Ask most performers what determines whether they play, compete, or present well, and they will point to preparation, talent, and mindset. All of these matter. But underneath them sits something more fundamental, and far less discussed: the state of the nervous system in the moment of performing.
Performance is not, in the end, a mental event that the body carries out. It is a nervous system event — a coordination of attention, arousal, movement, and threat perception that either comes together into fluency or breaks apart into effort. Understanding how that system works is one of the most practical things a performer, an athlete, or a therapist can do. This article sets out the framework in plain terms.
Arousal is not the enemy — dysregulation is
The relationship between how activated we are and how well we perform is one of the oldest findings in psychology. More than a century ago, researchers described what is now called the Yerkes–Dodson relationship: performance improves as arousal rises, but only up to a point, after which it falls away again (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). For skilled, complex tasks — the kind performers and athletes do — that optimal window is narrower than most people assume.
This is why the goal is not to be calm. A performer who is too flat cannot access their edge; a performer who is flooded cannot access their skill. What matters is not the amount of arousal but whether the nervous system can hold it — whether activation stays organised and usable, or tips over into a state where fine control is lost. That capacity to hold activation without losing coherence is what I mean by regulation.
Two directions of traffic: top-down and bottom-up
We tend to imagine the brain instructing the body: I decide, my body obeys. In reality, the nervous system runs far more information in the other direction. The vagus nerve, the principal channel between the internal body and the brain, is roughly four-fifths afferent — carrying signals up from the organs, gut, and tissues to the brain, rather than commands down (Berthoud & Neuhuber, 2000). Our sense of how things are going is being assembled continuously from the body’s own signals.
This is the basis of interoception: the perception of the body’s internal state, integrated largely in the insular cortex (Craig, 2009). A performer whose interoceptive signals read as danger — a pounding chest, a tightening throat, a churning gut — will have a nervous system organising for threat, whatever their conscious intentions. This is why ‘thinking positive’ so often fails under pressure. The mind is issuing top-down instructions to a system that is being driven, in that moment, from the bottom up.
The threat system moves faster than thought
At the centre of this is the brain’s threat circuitry. The amygdala can evaluate a situation and trigger a defensive response before the conscious, deliberative parts of the brain have finished appraising it (LeDoux, 2000). In evolutionary terms this is a feature, not a bug: it kept our ancestors alive. But for a performer, it means that a subcortical alarm can reshape breathing, muscle tone, and attention faster than any thought can intervene.
Stephen Porges’ polyvagal framework describes how the autonomic nervous system shifts between broad states — a socially engaged, flexible state that supports connection and fine coordination, and defensive states of mobilisation or shutdown that do not (Porges, 1995). These states are not chosen. They are detected and enacted below awareness, through a continuous, non-conscious scanning of the environment for cues of safety and danger. Performance at its best depends on staying in, or returning to, the regulated state — not on suppressing the others by force.
Skill lives in automaticity — and so can its loss
The movements that make expert performance possible are not consciously assembled note by note or step by step. Through thousands of hours of practice, they become automatic, encoded in the basal ganglia and its circuits as fluent, chunked sequences that run without deliberate control (Graybiel, 2008). This automaticity is the whole point of training: it frees attention for expression, strategy, and responsiveness.
But the same capacity that builds fluency can also entrench dysfunction. When a highly practised movement is repeated under sustained threat or strain, the sensory and motor maps that govern it can reorganise in unhelpful ways — a mechanism demonstrated in the development of focal dystonia (Byl et al., 1996). The nervous system, in other words, does not distinguish between ‘good’ automaticity and ‘bad’. It automates whatever is practised, in whatever state it is practised. This is why forcing and white-knuckling through difficulty so often makes things worse: you are teaching the system, at speed, to associate the movement with threat.
Flow is the signature of a regulated system
When all of this comes together — arousal in the optimal window, interoceptive signals reading as safe, the threat system quiet, and skill running automatically — performers describe the state Csikszentmihalyi (1990) called flow: complete absorption, effortless action, the disappearance of self-consciousness. Neurocognitive accounts suggest that in flow the effortful, self-monitoring activity of the prefrontal cortex quietens, allowing well-practised skill to express itself without interference (Dietrich, 2004).
The important point for performers is this: flow is not something you produce by wanting it more. It is what a regulated nervous system does when it is left alone to do what it has trained for. You cannot force your way into it. You can only create — and repeatedly return to — the conditions in which it becomes available.
What this means in practice
If performance is a nervous system event, then the most useful work is not only on technique or mindset, but on the state from which technique and mindset operate. That means learning to read your own internal signals rather than override them. It means building the capacity to notice activation early and return to regulation, rather than waiting for it to overwhelm you. And it means treating setbacks not as evidence of a broken talent, but as information about a nervous system doing its best to protect you.
None of this replaces training. It underpins it. A performer who understands their own nervous system has a lever that willpower alone can never provide — and a therapist who understands it can meet performers and athletes at the level where the difficulty, and its resolution, actually live.
Ruth works with performers, athletes, and therapists across all of these areas. You can explore the full range of her work at ruthslchiles.com/work-with-ruth.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the nervous system affect performance?
Performance depends on the state of the nervous system in the moment: how activated you are, whether that activation stays organised, whether your body’s internal signals read as safe, and whether skilled movements can run automatically. When the nervous system is regulated, skill flows; when it tips into a threat state, fine control and fluency break down.
Why does performance anxiety take over so quickly?
The brain’s threat circuitry, centred on the amygdala, can trigger a defensive response before conscious thought has finished appraising the situation. This is why anxiety can reshape breathing, muscle tension, and attention faster than reassuring thoughts can intervene.
Is it better to be calm before performing?
Not necessarily. Research on arousal and performance shows there is an optimal window: too little activation and you can’t access your edge; too much and you lose fine control. The aim is not calm but regulation — a nervous system that can hold activation without tipping into overwhelm.
What is interoception, and why does it matter for performers?
Interoception is the perception of the body’s internal state — heartbeat, breath, gut, muscle tension. It shapes how safe or threatened the nervous system feels. Performers who learn to read these signals with curiosity, rather than alarm, gain more influence over their state than positive thinking alone can offer.
Why can forcing through a performance problem make it worse?
Skilled movement becomes automatic through practice. The nervous system automates whatever is repeated, in whatever state it is repeated. Practising a movement under threat or strain can entrench it as a threat-associated pattern — one mechanism seen in the development of focal dystonia — which is why forcing often deepens the problem.
References
Berthoud, H.-R., & Neuhuber, W. L. (2000). Functional and chemical anatomy of the afferent vagal system. Autonomic Neuroscience, 85(1–3), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1566-0702(00)00215-0
Byl, N. N., Merzenich, M. M., & Jenkins, W. M. (1996). A primate genesis model of focal dystonia and repetitive strain injury. Neurology, 47(2), 508–520. https://doi.org/10.1212/wnl.47.2.508
Craig, A. D. (2009). How do you feel — now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(1), 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2555
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row.
Dietrich, A. (2004). Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the experience of flow. Consciousness and Cognition, 13(4), 746–761. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2004.07.002
Graybiel, A. M. (2008). Habits, rituals, and the evaluative brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 31, 359–387. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.neuro.29.051605.112851
LeDoux, J. E. (2000). Emotion circuits in the brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 23, 155–184. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.neuro.23.1.155
Porges, S. W. (1995). Orienting in a defensive world: Mammalian modifications of our evolutionary heritage. A polyvagal theory. Psychophysiology, 32(4), 301–318. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1995.tb01213.x
Yerkes, R. M., & Dodson, J. D. (1908). The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18(5), 459–482. https://doi.org/10.1002/cne.920180503