What Causes Performance Anxiety?
You’ve spent hours and hours practicing guitar in your room. You’ve spent every day training on the field ahead of the big game. You’ve memorized your work presentation like the back of your hand, but…
You still choke the day of the performance, game, meeting.
Why?
Why do we practice, prepare, and KNOW we are ready, but still struggle to perform when it’s most important? Why are we STILL cracking under the pressure when we know we are smart, talented, and capable?
Because it’s not just about what you know, it’s about what you can feel.
Does this sound like a familiar experience? — You thought you were ready for your big moment, but when you step on stage (or into the ring or up to the plate) your heart starts to race, you feel lightheaded, your breathing becomes shallow, and your stomach starts to turn. You were brave enough to get yourself through your performance, but you finish frustrated and disappointed because you know it wasn’t your best. Of course, how could it be when you can’t breath and you need to run to the bathroom every 5 minutes?
Your response to the intense stress of a performance is not just mental or emotional, it is physical. Everyone has a psycho-physical stress response pattern. In those little moments when a book falls and makes an unexpected loud sound or you thought there was one more step down the stairs and the floor comes up to you as a surprise, there is a habitual response that happens in those moments, even if you don’t notice it. You might be aware that you were startled, but did you feel your neck tighten? Did you notice that you held your breath? Probably not.
This habitual stress response, is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem comes when we get stuck in this stress response pattern or we get so used to moving with fear and stress built up in our body it that we can’t feel when all of those responses kick into overdrive during a highly stressful moment like an important performance. If we don’t know how we respond to stress or how to move through it, we will be overwhelmed by these sensations when the pressure is high.
What do you do about it?
Because the stress response is pyscho-physical, your practice needs to be pyscho-physical as well. You can’t gaslight yourself into being calm in moments of high stress or convince yourself into not caring when all you want is the big win! You have to improve your tolerance to those high stress moments with a somatic (mind-body) approach.
When I was in college and struggling to perform as an actor and singer, I was repeatedly told that I “wanted it too much” and “just needed to relax.” Unsurprisingly, this advice was not helpful. It wasn’t until I was introduced to the mind-body practice of the Alexander Technique that I realized that my poor performance was directly related to my psycho-physical response to the stress of all eyes on me.
Instead of just telling myself to calm down, through this new mind-body practice I had tangible objectives to help calm my nervous system and keep me in the moment. Learning how to stay connected to the ground and release tension in your neck, is infinitely easier than just trying to relax!
Somatic practices are much more popular today than they were ten years ago when I was introduced to the Alexander Technique. If you need modalities that prioritize trauma releases, I recommend you look into methods like Somatic Experiencing and EMDR. If you are interested in mind-body work and want to prioritize conquering your performance anxiety so you can show off all the skills you have worked so hard to obtain, I highly recommend you check out my High-Pressure Performance Coaching program. No matter the path you take, the first step is becoming more consciously aware of your mind-body connection, so you can actively participate in it.
You didn’t work this hard to drop the ball now.
You got this.
I believe in you.
