The problem is not that anxiety shows up. The problem is the advice candidates are often given. “Just be confident” and “Calm down” sound nice, but they are rarely actionable. They also imply that nerves are a flaw, which can add shame on top of pressure.

According to Chartered Occupational Psychologist Dr Laura Dean, it’s time to reframe this. Treat anxiety as information, as data, not danger. When you read it as data, you have more choice in how you respond. You can work with the feeling rather than fighting it.

This guide turns that reframe into practical steps you can use in law interviews, assessment centres, video interviews and timed written tasks.

The reframe that changes everything: anxiety is information

Anxiety is not your body telling you that something bad will happen. It is your body telling you something matters, or that something feels uncertain. In selection processes, your brain can mislabel the message “this matters” as “this is dangerous”. When that happens, the sensations of anxiety start to feel like a warning.

Try this instead:

- “My body is giving me data.”

- “This is a signal of importance, not a prediction of failure.”

- “I can use this energy.”

This is not positive thinking for the sake of it. It is a practical reframe that helps reduce the spiral where you notice symptoms, interpret them as threat, and then intensify the symptoms.

One of the most useful ways to think about it is this: anxiety and excitement are physically similar. The sensations do not automatically mean danger. Your interpretation matters.

How anxiety shows up in interviews (including the less obvious signs)

Most people know the classic symptoms: racing heart, sweating, shakiness, nausea. But in interviews and assessment centres, the less obvious signs are often the ones that derail performance because they feel personal.

Cognitive narrowing and brain fog

You might struggle to access words or feel as if your mind is blank. That can be frightening because it looks like “I am not prepared”. In reality it is often attention narrowing and turning inward.

Over-monitoring

A common pattern under pressure is self-monitoring: am I speaking too fast, too loud, am I sitting oddly, are my hands moving, do I look confident, do I sound competent. The more attention you spend monitoring yourself, the less attention you give to the question, the structure of your answer, or the next step in the exercise.

Sensory distraction

Things that are normally neutral can start to feel intense: an itchy suit, a tight collar, uncomfortable shoes, a chair that makes you perch. The body notices more sensations, and that attention pull can feed the anxiety loop.

The goal is not to judge any of this. The goal is to recognise your own pattern. When you can name your personal symptoms, you can choose tools that match them.

Why anxiety can reduce performance (and how the spiral starts)

A useful way to understand performance under pressure is to separate the task from the self.

- The task is: answer the question, solve the case, contribute to the group, prioritise issues, communicate clearly.

- The self is: “How am I coming across?”

Anxiety often shifts focus from the task to the self. When you start tracking your heart rate, your breathing, your posture, and the imagined judgement of the assessor, your cognitive resources get split. That is why people describe brain fog, blanking or stumbling over words.

The spiral usually looks like this:

1. You feel a symptom (heart rate spikes, mind goes blank).

2. You interpret it as threat (“This is bad, I am failing”).

3. You monitor yourself harder to control it.

4. Monitoring steals attention from the task.

5. Performance feels harder, which triggers more anxiety.

The practical takeaway is simple: you do not need to eliminate anxiety. You need to reduce the self-monitoring loop and return attention to the task.

In the moment: tools that turn anxiety into usable focus

In high-pressure legal recruitment moments, your toolkit should be simple, portable and practised. Critically, it should be your toolkit. Just because something works for someone else, it doesn’t mean it will necessarily help you. In this case it may distract attention as you begin to spiral and start thinking, ‘why can’t I use this technique properly?’  If a technique requires lots of thinking, it will compete with the task. Try some of these to see if they help you and reflect on what you already do that helps. 

A) Regulate the body first

Use the long exhale

When people feel anxious, breathing often becomes shallow with sharp intakes. A deliberate long exhale can create physiological changes that help settle the body. It also buys time.

A simple pattern you can use quietly is: inhale normally, then exhale longer than the inhale. Repeat once or twice.

Press your feet into the floor

Grounding through your feet can recalibrate bodily sensations and help you reconnect with the room rather than your internal monitoring. It is subtle and can be done anywhere.

Sit back in the chair

Many candidates perch forward because they are trying to look engaged. The downside is you feel physically restricted and you have less natural movement. Sitting back gives you space to breathe, shift slightly, and look composed without feeling trapped.

These are not magic tricks. They are ways to stop your body from dominating your attention.

B) Stop chasing the perfect answer

One of the fastest routes to panic is trying to craft the perfect answer in real time while judging yourself mid-sentence. A better goal is: give an answer with a clear structure.

Remind yourself:

- You do not need the perfect answer.

- You need an answer that shows your thinking.

In most law recruitment settings, assessors are watching how you reason, how you prioritise, and how you communicate, not whether you can produce a flawless script.

C) Use time-buying phrases that sound confident

A short pause is not failure. A short pause is composure, if you handle it well.

Practise a small set of phrases until they feel natural:

- “Let me take a moment to structure my answer.”

- “That’s a great question. I’m going to pause briefly and think it through.”

- “Before I answer, can I check I’ve understood what you mean by X?”

- “I have two examples I could use. Would you prefer one from work or from volunteering?”

- “I’m going to take a sip of water and then talk you through my thinking.”

Notice what these do: they name the pause without apologising, and they keep attention on the task.

D) Reframe the question out loud

If you feel yourself spiralling internally, pull your attention outward by restating the question. This forces your mind back onto the task and gives you structure.

Examples:

- “So you’re asking about a time I solved a difficult problem. I’ll answer with a situation, what I did, and what changed.”

- “You’re asking how I handle feedback. I’ll give one example and then what I learned.”

This technique is especially useful when your mind goes blank, because it gives you a runway back into an answer.