How to Deal with Performance Anxiety

No matter how long you've performed as a musician, you're guaranteed to have dealt with performance anxiety in some form or another. While it is almost impossible to completely rid ourselves of this, we can learn to work with it.

Use these tips below to help ease your performance anxiety:

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Tip #1 - Know the signs

There are three types of anxiety: somatic, cognitive, and affective. Another way of saying this is that we can have physical anxiety (somatic) where we experience a pounding heart, tight muscles, or clammy hands, mental anxiety (cognitive) where we have self-doubt, thoughts of failing, or loss of focus, and emotional anxiety (affective) where we feel fear, panic, or apprehension. If you walk on stage and experience these or similar symptoms, congratulations - you're having performance anxiety.

Tip #2 - Understand the why

In order to deal with our performance anxiety, we have to understand why it's happening. Oftentimes, we go into a form of fight or flight when we walk on stage. Our body is identifying that there is some sort of danger and triggers a surge of adrenaline to help us either fight or flee from that danger. While this physical response is extremely helpful when we're ACTUALLY in danger, performing isn't life or death (thank goodness). Unfortunately, though, anxiety is a reinforcer; if we feel anxious about something and we avoid it, this will only heighten the anxious response in the future. Instead, we want to remind ourselves that we are safe on stage.

Tip #3 - Put yourself in the audience's shoes

When many musicians walk on stage, one of their primary fears is about the audience. What are they thinking about me? What if they don't like me? What if I make a mistake in front of them? It brings me great pleasure to tell my students one of the most important things I realized as a performer: audiences are stupid. That's right, the average audience has almost no idea when a performer makes a mistake - so long as the performer doesn't advertise it. Our mistakes feel magnified when we're on stage, but they typically aren't obvious to the audience. Perhaps a kinder way of looking at this is that audiences are also inherently rooting for the performer. As an audience member, I have NEVER wanted a performer to do badly. I'm always encouraging them silently in my head.

"Stage fright is my worst problem. A voice is very intimate. It's something of your own. So there's always this fear, because you feel naked. There's a fear of not reaching up to expectations." – Andrea Bocellli, opera singer

Tip #4 - Burn off excess adrenaline

While it's great to address performance anxiety logically, we also need to look at our physical symptoms caused by the surge of adrenaline in our body as the fight or flight instinct kicks in. Adrenaline is helpful as it can sharpen our physical and mental state. Too much can impair us, though, prompting an increase in heart rate, quickened breathing, and shaky hands (also known as every instrumentalist's worst enemy). An easy way to help with this is to do something physically challenging shortly before going on stage. This could be a set of pushups, jumping jacks, running in place, whatever! The idea is to burn off some of the excess adrenaline right before performing so that you are left with enough to help keep you sharp but not enough to impair your performance.

"Grounding techniques can be anything that brings your attention to the present. When the brain is experiencing a threat (whether it's perceived or actual), it affects the nervous system similarly as it activates our threat response. Grounding techniques allow for the body to calm itself so that it sends the signal that there isn't an actual threat present." -Joanna Filidor, LMFT

Tip #5 - Practice grounding techniques

In addition to ditching some of the excess adrenaline, we can calm some of our anxious symptoms through grounding exercises. These exercises can help performers reduce their anxiety by regulating their emotions and focusing on the present. Certain grounding techniques work better for some than others, but here are a few of my favorites:

• Inhale on a count of five second, hold your breath for a count of seven seconds, and exhale for a count of eight seconds. Continue to do this for as many rotations as you'd like.

• Inhale on a count of four seconds, then immediately exhale on a count of eight seconds. Continue to do this for as many rotations as you'd like.

These breathing exercises engage our nervous systems. When we breath in, we engage the sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight, flight, and freeze. When we breath out, the parasympathetic nervous system, nicknamed the "rest and digest" system, is engaged. It can help slow our heart rate and conserve energy.

• Pretend that your body is filled with cubes of jello, and they're at a social event. All of the cubes of jello want to meet each other. Start by shaking your left leg, letting all of those cubes of jello meet each other. Proceed to do the same for all of your body parts. Finish by making yourself yawn with your tongue out.

If you think this last one feels silly, you're right. What it also does, though, is creates a sort of reset for our bodies. You can see similar reactions to stress in humans (think of a toddler during a temper tantrum) and nature (whenever my dog leaves the vet, she shakes herself all over).

Tip #6 - Talk to a licensed professional

If you find that working on these tips isn't enough to help offset your performance anxiety, there may be more going on than meet's the eye. Many mental health conditions will exacerbate performance anxiety. At this point, it's a great idea to seek advice from a licensed mental health professional.

Take a bow!

Learning to make music with performance anxiety can be a lifelong process. Like all journeys, this is about progress, not perfection. Every time you walk on stage, you are sharing a gift with the audience, something you've worked hard on for weeks, months, or even years. The audience is rooting for you, so the least you can do is root for yourself.