How to cope with choking when playing games?

You are experiencing choking — you are playing the game relying on subconscious timing and movements, which totally break down once you become sufficiently self-aware that, god damn it, you've tried this segment thirty times already and finally I made it oh god oh god no dammit let's try again uh let's try again better wtf why can't I even make the first jump now!

As the article explains, there are really two types of learning: implicit ("muscle memory") and explicit ("study"). These processes are different, rely on different portions of the brain and are independent of each other. Stress can, however, inhibit the basal ganglia - the brain part responsible for implicit learning and short term memory. When that happens, you've choked. It's not a matter of being good or bad, expert or newbie — actually, it only happens to those sufficiently experienced.

I would suggest doing a context switch whenever you feel like this, if possible. Go have a snack, drink something, call a timeout, watch a video on youtube then come back to the task. This should help resetting your mind, relaxing a bit and losing a little bit of the excess self-awareness that is the issue to begin with.

You may not be open to it, but I have a suggestion for learning not to do this.

Whenever you're doing well and start to get excited/panicky/nervous and you're thinking about that perfect score rather than just playing with your normal focus, quit right then and there. Cut it off as quickly as possible. This should help avoid any sort of adrenaline dependence as well as prevent you from "practising wrong". For any sort of practice you want to maximize time spent practising correctly and minimize time spent practising incorrectly to better train your brain and muscles.

I'm new here. I, too, have experienced "choking" like you describe, plenty of times. Indeed, specifically when I start consciously thinking I'm on some kind of high to unprecedented score run (especially a "full combo" in Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution), this is when that very fact tends to get to me and get in the way of me completing, in particular, a "flawless" run in any way. Over the years, I have learned to manage my temper better when this happens (so I don't throw video game controllers and whatnot at whatever that could cause damage), but I still have a tendency to "choke" in this way when this kind of score is on the line with little or no room for error.

One thing that I've found really helps is not to berate myself if I screw up. I think a primary symptom of this "choking" is that we get very angry at our screw-ups, and this makes it much easier for them to be seared into our memory when they happen, to come to mind whenever the relevant parts come up again. As such, I figure these kind of "chokes" will happen sometimes. Furthermore, in recent years I have moved away from "grinding" and restarting over and over again just for a particular score (whether personal record, "barely adequate" or anywhere in between.) In the past few years I have thought it more fun to play "live" where I specifically DON'T get to restart if I make a mistake - I simply have to salvage whatever I can get from there - it gets away from the "grinding" and repetition, and once I got over the periodic "bad" scores from this, the "good" ones ended up much more meaningful to me since they were all effectively "first try!"

I will say that alcohol helps me not think about such "meta-gaming" during the game itself in general. However, there is a careful balance to strike between such "calm" induced from alcohol, and drinking so much that you just aren't coordinated enough anymore. If nothing else, if you've been drinking, you can blame your screw-ups on the alcohol if you have any doubt you've had at all too much lol. Likewise, especially to, in a way, advocate for its worldwide legalization, cannabis can help a lot for many gamers without nearly the perception and dexterity impairment normally associated with alcohol!

Above all, I definitely relate to everything you are getting at, and seek to overcome this problem, for myself and others, as best I can.