Nice to see you all again.
I thought I'd try something a little different for this one.
Below is an essay I wrote whilst still at university this year on the subject of Performance Anxiety. This is a pretty personal thing for me to share with you all, as I have suffered from crippling stage fright since the age of about 7. As an aspiring opera singer, it has been the bane of my life. Exams, singing, public speaking (on that note, just normal speaking!), you name it, I've been anxious about it. And so when we had to write an essay at uni about any 21st century issue that had affected us, and combined our disciplines (mine being Music and Psychology) I was pretty sceptical about whether this was something I wanted to share with the lecturers at university. But eventually, my seminar leader (also a musician) convinced my to write this essay, and it was met with critical acclaim.
On the off chance that what I've written below helps any of you, my lovely readers, please do comment and let me know. I'd love to hear from you.
Cheers x
Philly
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An AutoEthnologic Approach: How
effective are current methods for dealing with performance anxiety?
The definition given in Collins’s English dictionary for performance
anxiety is “the stage fright that a person feels
when they are about to perform (a play, piece of music etc) in front of an
audience”[1] . When reading this, I felt as though
this definition was extremely limited in its description: it is an enormous
understatement of performance anxiety, and fails to explain that performance
anxiety does not simply relate to the performance of music but can affect many
other areas of life. I have suffered from anxiety in exams, and in public
speaking, but it can affect other disciplines in which performance is a regular
occurrence, such as in sport or acting. Since the age of eight I have wanted to
be an opera singer, despite my crippling stage fright, and have spent the last
seven years trying to overcome it. This essay aims to give an overview of the
evolutionary basis for performance anxiety,
and explore three different methods for lessening its impact: Visualisation,
Alexander Technique, and Biofeedback. I will also argue that a
personal approach to one’s anxiety is the only way to combat
it, as it is an inherently personal problem, with personal causes and personal
effects.
Anxiety is one of man-kind’s oldest and most effective mechanisms
for coping with life threatening situations[2], and therefore has its roots in
evolution. The anxiety we feel in emergency situations is a modern
manifestation of the ‘fight-or-flight’ response to danger, which is
instigated by the Central Nervous System (CNS). The CNS is split into two parts
- the sympathetic nervous system and its parasympathetic counterpart. The
sympathetic nervous system is the part of the body that controls the release of
adrenaline to trigger the ‘fight-or-flight’ response, and is tempered by the
parasympathetic nervous system, which counteracts some of the effects. “The sympathetic nervous system
prepares an animal to respond more vigorously and accurately during an
emergency”[3] but, unfortunately, the side effects
of this are that it increases one’s heart and breathing rate, causes one’s palms to sweat[4]
and
also causes trembling from the surplus adrenaline. Given that this evolutionary
mechanism was designed in order for us to decide whether the predator in front
of us could be successfully killed, or whether we should run away, it is clear
to see that this is now a defunct and outdated response to ‘danger’, and side effects of this defence
system make comparatively low-stress situations very difficult.
According to Dr. Lynne Bloxham, a general practitioner with
personal experience of performance anxiety, some of the most common causes of
performance anxiety are: early psychological trauma; familial, including
personality; stressful life events; and faulty learning[5]. The origin that correlates with me
from this list is the idea that anxiety is caused by familiar, or
specifically personality, traits. I can recognise that my anxiety is
caused by my ongoing worry that the audience will dislike my singing voice and
that I will make a fool of myself doing the thing that I so desperately want to
do as a career. My anxiety causes me to actively anticipate audience
disapproval, and worry that I have not done enough practice for the recital.
This leads to a sense of dread and self-doubt prior to the performance, and
most of the time, throughout it. At the worst moments of my anxiety, I have
experienced uncontrollable shaking, crying, and nausea, but in psychological
terms, anxiety instigates a voice in my head that is just repeating insults and
criticisms. In terms of the effect that anxiety has on the music itself, it is
remarkable how little rhythmic control one possesses when at the hands of
performance anxiety. It is important to remember that someone suffering with
performance anxiety may indeed not suffer from any of these symptoms but could
suffer from an entirely different set of responses, and they could be caused by
any set list of origins, not included in the list above.
There are a number of physical and emotional strategies
that are advocated by healthcare professionals for dealing with performance
anxiety, and I will discuss three in detail: Visualiation, the Alexander
Technique, and Biofeedback.
Visualisation is a strategy by which one visualises an upcoming recital,
or audition every day for two weeks prior to the performance. In order for it
to be most efficiently utilised, one must visualise every element of the
performance perfectly and in detail: clothing; the room in which the
performance will take place; where and how you will stand; how it feel to walk
into the room; how it will feel to walk out of the room; what you will play and
crucially that you will perform it perfectly. A major ‘pot-hole’ of this technique is that the majority
of the time, performers do not know and cannot predict what conditions they
will be playing with and what equipment will be available to them, which
clearly makes visualising it impossible.
Another strategy for combating anxiety is practicing the Alexander
Technique. The Alexander Technique is a very effective way of dealing with
performance anxiety that involves a series of exercises that help identify the
root of one’s anxiety and eliminate habits one may
have adopted as a result. This, as with many of the strategies for aiding
performance anxiety, has been introduced into the musical world from the branch
of Sports Psychology[6]. The Alexander Technique is a
way of releasing tension from every part of the body, in order to increase
feelings of relaxation which can then be applied to performance. One of the
biggest criticisms of Alexander Technique however, is that it is an
expensive process, with the “majority of students [coming] for a
few months, taking between twenty and forty lessons during that period”[7]. However, several of the exercises
can be done in the home.
Biofeedback, or applied psychophysiological feedback[8], is a method by which involuntary
physiological processes, such as increased heart rate, blood flow and
adrenaline secretion, when anxious, can learned to be controlled. It is
describes as a “therapeutic tool to facilitate
learning self-regulation of autonomic functions for improving health”[9], according to Psychiatric Times,
and is commonly used to treat General Anxiety Disorder. As with the Alexander
Technique, this is not a free process for helping to treat anxiety. It is
also, unlike the Alexander Technique, not a fully-recognised form of
therapy - but rather is a branch of homeopathy, and as a result there is
limited evidence that it makes any difference to anxiety levels.
I have suffered from performance anxiety for seven years,
and have tried countless methods to try and combat it, but it is only in the
last few weeks or so that I have created a method that consistently and without
fail reduces my anxiety prior to a musical performance. This process has
involved a regime of occasionally ruthless self evaluation after performances
combined with a self-devised, audible ‘pep-talk’ of all of my musical achievements, in
the remaining few minutes prior to the performance. I have found, that although
one should try as many different strategies for combating anxiety as they can,
whilst evaluating exactly what effect each one has on their performance, there
can be no generalised solution but analysing the fundamental causes of
one’s own anxiety, and combining, or
indeed creating from scratch one’s own programme of stress-relieving
exercises in relation to these causes. It is also worth noting that ultimately
the only way to combat one’s performance anxiety to such an
extent as to make it an asset, as opposed to a liability[10], is to push oneself to do as many
performances as possible, because music is as much about the performance you
give, as it is about getting the notes right.
In conclusion, in the last seven years, I had not really
advanced from simply acknowledging that I had stage fright to such an extent
that it needed to be dealt with. However, having approached this essay from an
auto-ethnographical perspective, which reconciles a concept from both
psychology (anxiety) and of music (performance) I have managed to successfully
pinpoint exactly what it is that causes my anxiety, and appeal to my sense of
egocentricity in order to combat it. Indeed, I found that the actual process of
writing became part of the solution itself - the methodology of
autoethnography forces the writer to analyse exactly what it is about
themselves that has caused the issue they are writing about, and in my case,
this has allowed me to come to terms with the precise root of my performance
anxiety. I believe that approaching anxiety from a personal perspective is the
most effective method of dealing with anxiety, because its roots are different
for every performer, and as helpful as advocated strategies are, they are a
generalised solution to an inherently personal problem.
Bibliography:
•
Collins English Dictionary, ‘Performance Anxiety’
(n.d) [Online] (http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/performance-anxiety). [Accessed 3
December 2014].
• Marks, Isaac M.,
Randolph, Nesse, M., ‘Fear and Fitness’,
in An Evolutionary Analysis of Anxiety Disorders (17 September 1994) [Online] (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesse/Articles/Marks-Nesse-FearAndFitness-EtholSoc-1994.PDF). [Accessed 8
December 2014].
•
Smith, Edward E., and Kosslyn, Stephen M., Cognitive
Psychology: Mind and Brain, (Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2014), 31-32
•
Bloxham, Lynne, (2014) “Performance Anxiety”,
[Lecture to BMus, BA Music], [Newcastle University]. 20 November.
•
The Complete Guide to the Alexander Technique, ‘What
Happens During an Alexander Technique Lesson or Class’ (n.d.) [Online] (http://www.alexandertechnique.com/lesson.htm). [Accessed 7
December 2014].
•
Brauer, Alan, ‘Biofeedback and Anxiety’, Psychiatric
Tines (1 February 1999) [Online] (http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/biofeedback-and-anxiety). [Accessed 7
December 2014].
•
Kageyama, Noa, ‘How to Make Performance Anxiety an
Asset Instead of a Liability’, The Bulletproof Musician (n.d.) [Online] (http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/how-to-make-performance-anxiety-an-asset-instead-of-a-liability/). [Accessed 6
December 2014].
•
WedMD, ‘Stage Fright (Performance Anxiety)’ (4 May
2013) [Online] (http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/guide/stage-fright-performance-anxiety). [Accessed 6
December 2014].
•
Goddard, Philip, ‘The Alexander Technique: A brief
guide to the basics’, Self Realization & Clear Mindedness (n.d.) [Online] (http://www.clarity-of-being.org/alextech.htm#mozTocId916068). [Accessed 2
December 2014].
•
British Association for Performing Arts Medicine,
‘What BAPAM can do for you’ (n.d.) [Online] (http://www.bapam.org.uk/perf_intro.html). [Accessed 2
December 2014].
•
Morland, Polly, ‘Terror behind a rising curtain: Why
do talented performers get stage fright?’, The Independent (26 April 2013)
[Online] (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/terror-behind-a-rising-curtain-why-do-talented-performers-get-stage-fright-8587709.html). [Accessed 1
December 2014].
[1] Collins
English Dictionary, ‘Performance Anxiety’ (n.d) [Online] (http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/performance-anxiety). [Accessed 3 December 2014].
[2] Marks, Isaac M., Randolph, Nesse, M., ‘Fear and Fitness’, in An Evolutionary
Analysis of Anxiety Disorders (17 September 1994) [Online] (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nesse/Articles/Marks-Nesse-FearAndFitness-EtholSoc-1994.PDF). [Accessed 8
December 2014].
[3] Smith, Edward E., and Kosslyn, Stephen M., Cognitive
Psychology: Mind and Brain, (Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2014), 31-32
[5] Bloxham,
Lynne, (2014) “Performance Anxiety”, [Lecture to BMus, BA Music],
[Newcastle University]. 20 November.
[6] Bloxham, Lynne, (2014) “Performance Anxiety”,
[Lecture to BMus, BA Music], [Newcastle University]. 20 November.
[7] The Complete
Guide to the Alexander Technique, ‘What Happens
During an Alexander Technique Lesson or Class’ (n.d.) [Online] (http://www.alexandertechnique.com/lesson.htm). [Accessed 7 December 2014].
[8]Brauer, Alan,
‘Biofeedback and Anxiety’, Psychiatric Tines (1 February 1999) [Online] (http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/biofeedback-and-anxiety). [Accessed 7
December 2014].
[10] Kageyama, Noa,
‘How to Make Performance Anxiety an
Asset Instead of a Liability’, The
Bulletproof Musician (n.d.) [Online] (http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/how-to-make-performance-anxiety-an-asset-instead-of-a-liability/). [Accessed 6 December 2014].
