Musicians, dancers, performers of all types know the signs: dry mouth, sweaty hands, butterflies in the stomach, racing heartbeat, trembling, shallow breathing, tense muscles, tenacious worry, agitation, restlessness. These are all familiar experiences for those with performance anxiety. We’re fine in the practice room, but when it’s time to walk out on stage, we feel at the mercy of some outside force that seems to grab ahold of us. All the reason and logic in the world doesn’t stand a chance against it (at least that was my experience). It causes us not to perform to our full potential, to choke at crucial moments (that was also my experience). It ties up so much of our attention in trying to fend it off, there’s not enough focus left over to devote to creating the magic that is art. And once we experience it, it seems to accompany us (and often get worse) every time we perform. It’s like being taken hostage for no good reason and with no apparent means of escape. What’s a performer to do?
Solutions
Some performers resort to beta blockers, medications that block the effects of adrenaline. While they do often reduce the physical symptoms, the drugs do nothing to address the underlying issues. Performers can then become dependent on the pills in order to feel good about what should be their most satisfying moments of expression. Sometimes dosages need to be increased because their effectiveness loses strength. Some feel the numbing qualities of the drug also numb the performance. Not a sustainable option, it seems to me.
To really get to the bottom of performance anxiety, it’s helpful to know a little about where it comes from. The home of all our worry and fear is the amygdala, a small almond-shaped part of our brain. It’s one of the oldest parts of our brain and is sometimes known as the “lizard brain.” Its job is to keep us safe, and it does this by alerting us to any and all possible dangers which causes our adrenal glands to send out a shot of adrenaline to fight off whatever is threatening us. A pretty cool system, especially when we were surrounded by life-threatening things like saber-toothed tigers.
But at this point in history we’re rarely faced with true life-threatening situations, the sort of circumstances the amygdala and adrenaline were designed for. Yet they’re still operating on the notion that real danger is everywhere. Our amygdala will often get triggered by things we know aren’t life-threatening, things like performing. Even though we know logically that performing on stage isn’t life-threatening, it can still feel that way. Our whole body has been trained to respond that way. No wonder stage fright seems to take us over. It’s based on some of the most primal instincts we have.
The dangers threatening pre-historic folk were relatively simple and focused on survival: food and security. Our lives today are a bit more complicated with all sorts of things to worry about: retirement, finances, getting into the right school or job, healthcare, and often what others think about us. These worries and fears we have today are based, at least in part, on real experiences in our past. Even though the past no longer exists, we create habits out of the fears and drag them with us into the present. We also project them into the future.
Fortunately my years as a classical musician, coupled with my work as a life coach, have helped me develop a powerful method for overcoming performance anxiety and the self doubt from which it stems.
The Method
The basic outline of the method is to first recognize our thoughts of anxiety and self doubt are just thoughts and have become habits, they’re not who we are. Second is to recognize the lies these thoughts tell us and learn more about what they want to protect us from. Then we create a new thought we want to replace the old. The last step is the one performers are already familiar with: practice. We need to practice the new thought until it becomes a new habit.
This is a very basic description of the process without much subtlety or depth and may sound too superficial to be useful. But it’s the way in which these steps are implemented that makes them so powerful. You can read more about this process in two blog posts, (How to Turn Your Inner Critic Into and Inner Cheerleader, Parts 1 and 2) and about how I came upon this method in The Gifts of Being a Musician. (I also have an online course to help you with the process as well. It’s called Conquer Self Doubt. Click the link for more information.)
Most importantly for now know that performance anxiety is a perfectly normal and natural thing even if it’s not very helpful. Also know that there is a way out of the hostage situation you may feel trapped in. As a performer, you already possess some of the skills necessary to escape. You only need to direct those skills in a slightly different direction. It is indeed possible to overcome performance anxiety.
© 2021. Paul Boehnke. All rights reserved.
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