How to Stay Calm at a Spelling Bee

Being nervous before a spelling bee is normal, and you don’t need to get rid of the feeling to spell well. A handful of simple tools have good research behind them. Take a few slow breaths before your turn. Tell yourself your racing heart is your body getting ready. Practice spelling out loud in front of people before the big day. Use the same routine every time you step up to the microphone. And if your mind goes blank, you can still ask the pronouncer questions and work the word out one piece at a time.

Why nerves happen

When something matters to you and people are watching, your body gets ready for action: your heart beats faster, your breathing speeds up and your stomach may flutter. A little stress can help. The American Psychological Association (APA) notes that short-term stress can push a child to practice for a recital (APA).

The problem is what stress can do to memory. A review of 113 studies found that stress just before or during remembering made memory worse (Shields et al., 2017). That’s the “blank” feeling at the microphone: you still know the word, but it’s harder to reach. Researchers studying high-stakes exams also found that worrying about a test and what’s riding on it can pull scores down (Ramirez & Beilock, 2011).

Tell yourself your body is getting ready

Most people think the best move is to calm down. In one set of studies, an overwhelming majority of people believed that. Yet the people who reframed their nerves as excitement felt more excited and did better at singing, public speaking and math than the people who tried to calm down. Something as small as saying “I am excited” out loud was enough to help (Brooks, 2014).

There’s also a payoff in believing the racing heart is on your side. People preparing for a graduate school entrance exam were told that this kind of arousal improves performance, and they scored higher on the math section than people who weren’t told, on a practice test and on the real exam (Jamieson et al., 2010). Community college students who got the same message right before a class exam had less math anxiety and higher scores (Jamieson et al., 2022). In experiments with US secondary and college students, a short online lesson taught two ideas: stress can fuel performance, and abilities can grow. It improved how students’ bodies and minds responded to stress (Yeager et al., 2022).

So when your hands feel shaky in your seat, try telling yourself, “My body is getting ready to spell.”

Slow your breathing

You can do slow breathing in your seat without anyone noticing. In a study of 122 Primary 5 students, taking deep breaths before a timed math test made the children feel less anxious and improved their scores (Khng, 2017). In another study, five minutes a day of cyclic sighing, a breathing exercise built around long, slow breaths out, improved mood and slowed breathing more than the same time spent meditating (Balban et al., 2023).

To try it, breathe in through your nose, then let the air out slowly so the out-breath lasts longer than the in-breath. Repeat a few times while the speller ahead of you is at the microphone.

Practice under pressure

In a lab study, people who learned material by taking practice tests remembered it just as well under stress. People who had only restudied it showed the usual drop (Smith, Floerke & Thomas, 2016). For spelling, that means quizzing yourself out loud instead of only reading lists. Practicing a spelling bee at home shows how to set that up.

It also helps to get used to the feeling of pressure. In one study, expert basketball players practiced free throws for five weeks, some under conditions designed to make them anxious and some without. Only the players who had trained under pressure held their performance in a later high-pressure test, and a second experiment with expert dart players found the same (Oudejans & Pijpers, 2009). For a speller, that could mean standing up, facing family members playing judges and spelling against a timer.

Write your worries down

In classroom experiments, a short writing exercise about test worries, done just before an important exam, improved students’ scores. It helped most for students who usually got anxious about tests (Ramirez & Beilock, 2011). The APA also notes that writing about your feelings can reduce distress (APA). On bee morning, write down what you’re worried about. Then fold the paper and put it away.

Build a routine for the microphone

Athletes often go through the same steps before every free throw or serve. A 2026 review of 21 sports studies looked at ways to stop performance from slipping under pressure, including pre-performance routines, and found they generally helped (Zeng et al., 2026). A spelling routine might look like this:

1. Walk up, plant your feet and let out one slow breath.
2. Listen to the word and say it back.
3. Ask your questions. See what you can ask in a spelling bee.
4. Picture the word, or its parts, in your mind.
5. Spell slowly and clearly, then say the word again.

Steps 2 and 5 match Scripps’ suggested rules, which ask spellers to try to say the word before and after spelling it (Scripps 2027 Suggested Rules). Practice the routine at home until you don’t have to think about it.

What to do when your mind goes blank

First, breathe out slowly. You probably have more time than it feels like. Time limits vary by bee. At the 2026 national finals, spellers had 90 seconds per word (Scripps 2026 Contest Rules), while the 2027 Suggested Rules for local bees don’t set a limit. Your bee’s officials will tell you theirs.

Next, use your questions. Under the 2027 Suggested Rules, you can ask the pronouncer to say the word again, define it, use it in a sentence, and give its part of speech, language of origin and alternate pronunciations (Scripps 2027 Suggested Rules). Every answer is a clue. A language of origin can point you toward spelling patterns from that language, and a definition might reveal a Greek or Latin root you already know. Then break the word into sounds and build it one chunk at a time, as in how to spell words you don’t know.

How parents and teachers can help

The APA suggests a few ways adults can help kids handle stress. Talk with them about how you’ve coped with your own stressful situations. Let them solve their own low-stakes problems. When a child says something like “I’ll never get it right,” don’t just disagree: ask them whether it’s really true, or remind them of times they worked hard and improved (APA).

You can also pass on the “your body is getting ready” message, run practice bees with a real audience and protect sleep before the big day. The APA cites 9 to 12 hours a night for 6- to 12-year-olds and 8 to 10 hours for teens (APA). Helping your child prepare has more ideas.

When nerves are more than nerves

Jitters that fade once the bee is over are part of competing. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) says that if behavioral signs and symptoms last weeks or months and interfere with a child’s daily life at home, at school or with friends, you should contact a health professional. For younger children, often seeming fearful or worried is one of the signs it lists (NIMH). If you’re a speller and your worries feel too big, NIMH suggests talking to your parents, a school counselor or your health care provider (NIMH).