Note about the author: Alex Bolowich is a Certified Mental Performance Consultant, founder of Elite Mental Performance,a virtual coaching center in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he specializes in helping competitive athletes mentally train for consistent high performance. He is also co-founder of Ibex Tactics,a performance psychology organization that increases team and organizational performance through enhanced human-human connection. If you are interested in any of his signature programs, use the link here! Enjoy the article below!

How Do I Overcome Performance Anxiety in Swimming?

It's the day of the meet, and you can feel your body uneasy already. Sometimes it's hard to eat, you feel sick in your stomach, or like the walls are closing in on you, and when you're about to get on the blocks, it's like you start losing feeling in your legs and arms, or maybe they get heavier. Every swimmer experiences performance anxiety differently, but they all feel the same thing as a consequence: disappointment. They've spent thousands of hours and days training for these moments, and for some reason, their minds and bodies are going against them. And no matter what you tell yourself, nothing changes it. The thought of your place within the team is at jeopardy, but most importantly, you're wondering, "What's the point? I put so much into this for years, and now I can't do the thing I know how to do."

You're Not Alone (And Positive Thinking Won't Cut It)

In a research study conducted by Beenan et al., 2025 performance anxiety is characterized by "intense feelings of emotional distress before, during, or after performing in front of others. In individuals who participate in organized, competitive athletics, this can manifest with somatic, cognitive, and behavioral symptoms such as activation of the sympathetic nervous system and avoidance behaviors." Here's what most coaches won't tell you: this is way more common than you realize, and there's not much that you alone can really do to completely offset it in a short amount of time. These cases typically require some deeper neuroexperiential work like EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, or Brainspotting. These are body-based (somatic) practices that work from the bottom up, targeting the nervous system and limbic centers of the brain.

Trying to treat this with visualization, affirmations, or cognitive reframing (like CBT) won't help because these are not the subcortical areas of the brain you need to work with. Deep performance anxiety exists in the mid and hind brain, your emotion and survival centers. Talking yourself out of a panic attack is like trying to reason with a smoke alarm. The alarm doesn't care about your logic; it's responding to what it perceives as danger.

IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT!

If there's one thing I can yell from the top of a mountain for all you swimmers out there, it's this: IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT!

You didn't choose this or create this, and it's not a sign of mental weakness. It's not uncommon for swimmers to feel shame or embarrassment when their body betrays them on race day, but understanding why this is happening can help you stop beating yourself up about it.

Here are some reasons why this could be showing up:

1. Performance Identity

When you were a kid (between 6-11), you may have been praised for being talented or being a good swimmer. And in your adolescent years (12-18), you may have gotten a ton of social approval when you won big. Because swimming requires full commitment, you only think, eat, and breathe swimming for years. This combination can create a deep subconscious understanding that you ARE a swimmer (and not much else). The only way you get security—social approval—in this world is by how well you perform.

No matter how much you say to yourself, "I'm more than a swimmer, swimming is just what I do, it's not who I am," it may not be enough to offset those deep subconscious roots. Your nervous system learned early on that your value = your performance. When the stakes are high, that equation creates a threat response in your body.

2. Traumatic Experiences

Trauma has many definitions. And in a lot of cases, many would argue that success athletes NEED trauma (wild right?). Trauma is not what most people think it is. It can be a big acute moment, like a car accident, or slow chronic stress build-up (most often the case in athletics).

It can be physical, like an injury, which is still processed as an emotional trauma in the brain, or it can be emotional, like your coach shaming you in front of the team because you didn't perform well and it lost the meet. It can be related to your sport or not, and still show up in your sport.

Simply put, Dr. Grand helps us understand trauma for athletes as an experience that overwhelms the brain–body system such that parts of the processing get frozen, stuck, un-integrated, and these stuck parts keep showing up in the person’s life and performance

Depending on how your brain processes this information, sometimes there's what we call "incomplete files." When there's something in your environment that your subconscious brain picks up on (a process called neuroception), it can activate the incomplete file—that unprocessed trauma—and start reacting to it as if it's happening at this moment. This causes the body to go into a fight-flight-freeze-fawn state. Sometimes it can get so intense that your body starts to shut down and lose physical and emotional sensation (as a protective mechanism).

Your nervous system is simply saying, "You're not safe to feel things here, so I'm going to shut everything down."

The Bottom Line

In essence, it's not your fault. It's hard to detect and can show up at the most inopportune times. There's nothing self-talk, reframing, and visualizing can do to help here. You need deeper nervous system regulation and trauma-informed work like EMDR, Brainspotting, or Somatic Experiencing.

Enter: Brainspotting

Brainspotting is a powerful, focused treatment method that works by identifying, processing, and releasing core neurophysiological sources of emotional and body pain, trauma, dissociation, and other challenging symptoms. Developed by Dr. David Grand, it's based on the principle that "where you look affects how you feel."

Here's how it works: Your practitioner helps you find a "brainspot," a specific eye position that activates the traumatic memory or emotion stored in your midbrain and brainstem. These are the deep brain regions where trauma gets stuck, far below the conscious, language-based parts of your brain. By holding your gaze on that spot while focusing on the body sensations and emotions that arise, Brainspotting allows your nervous system to finally process and release what's been trapped there.

It's not about talking through your trauma or convincing yourself out of it. It's about giving your brain and body the space to complete what was left incomplete, to finish processing what got stuck. Brainspotting works directly with the autonomic and limbic systems, down-regulating the amygdala (your brain's threat detector) and helping your nervous system return to homeostasis.

Real Results for Real Athletes

Alex has advanced training in Brainspotting, and he's used it with athletes who were experiencing the exact same thing you are. He worked with an Olympic hurdler who had completely lost feeling in their feet on the starting blocks. Through Brainspotting, the hurdler was able to identify and process the unresolved trauma that was causing their nervous system to shut down. They regained sensation in their feet and got back to competing at their highest level.

Alex also helped an SEC swimmer who was getting numb in their legs before races. After the Brainspotting sessions, not only did the numbness disappear, but the swimmer dropped their times significantly. When your nervous system isn't in survival mode, your body can finally do what it's been trained to do.

Take the Next Step

If you'd like to explore the option of Brainspotting for yourself or a swimmer you coach, reach out to Alex so you can get your swimming back, drop some times, and ultimately enjoy competing again. If you'd like to try and combat this on your own, please focus the process of constructing an identity that is rooted in purpose, not performance. Forgive your parents and coaches for praising you for being an awesome swimmer instead of a hard-worker, and do somatic practices.

Some somatic practices Alex would recommend are mind-body connection exercises such as body scans, or progressive muscle relaxation. Really emphasizing slowing down your breathing, and feeling the sensation in your muscles from the feet to the head one at a time. These would need to be done regularly, perhaps 10-15 minutes a day for 5 days a week (but everyone varies). You've put in the work physically, now it's time to give your nervous system the support it needs to let you perform.

Get after it!

Resources:
Beenen, K. T., Vosters, J. A., & Patel, D. R. (2025). Sport-related performance anxiety in young athletes: a clinical practice review.Translational pediatrics,14(1), 127–138. https://doi.org/10.21037/tp-24-258

Grand, D. (2013). Rethinking trauma: A new paradigm for transformation [Interview transcript]. National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM). https://s3.amazonaws.com/nicabm-stealthseminar/Rethinking-trauma-new/David/NICABM-DavidGrand-Transcript2.pdf

Grand, D., & Goldberg, A. (2011). This is your brain on sports: Beating blocks, slumps, and performance anxiety for good! Dog Ear Publishing.

Niering, M., Monsberger, T., Seifert, J., & Muehlbauer, T. (2023). Effects of Psychological Interventions on Performance Anxiety in Performing Artists and Athletes: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland),13(11), 910. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13110910

Van der Kolk, B. A. (2015). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.