Stage fright and Performance Anxiety
Stage fright, nerves or performance anxiety is a debilitating fear that if left
can have a detrimental effect on a performer’s career. The good news is that stage fright, although it may seem impossible to believe, can be overcome in as few as 8-12 one-hour sessions.
How is this so?
Stage fright, nerves and anxiety are natural reactions to performance. As the adrenaline pumps through our bodies, we can feel ‘butterflies’, sweaty palms, shortness of breath, and palpitations, or sometimes we will just ‘freeze’, or get ‘mental blocks’. These are all symptoms that show us that we have activated our fight or flight response. Just as you are about to perform, your mind may negatively forecast that things could go wrong, or initiate a subconscious reaction, and so it steps in with the fight or flight response to try to force you to avoid the situation and run away, or stay and fight.
The part of the mind that manages fight or flight always refers to previous patterns of behaviour in order to get us through situations. So that is why just one bad experience can become the norm. Often we may have the same response every time we are about to go on stage, we are using that pattern of behaviour to help us
‘get through’ the situation at hand.
Sometimes, the part of your mind that manages fight or flight will encourage you not to go anywhere near a stage or podium – it will avoid the ‘threatening’ situation at all costs. That can manifest as loss of breath, feeling light headed, freezing on the spot, vomiting or even passing out.
The fight or flight response has been with us since primitive man and in all fairness has served the human race pretty effectively, but it’s a tad unhelpful when it gets out of control and comes between you and your next performance.
Performance anxiety or stage fright is governed by the part of our mind that is there to avoid us getting in situations that could be deemed threatening. One may ask how a performance be considered threatening? One of the triggers may be that we fear being judged. Any loss of confidence as a performer, knowing we are being judged, will cause our anxiety levels to rise and when our fight or flight mechanism deems it appropriate, it will step in, automatically, to avoid the situation, or attempt to manage it through anxious
responses.
So you can see that a strategy that uses psychological tools will go a long way to helping you overcome fear, control your anxiety, and conquer nerves so that you can walk on stage feeling in control.
My strategy as a Clinical Hypnotherapist is to lower your anxiety at the same time as reprogramming your mind at a consicous and subconsicous level to help you believe that when you are about to perform that you are in control. You will learn to relax, and focus your mind and enjoy your performance, through a variety of techniques using NLP, CBT, SFBT and hypnosis.
Hypnotherapy can help you control the situation, so it doesn’t have control over you, allowing you to focus on your music or your character, rather than focusing on yourself and your anxiety.
The good news is that thanks to the internet I can help you wherever you are via Skype. For a non-obligational chat about how you can control your stage fright please contact me on hello@annettesloly.com
