How to Feel Confident Instantly (6 Fast Tactics Backed by Research)

If you want to know how to feel confident instantly, look at what you can do in the minute before the moment: walking into a meeting, standing up to speak, sitting down across from a date. Your heart is going and there is no time to rebuild your self-esteem. Psychologists have tested short tactics for that exact window, and the best of them take between ten seconds and two minutes.

How to feel confident instantly, starting with your exhale

The fastest physical lever you have is the exhale. In January 2023, Stanford researchers Melis Yilmaz Balban, David Spiegel, Andrew Huberman and colleagues published a month-long trial in Cell Reports Medicine. People did five minutes a day of breathwork or mindfulness meditation. The breathing groups had a bigger lift in mood than the meditation group, and the pattern called cyclic sighing, which stretches out the exhale, also lowered breathing rate the most.

Spiegel's instructions for one round:

1. Breathe in through your nose until your lungs are about half full.
2. Take a second, shorter breath in through your nose to fill them.
3. Breathe out slowly through your mouth, about twice as long as both inhales together.

Three rounds take under a minute. Nobody in the hallway will notice.

Call the nerves excitement

Most people tell themselves to calm down. Alison Wood Brooks at Harvard Business School tested that against the opposite, and the results were published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (online in December 2013, in print in 2014). Her reasoning was that anxiety and excitement are both high-arousal states, so relabelling the feeling is easier than switching it off.

In one study, 113 people sang karaoke on a Nintendo Wii after saying a single sentence out loud. Those who said I am excited averaged 80% on pitch, rhythm and volume. Those who said they were calm, angry or sad averaged 69%. Those who said they were anxious averaged 53%. In a second study, 140 people gave a speech that they were told would be videotaped and judged. The ones who said I am excited beforehand spoke for longer and were rated more persuasive, more competent and more relaxed than the ones who said I am calm. In a timed maths test with 188 people, the excited group scored 8% higher and reported more confidence in their maths ability.

Say it quietly, out loud, right before you go in.

Stand big for a minute

Power posing became famous after a 2010 study by Dana Carney, Amy Cuddy and Andy Yap. If you want an instant confidence boost you can do in a corridor, it is the obvious one to try. The clearest finding is about feeling. In 2018 Cuddy, Jack Schultz and Nathan Fosse analysed 55 studies in Psychological Science and found the strongest evidence for effects on emotions and how people feel about themselves. Their summary is that an expansive posture leads people to feel more powerful.

In practice, take up space for a minute or two before you walk in. Feet apart, shoulders back, hands on hips or arms wide. Then carry some of it into the room, chin level and phone in your pocket.

How long should eye contact last?

About three seconds. In 2016 Nicola Binetti, Isabelle Mareschal and colleagues tested close to 500 visitors to London's Science Museum, from 56 countries, with videos of an actor looking straight at them. The average preferred length of eye contact was 3.3 seconds (published in Royal Society Open Science). Hold someone's eyes that long as you say hello, then look away naturally.

Decide what you'll do in the first 10 seconds

Pick one concrete action for the opening ten seconds and rehearse only that. For a meeting it might be "walk in, shake hands with the person nearest the door, say their name." For a pitch, your first sentence word for word. For a date, the first question you will ask.

How to get confidence instantly with a pre-moment ritual

Tennis players bounce the ball the same number of times before every serve. In a 2016 paper in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Brooks and her colleagues had people sing "Don't Stop Believin'" in front of another person. Those who did a short ritual first (drawing their feelings, sprinkling salt on the drawing, counting down out loud, throwing the paper away) had lower heart rates, reported less anxiety and sang with better pitch and volume than those who did nothing. In a follow-up, the steps worked less well when people were told they were just "a few random behaviours," so the meaning you give the act counts.

A good ritual is short and the same every time. The one we carry is a spray.

One spray before you walk in

Dragon Breath is a mouth spray made from chilcuague (Heliopsis longipes), a root from Central Mexico also called golden root. One spray and the taste is earthy and a little peppery for a second. Within about ten seconds a bright electric buzz spreads across your tongue and mouth, your mouth floods, and a clean, fresh feeling lingers after it. For a moment it takes all your attention, and you come out of it switched on and present, in the zone for whatever is next.

The moments people reach for it are the moments this article is about. Outside the meeting room door. In the car before a pitch. On the walk to a first date, or standing on the gym floor before the first heavy set. Pair it with the rest of your ritual. One spray, three rounds of long exhales, I am excited, then your first ten seconds.

One customer, filmed moments after one spray, said "Definitely energized." Cheryl, a verified buyer who ordered the 3-pack, wrote "Great stuff! Love that there's an organic version of this."

The 50 ml bottle holds 250+ sprays and fits in a jacket pocket. The root is wild-harvested from growth zones the Mara team selects with the help of local elders, then dual-extracted in organic solutions. The extract stays sealed in Miron violet glass, which keeps light and air off it, with no loose root or powder to carry. A few sprays is all it takes. For the history of the plant and where it grows, read our full guide to chilcuague, the golden root of Central Mexico.

Dragon Breath – Chilcuague Extract

50 ml mouth spray. Wild-harvested chilcuague root, dual-extracted. 250+ sprays.

Add to bag

Start with one spray. Once you know the feeling, you can go up to five. If your moment is a talk or a presentation, our list of what to do before a presentation covers the hour before as well.

Dragon Breath considerations

The recommendation on the product page: if you're pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or allergic to plants in the daisy family, ask your doctor before using it.

Questions people ask

How can I feel confident fast before a meeting?

Do three rounds of cyclic sighing, say I am excited under your breath, and decide the one thing you will do in the first ten seconds. All three fit in the two minutes before you open the door.

Does power posing work?

A 2018 analysis of 55 studies by Amy Cuddy and colleagues found the strongest evidence for effects on how people feel, with expansive postures leading people to feel more powerful.

Is it better to calm down or get excited before something nerve-racking?

In Alison Wood Brooks's studies, people who said I am excited sang more accurately, gave more persuasive speeches and scored higher on maths than people who said I am calm.

How fast does Dragon Breath kick in?

The buzz across the tongue and mouth arrives within about ten seconds of one spray, then your mouth floods and a fresh feeling lingers.