How to stay calm under pressure and improve your performance

Originally published on September 3, 2025

Staying calm under pressure starts before the pressure shows up. In Episode 339 of the WHOOP Podcast, Kristen Holmes, Global Head of Human Performance, Principal Scientist at WHOOP, talks with performance consultant Rachel Vickery about four levers that shape performance when stakes are high: breathing mechanics, fast downregulation, pre-event buffer, and team environment.

Vickery works with elite athletes, military operators, emergency physicians, and executives, and her core point is practical: pressure responses are predictable, trainable, and often visible before performance slips. This article turns that conversation into clear lessons you can use with the WHOOP app, especially when sleep, Recovery, and strain start stacking in the wrong direction.

To listen to episode 339 in full, head to the WHOOP Podcast on YouTube.

Why does pressure change the way you breathe and think?

Pressure changes breathing and decision-making because the body shifts toward a fight-or-flight pattern before most people notice it. When upper chest breathing becomes your default, you lose room to increase ventilation efficiently, and that can narrow vision, disrupt fine motor control, and make clear thinking harder.

Vickery says many high performers arrive with poor default breathing mechanics, especially in jobs or sports that keep people in a chronically elevated state. The ideal pattern at rest is diaphragmatic, nasal, smooth, and rhythmic, with a small pause after the exhale. In people who live in high-pressure environments for long stretches, that pattern often shifts into shallow upper chest breathing, and the body starts treating it as normal.

That matters when intensity rises. A person who already breathes at the top of the chest at rest has less mechanical space to add more air when the task gets hard. Vickery explains that the result is often the feeling of trying to suck in air without ever feeling caught up. On top of that, overbreathing can lower carbon dioxide more than the task requires, which can affect blood flow and contribute to symptoms such as numb hands, poor awareness, and worse decisions.

Vickery gives a clear way to picture the jump from quiet breathing to performance breathing:

"At rest, depending on their size, anywhere from 5.5 to 6 liters in a minute. [...] That might go up to 180, 190 liters of air in and out of their lungs in a minute."

She also points to a second problem that matters in execution sports. The same accessory muscles used to breathe harder are also used for upper-body stability and power. In basketball, kayaking, grappling, or firearm work, the brain may end up choosing between breathing and precision when mechanics are poor.

What you should take away

• Chronic upper chest breathing lowers your performance ceiling before the event even starts.
• Efficient diaphragmatic breathing gives you more room to increase ventilation when intensity rises.
• Overbreathing can change awareness, coordination, and decision-making when pressure is high.
• Sports and jobs that rely on upper-body precision are especially sensitive to poor breathing mechanics.

If you want to hear Vickery unpack how breathing mechanics cap performance, listen to the full episode on Youtube.

How can you lower your arousal state in 5 to 10 seconds?

Once breathing has set the ceiling, the next question is how to recover when you feel yourself crossing it. Vickery's answer is a fast reset that combines physiology and attention at the same time.

She describes pressure failure as crossing a threshold where the smart brain starts to go offline. People lose peripheral vision, miss auditory cues, tighten up physically, and stop using the skill they already trained. In that moment, the goal is not to become passive. The goal is to come back under threshold quickly enough to think clearly again.

Vickery calls this a get-out-of-jail card. It starts with a longer exhale to slow the heart rate, then two breaths into the diaphragm, then a change in gaze toward the horizon or the visual periphery, followed by a front-loaded thought tied to opportunity, gratitude, or curiosity. The sequence works because it gives the nervous system several signals that the threat level has dropped.

As Vickery explains, the technique is simple enough to train until it becomes available under load:

"A little technique you can learn to do in 5 to 10 seconds [...] is a breath out and we want to lengthen the exhale, ideally then taking 2 breaths down into the diaphragm. [...] Also to look up at the same time, look onto the horizon or just be aware of what's in the periphery and have a front-loaded thought that is something to do with opportunity or gratitude or curiosity."

The thought piece matters because fear framing narrows the system. A cue such as do not miss, do not fail, or do not blow this often tightens breathing and pushes arousal even higher. Curiosity opens space. Opportunity gives the brain a task. Gratitude can interrupt panic. Those are not slogans. They are tools for shifting state.

What you should take away

• A fast reset works best when it combines breathing, vision, and thought in one sequence.
• A long exhale followed by two diaphragmatic breaths can help pull arousal back under threshold.
• Looking up or widening visual attention can counter the tunnel vision that comes with pressure.
• Opportunity, gratitude, and curiosity cues usually work better than fear-based self-talk.

If you want to hear Vickery go deeper on rapid downregulation under pressure, listen to the full episode on Youtube.

What creates buffer before a high-pressure moment?

That in-the-moment reset helps. The bigger performance edge usually comes earlier. Buffer is built when your baseline stress stays low enough that the normal rise in arousal at go time does not push you over the line.

Vickery frames this through cumulative load. Sleep deprivation, chronic pain, traumatic brain injury, high sugar intake, heavy caffeine use, uncertainty, fear of failure, and fear of letting other people down can all push the system upward before performance starts. One factor alone may be manageable. Several stacked together over days or weeks can change how you breathe, think, and react.

She makes the point directly:

"Any one of those things on their own is not a problem, but it's how many of those things have you got stacked on top of each other and over what period of time."

This is where the WHOOP app becomes useful as a pattern-recognition tool. Vickery and Holmes both push against the habit of overreacting to isolated spikes. Weekly patterns across Recovery, sleep consistency, and strain and stress usually say more about readiness than one tough practice or one elevated heart rate during competition.

Repetition alone does not always solve the problem. A player, operator, or executive can get comfortable in one familiar arena and still lack real control over arousal. Vickery's point is that true readiness travels. If you can only stay composed in the environment you already know, the skill has not fully generalized yet.

What you should take away

• Buffer is built before the event through sleep, fueling, pain management, and lower cumulative stress.
• One bad day rarely tells the full story, but a bad week often does.
• Trends in the WHOOP app can help you see whether stress is stacking before performance drops.
• Familiarity with one setting is useful, but portable regulation is the stronger skill.

If you want to hear Vickery unpack buffer in the system and cumulative load, listen to the full episode on Youtube.

How do coaches and teams shape pressure responses?

Once you zoom out from the individual, the environment becomes the next lever. Coaches, leaders, travel plans, communication style, and the strongest emotional tone in the room all shape whether people settle or spiral.

Vickery uses the language of co-regulation. People read posture, sighs, facial tension, and tone almost instantly. A leader who carries visible stress into the room can raise arousal without saying much at all. She shares one small example of a coach whose frequent sighing was being interpreted by an athlete as frustration, even though that coach had no idea it was happening.

Her most useful framing is brief and memorable:

"The strongest energy is going to set the state."

That applies in both directions. Vickery describes working with a professional coach who used to lose control at halftime. After learning to reset himself, he entered a locker room with his team trailing badly, stayed calm, skipped the rant, and gave only three clear instructions for the second half. The team settled and came back to win. The point is not motivational theater. Clear direction lands better when people are regulated enough to absorb it.

This also reaches beyond the coach on the sideline. Front-office decisions, flight timing, mixed messaging, and fear-driven communication can add avoidable load to the people who have to perform. The best environments connect regulation, team culture and winning traits, and mental performance instead of treating them as separate departments.

What you should take away

• The emotional tone of a coach or leader changes athlete physiology before the next play starts.
• Clear instructions work better than emotional overload when a group is already over threshold.
• Small behaviors such as sighing, facial tension, and rushed speech can raise stress across a team.
• Team performance depends on environment design as much as individual toughness.

If you want to hear Vickery go deeper on co-regulation and coaching behavior, listen to the full episode on Youtube.

The bottom line

• Chronic upper chest breathing lowers performance capacity by limiting how efficiently you can scale breathing under load.
• A 5 to 10 second reset can lower arousal quickly when it combines a long exhale, diaphragmatic breaths, wider vision, and an opportunity-focused thought.
• Fear-based self-talk often tightens breathing and narrows attention before a technical mistake happens.
• Pressure readiness is usually decided by cumulative load from sleep, pain, diet, stress, and uncertainty before the event begins.
• Weekly trends across Sleep, Recovery, and strain are more useful than one isolated data point when you are tracking pressure readiness.
• Familiarity with one arena is helpful, but true regulation shows up when you can settle yourself in a new environment too.
• Coaches and leaders change team physiology through tone, body language, and clarity under stress.
• Pressure responses are predictable and trainable, and performance reviews should include state control along with skill execution.

Frequently asked questions about things discussed in this episode

How does WHOOP help you spot rising stress before performance drops?

WHOOP helps you spot rising stress by showing patterns across Sleep, Recovery, strain, resting heart rate, and HRV before one bad performance turns into a longer trend. Your weekly pattern usually tells a clearer story than one workout or one game.

What does WHOOP measure that relates to arousal and recovery?

WHOOP measures signals that reflect how your body is handling load, including heart rate, HRV, respiratory rate, sleep, and strain. Those trends can show whether buffer is building or whether stress is stacking.

How can WHOOP members use the WHOOP app to test a breathing or pre-performance routine?

WHOOP works best for routine testing when you keep one habit consistent and watch how Sleep, Recovery, and next-day strain tolerance respond. Your own data can show whether a routine is settling you or adding friction.

What does WHOOP do for coaches or staff trying to reduce injury and burnout?

WHOOP gives coaches and staff a clearer view of cumulative load, recovery trends, and sleep habits so training, travel, and communication can be adjusted earlier. Team performance usually slips after overload has been building for days, not minutes.

How does WHOOP fit with Vickery's idea of buffer in the system?

WHOOP makes buffer visible by showing whether recent sleep, Recovery, and strain are creating room for pressure or narrowing it. Your body usually handles big moments better when baseline stress is lower.

What does WHOOP show when a hard practice feels easy but performance is still flat?

WHOOP can show that a flat performance often sits on top of weak recovery, short sleep, or accumulated strain even when a single session felt manageable. Your trend line is usually more useful than one subjective impression.

For people who perform under pressure, the WHOOP app is most useful when it shows whether your daily habits are building the buffer Vickery describes or shrinking it before the next big moment.