Looking to calm your nerves? Here are 4 tips from Super Bowl champions

While running out onto the field for the first time before Super Bowl LIV’s kickoff in 2020, Chiefs punter Dustin Colquitt remembers looking up and seeing a piece of trivia on the video board: If the Chiefs win today, Dustin joins his dad, Craig, and brother, Britton, as a Super Bowl champion.

It immediately triggered a bout of overthinking and anxiety.

“Oh crap,” Colquitt thought.

To calm his nerves, he used a simple remedy: a series of breathing exercises on the sideline.

People everywhere deal with similar surges of pressure or nervousness. The professional football players who have made it to the Super Bowl are experiencing those same feelings, but on a public stage, elevated for tens of millions to see. The extremeness of it all forces them to figure out how to conquer those emotions in ways we can also apply ahead of a big job interview, a public speaking engagement or any pressure moment in our lives.

Here are four tips on how to quiet your mind from Super Bowl champions.

Find a helpful distraction

In the middle of Super XLIX in 2015, Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin felt some anxiety creeping in. It was weird to him, after entering the game with what he called an “overwhelming sense of confidence.” But he knew where the anxiety was coming from.

“This may sound silly, but as a receiver, the confidence of being able to catch the ball sometimes leaves you,” he said.

It’s why he had practiced a few techniques ahead of time, one of which he started to do at that moment.

He closed his eyes and stuck his hands out in front of him. Then, using his thumb, he touched each one of his fingertips, one by one, and repeatedly tapped his fingers.

“What it was doing was re-grounding me in that moment,” Baldwin explained. “Kind of helping me get in tune with my body. The simple touching of your fingertips, that sends electro signals throughout your body.”

It also serves as a distraction, something Baldwin knew he needed in pressure-packed moments. Only an hour or two earlier, he preoccupied himself on his phone with his favorite strategy game at the time, “Galaxy On Fire: Alliances.”

“I could distract my mind and go to something that was a little bit more controllable and lighthearted,” he said.

Other Super Bowl champions, like Colquitt, had similar approaches with music. Colquitt said while some of his teammates got ready for big games with loud hype music, he preferred the calmness of Bob Marley and Jimmy Buffett. The consistency of his music selections also helped ease his mind.

“I knew that if I listened to my music, it felt like just another game, just another opponent,” he said.

Breath work can quickly recalibrate you

While preparing to play in the Super Bowl, Colquitt took a moment for himself, like he did before every game, to simply focus on his breathing. With indie rock music still humming in his ears, he started with the number 13.

For 13 seconds, he held his breath, then released his breath slowly for another 13 seconds. Counting down by increments of three, he held his breath for 10 seconds and released it for another 10 seconds. Until he got down to three.

“It would start kind of slowing my heart rate down,” Colquitt said. “In between that and the music, it kept me at a calm or a peace. Just kind of took the nerves out of everything.”

Similarly, before former Steelers guard Willie Colon played in Super Bowl XLIII, he put on his uniform, listened to the song  “Closer” by Goapele on repeat and began to count.

“I would count to 10 and then from 10 go all the way to one and then go all the way back to 10,” he said. “Just counting and focusing on my breathing really calmed my nerves. That was something that always helped me.”

For Patriots cornerback Logan Ryan, breath work was not only helpful before pressure moments, but during them, too.

Ryan was in his second year in the NFL when he made his first Super Bowl in 2015, and even though the Patriots won, he wasn’t pleased with his mentality.

“I found myself playing it safe,” he said. “I didn’t want to be the reason we lost. I just wasn’t taking a risk because I knew what was at stake. I told myself I was never going to play a Super Bowl like that again.”

When he made the Super Bowl with the Patriots a second time, two years later, he resolved to not be afraid of the moment and play fearlessly.

By his third Super Bowl in the final year of his career, this time with the San Francisco 49ers in 2024, he said he was in the “most zen state he ever played a game.”

In large part that was because of breathing techniques he had learned to center himself. Through breath work, he mastered how to track his heart rate and drop it. On the bench during the game, and even on the field before plays, he used the technique to get into a relaxed state.

“Just let it go,” he said. “Don’t be afraid of making a mistake. I really just wanted to be in the moment, and I think the breath work really kept me in the moment.”

Both Ryan and Colon still use breath work to calm their minds before big meetings or broadcasting games.

Visualization can be powerful

Every night before a game, Seahawks linebacker K.J. Wright would take 10 minutes alone. No phone, no TV, just total silence.

For those 10 minutes he would play out the upcoming game in his mind.

“I’d talk to myself,” he said. “I’d say: ‘You’re going to make every tackle. This is what’s coming your way.’ Just bringing that energy to me, bringing that positive success to me. That was a freaking game-changer. I swear by that.”

Another Seahawks linebacker Malcolm Smith, the MVP of Super Bowl XLVIII in 2014, had a slightly different twist. While he prepared during the week for perfection, he also reminded himself before the game that imperfections are part of it and that was OK.

“You knew you were going to make a mistake; it’s not going to be perfect,” he said. “Don’t set the expectation that it’s going to go perfect. You’ll make a mistake, knock it out and just keep going.”

Embrace the big moment

Sometimes the immensity of an opportunity can overwhelm. Both Smith and Baldwin leaned into it.

Smith continuously reminded himself that the hype of the Super Bowl shouldn’t freak him out; it should excite him. He was calmer in that game than any other game he ever played in, he said.

“There was no imposter syndrome because we had proven that we deserved to be there,” Smith said. “Typically if you have a big day, it’s often because you earned that opportunity to be there. That helped me to calm down and be present.”

“Let the moment be the moment,” Baldwin said. “Enjoy the moment and be present with the moment, regardless of what comes in that moment. It’s a very powerful antidote to anxiety and doubt.”

Bruce Arians, who won a Super Bowl in 2021 as the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, just wanted to be himself. So he did what he always did the night before a game: a couple of drinks and a good night’s sleep. After all, he figured that had been good enough to get him to the Super Bowl.

“I never tried to change,” Arians said. “I tried to stay the same. Just keep the routine the same so there’s no more extra hype.”

(Photo: Grant Halverson / Getty Images)