Your Improv Brain Metacognition and improv: how to use your monitoring brain in a scene
"Get out of your head" is advice that sounds reasonable until you try to follow it. When you do, you end up monitoring whether you're monitoring the scene. That's just another layer of the problem.
This episode covers metacognition (thinking about your thinking) and why it matters for improv. During the 2026 Winter Olympics, freestyle skier Eileen Gu gave an interview that went viral. A reporter asked whether she thinks before she speaks. She gave a detailed breakdown of how she monitors her own thinking in real time and treats that skill as something she's built on purpose.
What she described is directly relevant to what happens in your brain during a scene.
There are two kinds of self-monitoring happening when you're in an improv scene. One kind keeps you present and feeds your next move. The other pulls you into evaluation mode and uses up cognitive resources without giving you anything to act on. This episode breaks down the difference and explains why, for neurodivergent improvisers, the monitoring channel can run especially loud.
Exercises covered:
- Ground My Brain (partner exercise): practicing the act of noticing when your brain drifts and coming back to the scene
- Solo observation practice: building the habit of catching yourself in evaluation mode vs. curiosity mode outside of performance pressure
- Brain exhaustion drill (inspired by Will Hines): letting your planning brain run out before you start
References:
E31 Get Out of Your Head: YouTube / Podcast and Article
Eileen Gu response: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-tbAaPXNeSg
YouTube version of this ep: https://youtu.be/3YZ5wJ9Vvic
Article for this ep: https://improvupdate.com/metacognition-and-improv-how-to-use-your-monitoring-brain-in-a-scene/
Chapters:
0:00 The problem with "get out of your head"
0:56 Eileen Gu and metacognition
2:07 Your monitoring channel in improv
4:47 Useful vs unhelpful self-monitoring
6:46 Neurodivergent brains and the nervous system
9:04 Exercises intro
9:38 Partner exercise: Ground My Brain
11:44 Solo exercise
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This podcast was created, written, and is hosted by Jen deHaan. You can find her bio here.
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