💎 Rituals may have a benefit because they quell anxiety by giving sense of control

One study of free throws in basketball found that players were around 12.4 percentage points more accurate when they followed their personal routines before the shot than when they deviated from the sequence. Overall, the total success rate was 83.8 per cent with the exact routine, compared to 71.4 per cent without. 39 Superstitions and rituals can also boost perseverance and performance across a whole range of cognitive tasks, and the advantages are often considerable.

Excerpt from: The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life by David Robson