Lesson 30: Anxiety vs Excitement — Reappraisal

Your heart is racing. Your palms are sweating. Your stomach is tight. Are you anxious — or excited? Physiologically, the answer is: both look the same. This lesson explores what happens when you change the label.

Module: 9, Acceptance-based approaches

Learning objective

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to explain the reappraisal technique, understand why it works physiologically, and know when it is and isn’t appropriate.

The concept: same arousal, different label

The fight-or-flight response (Lesson 9) produces a distinctive set of body sensations: racing heart, rapid breathing, muscle tension, heightened alertness. We have treated these as symptoms of anxiety. But they are also the body’s preparation for performance.

The same physiological state underpins:

• Stage fright before a presentation
• Butterflies before a first date
• Nerves before a competition
• The rush before a roller coaster

The arousal is the same. What differs is the appraisal — the meaning you assign to it.

The Brooks experiments

Alison Wood Brooks tested a simple intervention: before a stressful task, say “I am excited” instead of “I am calm” [1].

Task	“I am excited” group	“I am calm” group
Public speaking	Rated as more persuasive, competent and confident by observers	Performed worse
Maths test	Scored higher	Scored lower
Karaoke singing	Sang more accurately	Sang less accurately

The effect was consistent. Reappraising anxiety as excitement improved performance more than trying to calm down.

Why “excited” beats “calm”

Gross’s model of emotion regulation [4] distinguishes between changing the situation, changing attention, changing appraisal, and changing the response. Reappraisal targets the cognitive label, not the physiological state.

This matters because:

1. Going from high arousal to low arousal is hard. Telling yourself to calm down when your sympathetic nervous system is firing is like telling a car to slow down while your foot is on the accelerator.
2. Going from negative high arousal to positive high arousal is easier. You only need to shift the interpretation, not the physiology.

Jamieson and colleagues found similar results: participants told to reappraise their stress responses as helpful showed improved cardiovascular profiles and better cognitive performance under pressure [2] [3].

When reappraisal works

Reappraisal is best suited for:

• Performance situations: presentations, interviews, exams, social events
• Anticipatory anxiety: the buildup before an event
• Situations where arousal helps: tasks requiring energy, alertness or enthusiasm

When it doesn’t fit

Reappraisal is less appropriate for:

• Chronic, generalized worry (where there’s no specific performance to channel the arousal into)
• Panic attacks (where the arousal itself is the feared stimulus)
• Situations where genuine danger requires caution

This is one tool, not a universal fix. For broader anxiety patterns, the techniques from earlier modules — thought records (Lesson 15), exposure (Lesson 16), acceptance (Lesson 29) — remain essential.

A worked example

The following is a fictional example used for teaching.

Sam has a job interview in an hour. His heart is pounding, his hands are shaking, and his mind is saying: “You’re going to freeze. They’ll see you’re nervous. You’ll blow it.”

He has been telling himself to calm down, but it isn’t working. The more he tries to relax, the more he notices how not-relaxed he is.

He tries reappraisal instead. “My body is activated because this matters to me. This is energy. I’m excited about this opportunity.”

The shaking doesn’t stop. But the story changes. He walks into the interview with a different relationship to the arousal. He’s energized, not panicking. The interviewer later comments that he seemed enthusiastic.

A common misunderstanding

“This is just positive thinking — pretending I’m not anxious.” It isn’t. You’re not denying the arousal or pretending it doesn’t exist. You’re accurately observing that your body is in a state of high activation and choosing a more useful interpretation of that state. The racing heart is real. The question is whether it means “danger” or “readiness.” Research on social evaluation found that reappraisal improved both subjective feelings and objective physiological markers, not just self-report [5].

Optional reflection

Next time you notice anxious arousal before an event that matters to you — a meeting, a social occasion, an exam — try saying to yourself: “I’m excited.” Notice whether anything shifts. The arousal may stay the same. Pay attention to whether your relationship to it changes, and whether that affects how you perform.

When to get support. Reappraisal is a useful technique for situational performance anxiety but is not a substitute for treatment of anxiety disorders. If anxiety is persistent, disabling or accompanied by panic attacks, phobias or compulsions, professional support is important. A therapist can help you identify which techniques, including reappraisal, fit your particular pattern. If you are in crisis, contact emergency services or a crisis line: in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123; in the US, call or text 988.

Recap

• Anxiety and excitement share the same physiological profile: high sympathetic activation.
• Reappraising anxiety as excitement improves performance because it shifts the label, not the arousal.
• Trying to calm down is physiologically harder than relabeling the arousal.
• This technique works best for performance situations and anticipatory anxiety.
• It is one tool among many, not a replacement for broader anxiety treatment.

Previous lesson: Lesson 29: Acceptance vs Control | Next lesson: Lesson 31: Handling Setbacks in Recovery