About Lizzie
Lizzie Benzik is a science writer, actor and maths tutor based in New York City. She studied biochemistry alongside dance before moving into science communication, education and the performing arts, and today spends her time writing about biology and psychology while teaching students from primary school through to postgraduate level.
That combination led to some fascinating conversations.
When we first met Lizzie at the Cambridge Neuroworks event, she immediately started talking about how LYEONS Heart could support actors experiencing stage fright.
But given Lizzie’s diverse background and experience, the conversation quickly grew beyond acting. We found ourselves talking about auditions, maths lessons, ADHD, Shakespeare, hospital volunteering and children sitting exams. Somehow, through all of those different stories, there was one common thread.
As the conversation unfolded, it became clear that every topic kept coming back to the same thing: people. Whether Lizzie was talking about acting, teaching or neuroscience, she was really exploring how our bodies shape the way we live, connect and cope.
“It’s like waiting for a job interview… except you’re about to bare your soul.”
One of the first stories Lizzie shared was about auditions.
She described standing outside the room with a group of actors, all waiting for their turn, all hoping for the same role.
“It’s very similar to being in the waiting room for a job interview, but even heightened because you’re about to bare your soul and show your artistic potential.”
It was such a vivid way of describing something many of us have probably felt in completely different situations.
A study published in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health found that nearly half of drama students experienced stage fright as a moderate or severe problem. Many reported that it affected not only how they felt before performing, but also their confidence and ability to perform on stage.
What interested Lizzie wasn’t simply that people feel nervous before stepping into the room. It was what that nervousness does to the body.
As heart rate increases and the nervous system moves into a state of high alert, thinking clearly becomes harder. Listening becomes harder. Responding naturally becomes harder.
Sometimes, she explained, you’re no longer showing people what you’re truly capable of because part of your attention is focused on managing what your body is doing.
Some performers are prescribed beta blockers, such as propranolol, to help reduce the physical symptoms of performance anxiety, including a racing heart, trembling and sweating. While they can be helpful for some people in certain situations, they primarily reduce the body’s physical stress response rather than addressing the thoughts or emotions behind anxiety.
Talking with Lizzie, we found ourselves wondering about what else might be possible.
As an actor, she wasn’t looking for a way to remove emotion from a performance. Quite the opposite.
She explained that acting often asks you to move through a whole range of emotions. One scene might require vulnerability, another excitement, another grief or anger. Those feelings are part of the performance.
What makes it difficult is when the nervous system becomes so overwhelmed that it gets in the way of accessing them.
For Lizzie, the goal isn’t to eliminate those feelings. It’s to feel able to move through them without becoming overwhelmed by them.
Teaching students has shown Lizzie the same thing
Alongside acting and science writing, Lizzie teaches students from the age of seven right through to postgraduate level.
As Lizzie spoke about teaching, she naturally began drawing parallels with acting. On the surface, an audition and a maths exam couldn’t seem more different, yet she often notices many of the same physiological responses in both.
Students frequently understand the material when they’re working together. The challenge often comes later, when they’re asked to apply that same knowledge under pressure.
Rather than seeing this simply as a learning problem, Lizzie often wonders how much of it reflects a change in physiological state.
“The ability to do that very much hinges on where your nervous system is at.”
Research is increasingly supporting this idea. Studies have shown that acute stress can make it harder to retrieve information from memory and reduce what psychologists call cognitive flexibility – our ability to adapt, solve problems and think creatively. Instead, the brain can shift towards more rigid patterns of thinking, even when the knowledge itself is still there.
That feels particularly relevant in the classroom. Working memory, which plays an important role in reasoning and mathematics, is especially sensitive to stress. Students may know the answer, but under pressure can find it much harder to access and use what they already know.
A little later she added,
“If you are in that fight or flight mode, you can’t play, you can’t improve, you can’t be spontaneous in the moment.”
Although she was describing actors, the same idea seemed to run through the way she thinks about learning.
Lizzie also spoke about how her own background in dance and theatre has shaped the way she teaches. She enjoys creating an environment where students feel able to experiment, ask questions and stay curious, rather than worrying about getting everything right the first time.
Perhaps that’s why she kept coming back to the idea of play. Whether she’s working with an actor or a student, she sees curiosity as an important part of learning. When the nervous system feels safe enough to explore, people are often better able to think flexibly, solve problems and build confidence over time.
Read more: Supporting students under pressure
Lizzie’s perspective on exams and learning reflects conversations we’ve had with students using LYEONS Heart in everyday life. Read how Ada used LYEONS Heart while balancing job hunting and studying, and how Trisha incorporated it into studying, commuting and daily routines.
One student changed the way Lizzie thinks about anxiety
During our conversation, Lizzie shared an experience from one of the students she tutors.
The student often described feeling anxious before maths tests. The interesting thing was that, during tutoring sessions, she understood the material well. She could work through the questions confidently and explain her thinking clearly.
Lizzie began wondering what was different about the exam itself.
Eventually, they discovered a surprisingly simple explanation.
Before every test, the student was drinking a large caffeinated drink.
Lizzie laughed as she remembered telling her,
“You don’t have anxiety. You’re having caffeine.”
The student really was experiencing a racing heart and all the physical sensations that came with it. The difference was that her brain had interpreted those sensations as anxiety about the exam.
For Lizzie, this is something she thinks about often when teaching. Young people are not only learning maths or science. They are also learning how to recognise the signals their bodies are giving them and what those signals might mean.
Helping students build that awareness, she felt, is just as valuable as helping them solve the problem in front of them.
An opportunity to better understand your own nervous system
Recently, Lizzie was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and began medication for the first time.
One of the things she didn’t expect was how much more aware she became of her own body.
Some ADHD medications can increase heart rate, which is why pulse and blood pressure are routinely monitored during treatment.
As she adjusted to the medication, Lizzie described working closely with her psychiatrist to understand those changes and recognise what felt normal for her.
Rather than seeing that process as something to get through, she spoke about it as an opportunity to better understand her own nervous system. The experience made her much more aware of how different physiological states can influence the way we think and feel.
It was another example of something that came up throughout our conversation. Whether Lizzie was talking about actors, students or her own experience, she often returned to the idea that understanding what our body is doing is an important part of learning how to support it.
She wondered whether helping people become more aware of those signals might be just as valuable as helping them respond to them.
Looking beyond acting and education
As we talked more, Lizzie began thinking about all the different places where she could imagine LYEONS Heart being useful. She spoke about actors preparing for auditions, athletes before competition, students sitting exams and even children waiting to go into surgery. Although the situations were very different, she saw something they all shared: moments where the body can become overwhelmed before the mind has had a chance to catch up.
Each example was different, but they all had something in common. They were moments where the body can become overwhelmed before the mind has a chance to catch up.
One example came from Lizzie’s own experience volunteering in a New York hospital with patients experiencing hospital delirium. She explained that, even when patients appear unresponsive, volunteers are encouraged to spend time with them. They talk to them, play music, gently hold a hand or rest a hand on their shoulder.
Then she said something beautifully simple.
“The brain is still active.”
It was a reminder that connection isn’t always about conversation. Sometimes it’s about presence. Sometimes it’s about familiar sensory experiences that help people feel safe and supported during difficult moments.
For Lizzie, that opened up an interesting question. Could a familiar rhythm become another way of supporting people through moments that naturally feel uncertain or overwhelming, whether that’s before surgery, during rehabilitation or in everyday life?
Building a better understanding of what helps them feel more regulated
As our conversation came to a close, Lizzie reflected on what had interested her most about LYEONS Heart.
“It is an intervention that only has the potential to do good… there are no negative side effects. It can only help.”
What stood out wasn’t that she saw it as a replacement for therapy, medication or professional care. Quite the opposite.
She spoke about it as another way of helping people become more aware of their own nervous system. A way of noticing how their body responds in different situations and, over time, building a better understanding of what helps them feel more regulated.
That idea seemed to run through our entire conversation.
Whether Lizzie was talking about an actor walking into an audition, a student sitting a maths exam, or her own experience of learning a new baseline after an ADHD diagnosis, she kept returning to the same thought.
Understanding our nervous system is an important part of learning how to work with it.
Shaping LYEONS with our users
Throughout our conversation, Lizzie’s positivity was impossible to miss. She has a way of looking for opportunities where others might see obstacles, approaching challenges with a thoughtful, problem-solving mindset and a genuine sense of curiosity. Her enthusiasm for learning and for the research and development taking place was infectious. We left the conversation smiling, and that feeling stayed with us for the rest of the day.
One of our favourite parts of building LYEONS is hearing from the people using LYEONS Heart.
Every day, we receive WhatsApp messages, emails and voice notes from our users sharing their experiences. Sometimes it’s a quick message after discovering a rhythm that helped during a stressful commute. Sometimes it’s an email describing how LYEONS Heart became part of a bedtime routine or supported someone through a difficult day. Other times, it’s conversations over coffee, at events, or interviews like the one we had with Lizzie.
These moments are genuinely the highlight of what we do.
Every story gives us a chance to see LYEONS Heart through someone else’s eyes. Our community includes therapists, researchers, students, healthcare professionals, performers and people from many different walks of life. Each person brings a different perspective, and together those perspectives help us understand not only how people use LYEONS Heart, but also where it can have the greatest impact.
That’s why co-developing with our users has always been such an important part of LYEONS.
Every conversation helps us learn, refine, iterate and discover new opportunities that we might never have found on our own. Those insights continue to shape our research, our technology and the future direction of LYEONS Heart.
We’re incredibly grateful to Lizzie for sharing her story, and to everyone in our community who takes the time to share theirs.
Thank you for helping us shape the future of LYEONS. 💙
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