7 Secrets to Overcoming Stage Fright and Singing With Confidence at Your Next Show
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Do you struggle with stage fright or performance anxiety when you hit the stage or studio? Stagefright or jitters is a type of anxiety that affects your ability to perform. Stage fright can be experienced by actors, musicians, dancers, athletes, actors and other stage performers.
Stage fright and performance anxiety cause a variety of physical symptoms. Hot flushes, chills, sweats, feelings of choking, feeling short of breath, dry mouth, headache, an urgency to go the bathroom, upset stomach, confusion and feeling disorientated. Panic attacks are also possible and may lead to increased heart rate, chest pain or tightness, and trembling. Singers mostly struggle with lack of breath, dry mouth, sweaty palms, a raised heart rate and a feeling of dread. There is often a worry about doing something embarrassing like cracking on a high note or forgetting lyrics.
It is compounded by low self-esteem and concern about being criticized or judged. It also has to do a fear of exposure, fear of criticism (internal or external), and fear of failure. Similar to public speaking which causes feelings of anxiety in roughly 77% of the general population, performance anxiety can hinder a performers career and cause them to avoid the stage for long periods of time.
It is natural to feel stage fright when one is under great stress or pressure. It is not always a bad thing; As a matter of fact, it often gives the person the right pump of adrenaline before stepping out on stage. For some, it’s less debilitating. While for others, merely stepping in front of the audience is a huge hurdle to jump over.
Stage fright is not synonymous with shyness. Sometimes, the shyest person does not experience stage fright at all, while an extrovert one can discover that they have the most horrible performance jitters. It is one of the most common fears, take note, not just for newbies; But, believe it or not, for some of the most famous celebrities with stage fright as well.
Famous artists like Barbara Streisand speak openly about their struggle with stage fright and how it kept her off the stage for 20 years. Many famous artists struggle like Andrea Bocelli, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Adele, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Rod Stewart, Josh Groban, Donald Fagen, Katy Perry, Ozzy Ozbourne, Luciano Pavarotti, Carly Simon, Renee Fleming, and many more.
However there are very specific techniques you can use to get control and not let it dominate or ruin a performance or keep you off the stage.
Throughout my career as a vocal coach and as a singer myself who has struggled with stage fright, I’m always looking for new methods to help. I hope you find some relief in these methods! Let me know how it goes!
1. Distinguishing between the adrenalin response vs. the fear response
Performance anxiety is a commonly experienced phenomena by many performers at all levels of their career. It is a natural response to the increase in adrenalin that the body produces in response to the anticipation of performing. Understanding what is happening physiologically between your brain and your body is great starting point to understanding how it works and how to work with it instead of feeling shame or embarrassment about it —which only amplifies the fear response more in your mind! Knowing that everyone else struggles with it helps. Remind yourself that it’s part of the process of performing.
Once I tried to “not care” so much about my performance so I wouldn’t feel the nerves. I noticed I didn’t have the usual energy to fuel my performance and my performance fell flat! Which proved to me that the adrenalin fuels performance and we don’t want to subdue that response.
Distinguish between the adrenalin response vs. the fear response.
- The adrenalin response: The feeling of adrenalin pumping through your body too prepare you with that extra energy needed to perform.
- The fear response: Feeling anxiety in the body as a sign of fear and dread.
By interpreting our body’s signals of “anxiety” as an energy infusion for our performance, it helps to stay in a positive mindset instead of falling down the debilitating rabbit hole of fear.
2. Practice breathing techniques to get control over the breath when anxiety hits.
Breathing techniques help to calm your nerves, slow down your heart rate and ease anxiety and mental chatter. This most basic relaxation technique assures that more oxygen gets to the brain and slows down your breathing rate reducing anxiety.
Place your hand on your stomach just above your waist. Breathe deeply and feel your hand rise outward along with your abdomen, making sure that you fill your entire lungs and try not to breathe into your upper chest.
Start by evening out your breath.
- Breathe in for 4 counts.
- Hold for 4 counts.
- Breathe out for 4 counts.
- Repeat for 8 cycles.
Next, slow the breath down
- Breathe in for 4 counts.
- Hold for 4 counts.
- Breathe out for 8 counts.
- Repeat for 8 cycles.
Before you know it you will be in the alpha brain wave state!
3. Practice routines prior to performance that promote feelings of secure attachment
A recent study introduces a new way to calm one’s nerves, that is based on establishing routines that form secure attachment bonds that reduce amygdala activation and the fear response.
“It has been demonstrated that exposure to reminders of secure attachment (attachment-security priming) can temporarily increase accessibility to secure attachment representations, and has numerous resilience boosting effects including increased self-esteem, prosocial feelings and behaviors, positive affect, and increased exploratory behavior.”
A predominant expectation that social relationships with others are safe (a secure attachment style), has been linked with reduced threat-related amygdala activation.
Here are a few ways to reinforce positive routines to promote secure attachment to practice before your next show. These suggestions came from an article on Psychology Today written by a guitar player:
- Look at images of people in secure, loving relationships with each other— apparently, it will immediately start soothing your nerves. They don’t have to be pictures of anyone you know; it’s the loving connection that is the point. Or look at images of people you love and feel safe with.
- Wash the dishes. Evidently the soothing, repetitive nature of scrubbing the plates and glasses with warm, soapy water can be calming.
- Be kind. Performing small acts of kindness helps you relax and feel better. I have seen speakers sometimes before their speeches busy themselves with helping out audience members in simple, real ways, like helping someone to a seat or giving them a program or the like. But the main effect comes from glow you get from the act of giving.
- Eat fermented, probiotic foods. Yogurt and sourdough bread, some kinds of cheese—all of these are good for lessening anxiety. Who said dealing with nerves had to be hard? Prebiotic foods (which are different) like asparagus, leeks, and onions help, too. Eat your veggies.
- A brisk walk. If your stage fright shows up as the jitters or excess nervous energy, take a brisk walk or do an exercise routine to use up the excess energy and calm your nerves.
The author states on the Psychology Today article states:
“Before my next recital I’m going to get up, go for a morning walk, have some bread and cheese and leeks with my green tea, clean up the dishes, and scan the Internet for pictures of happy babies with their parents, before knocking on my neighbor’s door and offering to take out her trash for her.”
What’s your routine going to be?
4. Build more self-esteem and self-value
Almost every performer wrestles with self-doubt and confidence at some point in their career. You can be confident for a while and then hit a rough patch in life that affects your self-esteem or performance confidence. Performance confidence is not synonymous with your level of talent or intelligence. As you can see from the names of famous performers listed in the opening of this blog, a higher level of performance can create more anxiety. Andrea Bocelli talks about how he is anxious before every performance mainly from not wanting to let his audience down which is common to top performers.
But nerves can also be a result of low self-esteem that comes from childhood trauma, abandonment, rejection, a critical parent or teacher, or some kind of bullying from peers or people taunting you. When you struggle with this kind of trauma, building up your self-esteem and sense of value helps to promote well-being and secure attachment resulting in less of a fear response to performing.
- Cultivate relationships with warm, loving people. Knowing that whether you perform well or not, there are people who love you helps to reduce overall performance anxiety.
- Practice self-care. Self-care is an act of love towards yourself. In the weeks prior to performance up your self-care. Go for a massage, exercise more, take evening baths, and longer walks, light candles at dinner, even meditate to improve your mental health and outlook.
- Separate your value as a performer from your value as a person. Another approach I use to help artists gain control is to separate your value as a person from your value as an artist/performer. Your music is your craft which is separate from your inherent value as a person. This helps to not hold every performance as a measure of your inherent value.
5. Right before the performance: give your subconscious a specific direction
Attention goes where energy goes. When you think about your performance, focus on setting your goals. Set a specific goal that relates to your craft. Something simple that you want to accomplish at each performance.
Energy goes where attention flows. As Tony Robbins says, energy flows where attention goes. To get what you really want in performance, you need to focus the energy
Your attention is a limited resource.
What you focus on expands.
Focus Your Energy and Attention on What You Can Control
We often focus on things out of our control, which wastes time and energy.
For example, focusing on someone else’s actions
Focusing on experiences from the past.
Choose to focus your attention on things you can control, such as your attitude and effort.
When you think about your performance, putting your focus on the craft will help to improve your delivery.
6. Use visualization techniques to improve performance by over 30%
Visualization is the practice of mentally imagining yourself performing various tasks or actions the way you would like to perform them in real life. Used by Olympic athletes to improve performance by over 30%, it’s a mental rehearsal of skills, specfic gameday scenarios, performing in new venues, or performing at the top of your ability while under pressure.
Many athletes have also reported benfits to their mental state from visualization techniques– they’re less nervous and anxious approaching events because they’ve already been there and seen themselves performing the way they want to.
For athletes with performance anxiety, their focus and ability to “shut out” the crowd improves, along with their cofidence in their ability to perform. While it may seem like a “woo-woo” mental practice, visualization is widely accepted among high-caliber athletes. At this point, you’d be hard-pressed tofind a famous, successful athlete who doesn’t employ visualization at some level.
Olympians across many disciplines tout the benfits of mental imagery in their training. When stakes are that high and you only get a shot once every four years, the pressure is on – and it can take its toll on an athlete’s mental state.
Michael Phelps is a huge proponent of visualization (and hard work, of course). LeBron James attributes much of his success to his mental game. Arnold Schwarzenegger envisioned his future and made it a reality. No matter the sport, visualization, and mental imagery can have a massive impact on an athlete’s or performer’s focus and overall performance.
The idea is that if you consistently mentally rehearse sports scenarios or specfic actions, physical performance of those scenarios and actions will improve.
The effects of visualization are real, but the greatest impact comes when visualization is used in conjunction with a disciplined, specfic training schedule.
- Set aside time to practice visualizing your performance. Practicing visualization in real time gives the best results.
- Program your show how you want it to turn out. Visualize hitting every high note with ease, and anything else you want to perform well. Imagine having plenty of breath to sing, and performing exactly how you want to.
7. Natural remedies that help
There are also some natural remedies that help. The two that have gotten the best results are:
- Vitamin B12: Vitamin B12 is known to stop a panic attack cold. B vitamins are the vitamins that are the “stress” vitamins. They nurture the nervous system health and being low in B12 can cause symptoms of anxiety. The best Vitamin B12 is methylcobalin instead of the synthetic form. The product I recommend is a natural organic B12 made by Dr. Edward Group at Global Healing. It’s used sublingually (under your tongue) for immediate results. You can find it here
- Homeopathic remedy: Gelsemium. I stumbled upon this remedy that helps calm nerves relating to stage fright. It’s a great solution because it calms your nerves just enough without dampening the energy for performance. When I tried it, I noticed that I didn’t really “feel” any different, other than my breath wasn’t as shaky as usual. Really did the trick!
For more help with developing a strong pre-performance regimen, grab a copy of my Ultimate Performer Tools & Techniques Guidebook that comes with a full-day regimen for the day of performance to help calm your nerves and perform on point!
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