Anxiety can both positively or negatively affect your performance, depending on how much anxiety you have. If you have too much anxiety such as having panic attacks, then your performance is so impacted that you do not perform well at all. On the other hand, if you have too little anxiety, to the point where you barely have a pulse and your body is just idle, then you also will not perform well.
In order to have optimal performance, you need optimal levels of anxiety. Moderate levels of anxiety will get your heart pumping, get your brain working, get your attention and focus, and prepare your body for action just enough so that you can perform well. See the following inverted-U graph on how anxiety and stress affects performance:
So if you have too little anxiety (comatose) or if you have too much anxiety (panic attack), then you will not perform well. If you want optimal and excellent performance, you need moderate levels of anxiety.
