“Get out of your head” is advice that almost every improviser has heard at some point. It makes sense as a goal, but it skips over something worth looking at: what your brain is actually doing when you’re in a scene.
During the 2026 Winter Olympics, freestyle skier Eileen Gu gave an interview that got a lot of attention. A reporter asked whether she thinks before she speaks. Instead of brushing it off, Eileen gave a detailed answer about how she monitors her own thinking and has developed that as a deliberate skill.
What she was describing is metacognition, which means thinking about your thinking.
What’s happening in your brain during a scene
When you’re improvising, part of your brain is doing the scene. It’s listening, responding, building out the base reality with your scene partner. But another part is watching and monitoring, and that part is usually running commentary.
That commentary might sound like: “this scene is going well” or “I have no idea where this is going” or “I should have said something different back there” or “what’s the game?”
That second channel is the one people mean when they say “get out of your head.” The advice is about turning it off. The problem is that when you hear “stop monitoring,” you start monitoring whether you’re monitoring. That’s the brainception layer that makes things feel worse. And can potentially make improv even harder.
Two kinds of self-monitoring
Useful self-monitoring sounds like noticing. Your scene partner’s energy just shifted. You’ve been talking for a while and your partner needs more space, or this scene might be about status now. Anyway. These observations feed directly back into the scene, such as you notice something and it informs your next move. Over time, this kind of noticing becomes faster and more automatic… and that’s what “getting out of your head” actually looks like when it’s working.
Unhelpful self-monitoring sounds like evaluating. That was a bad choice. The audience isn’t laughing. I’m going to mess this up. What should I do next? These pull you away from the scene and into a loop that doesn’t give you anything actionable. They’re taking up cognitive resources without feeding anything back in.
Both of these feel like being in your head. The difference is where they take you.
Neurodivergent brains and the monitoring channel
For neurodivergent brains, the monitoring channel can run pretty intense. There are more neurons and synapses in some regions of the brain that are involved in self-monitoring. If you experience hypervigilance, social anxiety, or a nervous system that scans for threat, that channel may default to evaluation mode, which is looking for what’s wrong, watching for rejection, waiting for the thing that signals you’ve gone too far or said the wrong thing.
And this is ultimately a nervous system response. The brain is doing what it was designed to do under perceived threat. The issue is that a scene isn’t actually dangerous, but the nervous system might not know that. At least not yet, depending on where you are in your improv practice.
When you regulate your nervous system (doing whatever works for your brain) that monitoring channel can shift from scanning for threats to noticing. It’s the same channel operating at a different speed. You’re still self-aware, still watching a bit, but you’re watching for what’s interesting rather than what’s wrong.
This week’s episode includes a couple of exercises you can use to help you address this improv brain-ception!
Watch or listen to this episode
The Monitoring Channel: What Eileen Gu Taught Me About Improv
Mentioned in this episode
Podcast with bonus episode: https://improvupdate.com/your-improv-brain
E31 Get Out of Your Head:
- YouTube https://youtu.be/QtTu7SvUm-A
- Podcast and Article https://improvupdate.com/how-forgetting-can-help-to-get-out-of-your-head-in-improv/
Eileen Gu response: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-tbAaPXNeSg
Taskmaster: https://www.youtube.com/c/Taskmaster
Metacognition in improv series
The full series is now released. Here are the articles, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes. The playlists will be updated as the series is released.
Articles
Metacognition and improv: how to use your monitoring brain in a scene
ADHD, Autism, Improv, improv exercises, Neurodivergent, Neurodiversity, Solo improv, Your Improv Brain Show
“Get out of your head” is advice that almost every improviser has heard at some point. It makes sense as a goal, but it skips over something worth looking at: what your brain is actually doing when you’re in a scene. During the 2026 Winter Olympics, freestyle skier Eileen Gu gave an interview that got…
Podcast series
Episodes will be added to this list as they are added to the series. You do not have to listen to anything together, or in order… they all stand alone.
Video series
Episodes will be added to this list as they are added to the series. You do not have to listen to anything together, or in order… they all stand alone.
The Monitoring Channel: What Eileen Gu Taught Me About Improv
The Monitoring Channel: What Eileen Gu Taught Me About Improv
