How to Psych Yourself Up for Work, a Workout or a Presentation

The quickest way to learn how to psych yourself up is to copy what has worked in studies. Say "I am excited" out loud before the thing that scares you. Coach yourself using your own name. Play music you already link with doing well, and repeat the same short routine every time so your body learns the cue. People use these before a heavy set, a shift and a speech, and each one takes less than two minutes.

Call it excitement

In 2014 Alison Wood Brooks published a set of experiments in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General under the title "Get excited: Reappraising pre-performance anxiety as excitement." Before each task, people said one short sentence aloud.

In the karaoke study, 113 people sang a rock song on a Nintendo Wii game that scored their pitch. Singers who first said "I am excited" scored 80.52% accuracy. Singers who said nothing scored 69.27%, and those who said "I am anxious" scored 52.98%.

In the speech study, 140 people gave a public talk. The "I am excited" group spoke for 167 seconds on average against 132 seconds for the "I am calm" group, and raters scored them as more persuasive and more confident. A third study used maths problems: 3.60 correct out of 8 after an excitement reappraisal, 2.94 after a calm one.

Brooks' explanation is that anxiety and excitement are both high-arousal states, so it is easier to relabel the racing heart than to switch it off. Keep the heart rate up and give it the better name.

Talk to yourself by name

Ethan Kross at the University of Michigan led a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in February 2014. Students had five minutes to prepare a speech on why they were qualified for their dream job. Some prepared using "I". Others used "you" or their own first name. Independent raters judged the own-name group's speeches as better, and that group brooded less about the speech afterwards.

A much larger test ran online with BBC Lab UK. Professor Andrew Lane and colleagues reported it in Frontiers in Psychology in 2016: more than 44,000 people played a timed game, split into 12 technique groups and a control group. Self-talk such as "I can beat my best score" lifted scores over the control group in every part of the task. The biggest gains came from self-talk and imagery aimed at the result or the process, such as picturing yourself beating your best score.

Put the two together. Say your own first name, then the target, out loud: "beat last week by one rep."

How to psych yourself up for a workout

Sport scientists call this "psyching up", and it has its own research file. A 2003 review in Sports Medicine by Tod, Iredale and Gill looked at mental strategies people use just before a strength task. Preparatory arousal, deliberately getting yourself worked up, came out on top for strength and muscular endurance, with imagery and self-talk behind it.

Music is the easiest way in. Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University London has studied music in sport for decades. He told NPR in 2011 that the preferred tempo for workout music sits in a narrow band of 125 to 140 beats per minute, and he called the Rocky theme, "Gonna Fly Now", about perfect for priming yourself before training.

• Pick one song for the walk from the car to the gym and use it every session
• Say your target for the first set out loud, by name
• Picture the last rep before you load the bar
• Finish your warm-up with a short, fast set so your heart rate is already up

If you're replacing a tub of pre-workout, we compared the options in our guide to natural pre-workout alternatives.

How to psych yourself up for work

A lot of people get to work early and sit in the car for a few minutes first. A thread in Reddit's r/DoesAnybodyElse was full of them: one person turns up 15 to 30 minutes before a shift and calls it a break, and another plays one last song to switch into a work persona.

The parked car works because it's a fixed spot between home and the job. Give those minutes a set order: one song, one sentence to yourself by name about the first task, and one physical cue to close it. After a couple of weeks, the cue on its own starts the switch.

Why we keep Dragon Breath in a pocket

The cue we use is a spray of chilcuague, a root from Central Mexico (Heliopsis longipes, called golden root or raíz de oro). Dragon Breath is that root, wild-harvested from growth zones the Mara team selects with the help of local elders, dual-extracted in organic solutions and bottled as a mouth spray.

One spray, and within 10 seconds you get a bright, electric buzz across the tongue and mouth. It tastes earthy and a little peppery for a second, then the tingle takes over and your mouth floods. You come out of it switched on and in the zone for whatever comes next, whether that is the first set or the walk to the front of the room. Then a clean, fresh feeling lingers.

That buzz comes from affinin (also called spilanthol), measured by HPLC at 6.9 to 8.5 mg per gram of root. Mexican ethnobotanists (Cilia-López and colleagues) record people chewing the root and cooking with it as a spice.

One customer, filmed on camera moments after a single spray, said: "Definitely energized." Another, on their very first spray: "Oh wow, the saliva flow."

It lives in your pocket or gym bag. A few sprays is all it takes, and a bottle holds 250+ sprays. Start with one spray and go up to five once you know the feeling. The extract stays sealed in Miron violet glass, away from air and light, which a bag of loose root or powder can't offer. Keep it for the moment before the work starts, after the coffee and before the first rep or the first meeting.

Dragon Breath – Chilcuague Extract

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

Add to bag

Before a presentation, rehearse the first line

If you need to psych yourself up for a presentation, the Brooks speech study is the one to copy. Say "I am excited" out loud just before you go on. In the corridor, coach yourself by name about the opening line (your name, then "slow down on the first slide"), then say that line once under your breath. Keep your water and the spray within reach, and use the spray a minute before you're called.

Dragon Breath considerations

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 do you psych yourself up when you don't feel like it?

Start with the body and let the mood follow. Put on one fast song, say your first target out loud by name, and start the warm-up or the first small task before you decide how you feel.

Is it better to calm down or get excited before a presentation?

In Brooks' 2014 speech study, people who said "I am excited" gave longer talks that raters scored as more persuasive and confident than people who said "I am calm."

What music should I play to get psyched up for the gym?

Pick songs you already know and link with training well. Costas Karageorghis puts the preferred workout tempo at 125 to 140 beats per minute.

What does Dragon Breath taste like?

Earthy and a little peppery for a second, then a bright buzz spreads across the tongue and mouth and your mouth waters. A clean, fresh feeling lingers after.