65 | A Game‑Day Warm‑Up for Anxiety

• Why does anxiety spike before a big moment?
• Why do you feel unprepared even when you know what to do?
• What if you need an anxiety warm-up the same way athletes need a game-day warm-up?

This episode is part of Jessica’s series, What Athletes Can Teach You About Anxiety, where she uses lessons from sports to explain pressure, confidence, self-doubt, and mental strength in everyday life. 

In this episode, Jessica Davis breaks down how athletes prepare before high-pressure moments and turns those lessons into a simple four-step anxiety warm-up called PREP. Athletes do not walk straight into the game hoping they feel ready. They move their bodies, calm their breathing, review the plan, and use routines to get their mind in the right place. 

If you’ve ever walked into something anxious, tense, distracted, or already convinced you were not ready, this episode gives you a simple system to use before pressure takes over. Jessica explains how preparation builds confidence, why breathing helps calm your nervous system, how to reset anxious thoughts, and how to mentally rehearse the first step instead of spiraling about the whole outcome. 

You’ll learn how to use PREP (Pause, Reset, Envision, and Prime) as a quick anxiety routine before school, work, practice, hard conversations, or any moment where your mind starts telling you to avoid, freeze, or shut down. 

What You’ll Learn in this Episode:

• Why anxiety spikes before big moments
• How athletes prepare their minds before pressure
• What the PREP framework is and how to use it
• How breathing helps calm your fight-or-flight response
• Why one believable phrase helps reset anxious thoughts
• How envisioning the first step lowers overwhelm
• How a simple priming routine tells your brain it is time to move forward

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⚠️ Disclaimer:  Block Out the Noise provides personal insights and practical stra...

Transcript

Why Athletes Never Wing It

Jessica N. Davis 0:07

No athlete walks straight from a locker room into the game and just hopes they feel ready. They have a warm-up. Their body gets moving, their breathing changes, coaches go over the game plan, and each player has a little routine they use to get their head in the right place. You and I might not be stepping onto a court or a field, but we have our own pressure moments. Trying to form a new relationship, walking into a test, answering an email you're scared of, going to a job, or practice when your anxiety is screaming to stay home. In this episode, I want to show you what athletes do before pressure hits and how to turn that into a simple four-step warm-up that you can use anytime anxiety starts to take over in the morning, before a big moment, or even right in the middle of a hard day.

Welcome And Free Anxiety Toolkit

Jessica N. Davis 1:04

Hi, and welcome to Block Out the Noise, a space to quiet the noise of anxiety, self-doubt, and overthinking. I'm Jessica Davis, licensed therapist, mindset coach, and the creator of the Courage Method. Athletes can teach us so much about how to not let our thoughts win. Before we jump in, go grab the anxiety survival toolkit in the show notes. Seriously, go get it. It's packed with coping skills, audio tools, a full breakdown of the Courage Method, and a guided meditation, and it's all completely free. Also, quick reminder this podcast is here to support and guide you, but it is not a replacement for talking to someone in real life. If you're struggling with your mental health, please reach out to a therapist. And if you're in crisis, contact emergency services or a local helpline. You don't have to go through it alone. All right, let's jump in.

The PREP Framework Explained

Jessica N. Davis 1:53

Think about how much time and energy athletes put into preparation. They don't just show up and hope they'll feel ready. Preparation is how they build confidence, it's how they perform at the highest level, day after day, game after game. And yet, when it comes to our own lives, it's one of the last things we think about. Why are we not seeing the value in something that the best athletes in the world swear by? Because when we show up unprepared, our mind starts to tell us we aren't ready. And we already know we don't feel ready. So that hole gets bigger and bigger. But when you have a routine, even a simple one, you feel more settled, more capable, more present. You walk into whatever is waiting for you with more confidence because you did something to get yourself prepared. Can you imagine always having a system that you could use in any moment? Something that calmed your nerves and helped you feel better no matter where you were or what you were facing. That's what this framework does. I promise you, if you use this daily, you will notice a difference. And if you don't, reach out for support. Because the best of the best have learned that this kind of preparation leads to progress and consistent growth. You can too. The framework is called prep. I built this after researching what the best athletes in the world actually do to warm up before game day. I wanted to take what they were doing and make it short, easy to remember, and achievable for real life. Because whether you only have five minutes or you have 20, you could make this work. Prep stands for pause,

Pause To Get Out Of Autopilot

Jessica N. Davis 3:33

reset, envision, and prime. P pause. The first thing you do is stop. It doesn't have to be a long period of time. Even 30 to 60 seconds is enough. The goal is to get out of autopilot and back into your body. This can look like three slow breaths, feeling your feet on the ground, or doing a quick check about what you see, hear, and feel around you right now. Simone Biles, one of the greatest gymnasts of all time, has said, before I even started the speech, I got there and took a deep breath. I find myself doing breathing exercises a lot, first through therapy, but I also do it on the competition floor if I feel my heart racing. And there's a real reason breathing works. When anxiety hits, your body goes into fight-flight. Your heart races, your thoughts speed up, and everything feels urgent and out of control. Breathing slows all of that down. It sends a signal to your nervous system that you are safe, that you are here, and that you can handle what's in front of you. It brings you back into your body before pressure takes over. So breathe first. And once your nervous system knows you're safe, your brain is ready to hear what comes next. R reset.

Reset The Story Anxiety Repeats

Jessica N. Davis 4:55

When anxiety takes over, your brain defaults to the same automatic script. I always mess this up. I can't do this. This is too much. It's not a choice, it's automatic. Anxiety has its own story and it plays it on repeat until you decide to change the channel. That's what reset means. You're not pretending everything is fine. You're not forcing positivity. You're interrupting the spiral long enough to give your brain something more helpful to hold on to. The best athletes of the world do this. Serena Williams wrote out what she called power thoughts and reviewed them during changeovers in her matches. Things like, my good thoughts are powerful. Lori Hernandez was 16 years old, stepping up to the balance beam at the Olympics for the first time, and she whispered to herself, You got this. Russell Wilson's father told him, Why not you? When everyone said he was too small to ever play professional football, he held on to that phrase his entire journey before anyone else believed in him. And marathoner, Desiree Linden, when races get painful and hard, repeats to herself, calm, calm, calm, relax, relax, relax. None of these are complicated. None of them require you to already feel great. They just require you to choose a different thought than the one anxiety handed you. Pick one short phrase you can actually believe and say it to yourself. You don't need to feel ready. You just need one thought that's a little more true than the one anxiety gave you. And that's enough to take you into the next

Envision Only The First Step

Jessica N. Davis 6:37

step. E. Envision. Your brain is about to walk into something hard. And anxiety already is running the full movie. Everything that could go wrong, how far away the finish line feels, or away it might not work out. Envision interrupts that. But here's what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean picturing the whole thing going perfectly. Even Michael Phelps, one of the most decorated Olympians of all time, wasn't taught to visualize the entire swim. His coach, Bob Fowman, taught him to concentrate on tiny moments of success, building them into mental triggers so that by the time Phelps hit the water, his brain had already been there. That's all Envision asks you to do. Picture just the first thing, not the whole outcome, not where you'll end up, just the very next step. If your room feels impossible to start, picture yourself walking in and picking up the first thing on the floor. If you're spiraling about where you'll end up working, picture yourself applying to a job. If you're scared of upsetting someone, picture yourself communicating in a healthy way that disarms the person. Olympic freestyle skier Emily Cook used to record herself talking through every step out loud before competing. I'm standing on top of the hill. I can feel the wind on the back of my neck. She started at the very beginning and moved through it step by step because that's where confidence comes from. Not from seeing the end, but from rehearsing the start. You've already seen yourself starting. Now it's for the last step.

Prime Your Body For Go Time

Jessica N. Davis 8:17

P prime. Priming is the last thing you do before you go. It's a physical action, something you do with your body that tells your brain, we are done preparing. It's time to commit. Anthony Davis described how LeBron James, before every game, takes his entire uniform and talking jersey, shorts, socks, shoes, everything, and lays it out perfectly on the floor. No one is allowed to touch it. And if someone does, he starts the whole process over. That's his signal to his brain. We are doing this now. While Holly Nadal does something even more intense. Before every match, he takes a freezing cold shower and he calls it the point before the point of no return. He says, I'm a different man when I emerge. I'm activated. Both of these athletes created a specific action that tells their brain it's time to stop preparing and start committing. That's what prime is for you. Maybe it's one specific song you play in this moment. Not on any playlist, not background noise music, just one song that tells your brain it's time. It could be splashing your face with cold water or standing up and shaking your whole body like a boxer, stepping into a ring. The key is that it's not something you do all the time. It's yours. It's specific. And the more you use it in these kinds of moments, the more your brain learns this means we're ready. Whatever it is, make it yours. Because once you do, you've crossed your own point of no return. Everything you just did in prep, the pause, the reset, the envision, that was your warm-up. Priming is the last switch you flip before you go take your one rep, your one small win. And if you haven't listened yet, go listen to the previous episode because that's where I break down the one rep and how to go get your one small win so you can start building momentum.

Recap PREP And What To Do

Jessica N. Davis 10:13

So that's prep. Pause. Get out of autopilot and back into your body. Reset. Choose one phrase that's more helpful than the one anxiety gave you. And vision. Picture just the first thing you'll do and prime. Do one action that tells your brain it's go time. You can run through this in five minutes or 20 in the morning, or before a hard conversation, before something that's been making you anxious, or right in the middle of a day that's just been difficult to get through. This is your warm-up. And just like every athlete who's ever stepped onto a court, a field, a pool, a track, you name it, wherever, you don't have to show up hoping you'll feel ready. You can do something to get yourself there. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you haven't yet, please leave us a review. I would love it if you took two minutes to do that. It helps more people find this channel and get support for anxiety. Thank you so much for being here. Until next time, keep moving forward. Trust yourself and never forget you have what it takes to block out the noise.