Running Head MIND performance anxiety Speak freely Dry those sweaty palms and overcome stage fright or a fear of public speaking using a few tried and true methods. By Cynthia Hickman watch your self-talk about the nervousness. For example, don’t say something like, “I’m nervous. It must mean I don’t want to do this.” Instead, tell yourself, “I’m excited. My body is helping me get ready for this extra level of activity. This is good.” Focus on the essence of what you want to get across to the audience, what you want them to receive. What are your motives for performing? Use this to motivate you and get beyond the self-focus of the nervousness. How to beat performance anxiety

Your hands are sweating, your heart is thumping and you have the urge to go to the toilet again, despite having been 10 minutes ago. Your mind races hysterically. “Why do I do this to myself? I hate this. Oh God, are my hands shaking? Stop it, hands. OK, just breathe. Help, I can’t even remember the first words! I can’t go out there. What are they going to think of me?”

Welcome to the world of public performance. Most of us are familiar with the experience of pre-performance nerves. For some, it was the dreaded class presentations or music performances during their school years. Some may have had to give a speech at some sort of social gathering, such as a birthday or wedding. For others, it will arise as they deliver a presentation or training package as part of their work duties.

Very few people can perform publicly without experiencing some sort of nervousness; for many, it generates an anxiety that verges on panic. Most people have seen the ubiquitous list that rates public speaking as more frightening than financial hardship and even death. While such results are debatable, they nevertheless indicate how common is the fear of public performance, whether it involves speech, sporting activity or artistic pursuits such as acting or singing.

Some famous performers admit to having stage fright to the extent of throwing up and say this has gone on for their entire careers. Others deliberately train themselves and become so practised at stepping in front of an audience that they can actually enjoy the process and have fun. I have a friend who really loves performing, even though it’s also what he fears the most. Now that’s a bind to be in!

Whether you love to perform and choose to do it or whether you just have to do it as part of your job, it can be useful to know how to work with your anxiety so it doesn’t hamper your success. Following are some useful tips for managing performance anxiety.

1. Long-term preparation

Build capacity

One important tip is to perform frequently. Then you get used to the nervousness and can manage it more easily. As with most things, practice makes it easier. Your system gets used to the higher activation level and instead of being overwhelmed by it you become habituated and are less debilitated. It’s a useful version of familiarity breeding contempt, even thought contempt is probably not the right word here.

If you are not performing regularly, find some forum where you can still practise. I remember many years ago enrolling in an improvisation course because I wanted to become more comfortable with performing in front of people. It wasn’t that I wanted to act; it was just that these classes provided a safe practice ground to build up familiarity with being in front of an audience. Such classes provide a friendly, supportive practice environment in which you can break though fears with other people who are learning, too.

As you dwell on your fear of performing, ask yourself what you are afraid of. Cover your worst-case scenario. It might be you running off the stage with everyone laughing. Think realistically how likely this is: it’s very unlikely! This reality check in your calm moments will give you a useful perspective. Your anxious thinking creates extreme, unrealistic scenarios that you then use to scare yourself. You don’t have to let this happen. Catch the fearful thoughts and do the reality check. Don’t let the drama queen inside take over! Counter your own self-talk.

It can be useful to build up your capacity to manage nerves gradually instead of jumping in the deep end and performing in front of a stadium of people. Start with a safe friend or family member. Get comfortable with it before moving on to a small group of strangers. Gradually build up to more people and less familiar settings. Another useful preparation is to perform while you have a friend deliberately act bored while you are doing it. You then get used to blocking out their lack of interest. Then you can still perform despite this distraction.