When choosing a therapist, it is important to consider their Areas of Practice. specializes in:

When choosing a therapist, it is important to consider their Areas of Practice. specializes in:

When choosing a therapist, it is important to consider their Areas of Practice. specializes in:

Unnerving the Performance Anxiety Jitters

Whether on an illuminated stage performing vocally in a theatrical representation of a high school play, announcing the latest and the greatest highlights as the weekend anchor of the season’s sports, or giving a stand-up spontaneous speech after winning a tournament, the anticipatory misery of a public speaking engagement can be altogether catastrophic for those that experience performance panic in contrast to those that maintain performance pleasure. 

Social phobias and stage fright are part of the constellation of variables that contribute to performance anxiety. Many empathize and resonate with the flaw when a performer misses the mark, identifying with the performer’s privately felt and exposed inadequacy before an audience. 

Performance anxiety involves the marked fear of exposure within social contexts in which evaluation, criticism, and judgment can be experienced, typically provoking the socially phobic individual to avoid the feared situation altogether or press through the anxiety-provoking occasion with great stress. 

Those that understand the overarching effects of performance anxiety report in vivid detail the personal narrative of debilitating, chronic, career-threatening, and self-esteem deflating psychological and physiological reactions to its existential dread. 

Experiences as absent-mindedness and mental fog while going blank with shaking knees, turning pale, keeling over, maintaining cold sweats that lead to the torrential soaking of clothes, hyperventilating, and entering into a body freeze while thoughts as being incompetent, inferior, and unskilled enter the mind with a frenetic frenzy at whirlwind pace. 

A French psychiatrist, Paul Hartenberg, describes in great depth that a ‘mental confusion’ plus a dulling of the senses with a racing heart, chills, nausea, trembling, choking, and shortness of breath all lead up to an emotional experience called trac which was seen to harass many academics, musicians, and actors before a lecture or performance. Like vertigo and seasickness, it can descend suddenly and often without much warning. For the severely afflicted, performance anxiety can be a relentless misery. This can all lead to an inner exhaustion and ultimately a place of unrest while being mystified with its disconcerting effects. 

By some trend studies, performance anxiety in the realm of phobias afflict about 20% of the general American population

Strikingly, history has been filled with case examples of those that have combated performance anxiety throughout the majority of their lives.  Demosthenes, renown for his oratorical skills as a Greek statesman, was typically jeered and ridiculed early in his career. Once a great Roman soldier and later turned politician and philosopher, Cicero had run off stage from standing in an important trial for the Forum and wrote, “I turn pale at the outset of a speech and quake in every limb and in all my soul.” Thomas Jefferson never spoke during the intensive deliberation of the Second Continental Congress and only gave two speeches during his presidency – his two inaugural addresses. Biographers have noted that when he would attempt to speak loudly, his voice would “sink in his throat.” In 1889, an Indian lawyer froze in front of the entire courtroom in humiliation during his first case before a judge and reflected, “My head was reeling and I felt as though the whole court was doing likewise.” He later became the Indian revolutionary and leader of an unparalleled independence movement known as Mahatma Gandhi. 

Contemporary examples include the singer Donny Osmond, now a spokesman for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, had quit singing for a number of years due to panic attacks before returning to the public eye. The comedian Jay Mohr would frantically take Klonopin while filming a set on live television during skit performances on Saturday Night Live. Hugh Grant announced his semi-retirement from acting as a consequence of frequent panic attacks on the sets of his various films when the cameras started to roll. “I had all these panic attacks. They’re awful. I freeze like a rabbit. Can’t speak, can’t think, sweating like a bull. When I got home from doing that job, I said to myself, ‘No more acting. End of films.’ ” 

Every era of human history offers specific case examples of established, prominent, and influential leaders of those that either were able to manage, or not, their crippling performance anxiety and became benefactors of what once caused them to quaver and collapse into silence. Attached to particular circumstances, these groups of individuals were able to display an ability to persevere, impart hope, and demonstrate inspiration rather than remaining undone with their emotional anguish and physical captivity to stage fright. 

During World War II, England’s Ministry of Information issued a public safety slogan: “Keep Calm and Carry On.” Several decades later, the slogan had resurfaced and went viral with hundreds of thousands of retail products and derivative slogans dominating the internet marketplace by 2007. In an attempt to explain the popularity of the slogan, one New York Times writer conjectured that it “resonated all over the world.” 

Recent findings demonstrate the profound control and influence we have over our own emotions

The way we verbalize and think about our feelings helps to construct the way we actually feel. Saying “I am excited” represents a simple, minimal intervention that can be used quickly and easily to prime an opportunity mind-set and improve performance. This tool may be particularly helpful for managers in organizations to motivate their employees. For example, advising employees to say “I am excited” before important performance tasks or simply encouraging them to “get excited” may increase their confidence, improve performance, and boost beliefs in their ability to perform well into the future. 

Important work in positive psychology suggests that happiness in life comes from the frequency, not the intensity, of positive versus negative emotional experiences. On the contrary, the more often individuals reappraise their pre-performance anxiety as excitement, the more likely they may be to trigger upward motivational spirals, and the happier and more successful they can become. Instead of trying to “Keep Calm and Carry On,” perhaps the alternative path to success begins by simply saying “I am excited.” 

“Anxiety is incredibly pervasive. People have a very strong intuition that trying to calm down is the best way to cope with their anxiety, but that can be very difficult and ineffective,” said author and instructor Dr. Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School. “When people feel anxious and try to calm down, they are thinking about all the things that could go badly. When they are excited, they are thinking about how things could go well.”

Here are several important reminders about performance anxiety:

  • Perfection is out of reach and there is no such thing as a “perfect” performance. Perfection is rampant on college campuses and exists in our minds, fantasies, and desires. Aim for your best. 
  • Feeling anxious does not mean you are disqualified from being an excellent performer. Many young adults and teens are turning to marijuana as the substance of choice to numb the effects of performance anxiety. You can read more here
  • Anxiety is a personal signal to help develop curiosity about your responses and actions. It can either hinder or promote better decision-making. You can read more about making effective decisions here
  • Shame is a complex emotion about yourself and also a fear of audience rejection. It can be dealt with by understanding the source of your emotional discomfort. Read about this more here
  • Acknowledge that self-criticism comes from the mind of the performer. Read about combating your inner critic here. It is not necessarily the way the audience feels.
  • Physical symptoms such as cold hands, tense stomach aches, and variant headaches are some of the ways the body conveys cues about psychological concerns. Learn to regulate your body’s cues and read more here

If anxiety is seen on a continuum from zero (no anxiety) to 10 (debilitating anxiety), then consider this perspective: some anxiety–say around 5– can have mental energy that facilitates the flow of performance and gives you spontaneity and excitement. Too much anxiety – around 10 – burns the performer and the performance. 

Performance anxiety can be a serious problem that can and should be addressed with a professional if self-help approaches are not working. When performance anxiety becomes chronic, repetitive, and dreadful then it is time to seek professional help. A good evaluation by a seasoned clinician, an important first step toward performance pleasure, will help define some core issues that contribute to the performance distress. 

Social phobias and stage fright are part of the constellation of variables that contribute to performance anxiety.

By Deepak Santhiraj, Licensed Clinical Social Worker

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