Hi Reader,
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Your athlete has trained their butt off—shown up to every practice, hit every mark, checked every box. You know they’re ready.
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But standing at the start line, they look like they might throw up. (Real talk: this may also be YOUR experience as an athlete!). This is one of the most common concerns I’ve seen with endurance athletes over the past decade, though it certainly appears in other sports as well. Even Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills quarterback, has opened up to talk about how throwing up is a legitimate part of his pre-game routine. Just because it’s common and the pros do it doesn’t mean it’s pleasant, however.
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If you’ve watched the stomach-churning, mind-racing spiral turn months of solid training into quicksand, you may step in with what any parent or coach would say:
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“You’ve got this!”
“You’ve done the work!”
“Just relax!”
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Yet… nothing changes. If anything, the anxiety stays or gets worse. (You’re not making it worse. But those phrases aren’t helping either.)
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​Reassurance doesn’t work on anxious brains.
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​When your athlete’s nervous system is activated, their brain can’t process your pep talk. The rational part that would normally think “Oh yeah, Coach is right” has temporarily left the building. What feels like comfort to you registers as noise to someone whose threat system is running the show.

What actually works

The goal here isn’t to eliminating the nerves. (That’s impossible.) Rather, it’s an opportunity to teach athletes to reinterpret what those butterflies mean.
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Athletes who view anxiety as their body getting ready to perform? They crush it. Athletes who view that same feeling as proof something’s wrong? They struggle. Same butterflies, completely different outcomes.
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Your job isn’t to make anxiety disappear. It’s to change what that feeling means.

3️⃣ strategies you can use this week:

The 4-6 Breathing Reset
This nervous system hack is backed by science: inhale for 4, exhale for 6. The longer exhale signals safety to the brain. Do it with your athletes so they see you using the same tools. Watch Dr. Inna Khazan guide her audience through this exercise here.​
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The Controllables Exercise
Before the next race, draw two columns on a whiteboard: “I can control this” and “I can’t control this.” Let your athlete fill them in. Warm-up routine? Controllable. Weather? Not controllable. Who shows up? Not controllable. Their effort and focus? Controllable. When anxiety spikes, redirect: “What’s one thing you can control right now?”
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The full blog post breaks down three more strategies, including:

• Pre-race routines that actually calm nerves (not just motions to go through)
• The “anxiety as a passenger” metaphor that makes anxious athletes laugh and perform better
• Why process goals beat outcome goals every time

​Read all 6 evidence-based strategies​

Your athletes don’t need to feel confident to compete well, they just need to know they can show up scared and do it anyway. When you teach them that, you’re not just coaching better performances. You’re teaching them how to handle hard things for the rest of their lives.

🎙️ This week on the Feisty Women’s Performance Podcast​
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Dr. Tara‑Leigh McHugh reveals how mother‑coaches face a “double penalty” yet bring unique strengths, like sharper time‑management and empathy, that elevate high‑performance sport
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​🎧Listen now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.​
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Til next time,
Dr. A

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