, leads to more eye fixations of shorter duration, and can leave too little attention available to adjust movements. Worries made up a large share of what elite athletes reported, far more than thoughts about technique.

The review, by Arne Nieuwenhuys and Raôul Oudejans in Psychological Research, proposes a model, so it has no sample of its own. It draws on experiments with police officers, climbers, and soccer players. It also summarizes retrospective reports from more than 70 elite athletes about their attention. Worries made up over 25 percent of what they described, while attention to the mechanics of the movement made up about four percent.

The authors note that the case for "thinking too much about technique" has not been tied to anxiety by experiment. At the table, one reading is this: when a thought like "don't miss" arrives, it may compete with the target for your attention. Give your eyes and mind a specific job instead.

Why might a good result still take more effort?

Effort can hide the damage. The same review describes how anxious people can compensate with extra mental effort, which can keep results steady while making the work less efficient. In the authors' words, more effort is needed to obtain the same result.

Nieuwenhuys and Oudejans list the compensation strategies: forcing attention onto the goal, blocking out distractions, and trying to reduce the anxiety itself. These are predictions of a model, not measured outcomes in pool players. They also note that trying hard not to attend to something may ironically draw more attention toward it.

Our article on choking covers the routine research in detail.

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