There are times in everyone’s life that it seems like that spotlight is just on them and every single one of their decisions are being watched by the world. At that moment, there are very few people who don’t feel at least a little bit sick.
Coming from a background in classical piano performance, being on stage isn’t a new experience for me. However, no matter how many times I go on stage, I never get used to the feeling of my stomach leaping into my throat. It can be especially jarring when the stage is bigger with more people watching me. But it also can be a little less intimidating, like for a small class with my friends. But never have I ever experienced the feeling of not being nervous at all.
There is a conception that once someone performs enough their fear of being onstage decreases. However, while it may decrease, it’s truly hard to never feel at all. In all honesty, I truly felt that the more that I performed, the more scared I became because of the pressure to do better than the performance before.
What does change, however, is that the more someone performs, the more they learn how to control their own fear. Being able to understand emotions and how to handle this fear can be extremely helpful to succeed .
Stage fright is defined by Merriam Webster as “ [the] nervousness felt at appearing before an audience.” This fear can appear in any situation, ranging from a concert solo performance to a get-to-know-you presentation at the beginning of the school year.
Doctor Daniela Rossi explains that while experiencing stage fright is different for everyone, some of the common physiological symptoms include an altered heart or breathing rate, nausea, or sweating. Rossi additionally regards that there could be other cognitive and behavioral differences, such as mental confusion or changes to normal speaking patterns.
While it might be nice to live a life where stage fright doesn’t exist, one could say that it is almost impossible to never experience stage fright. For example, something as simple as giving a presentation could induce stage fright for those who have never had to present before. Therefore, the next best thing would be to control the fear.
While there is not one perfect solution that suits everyone, there are a few common tips that appear to help most.
#1: Practice
From my experience, the main reason that causes stage fright is the lack of control during an important moment. For example, it may not be a concert or performance, it could very well be something academic. Moreover, an important research presentation in front of the entire class.
However, practicing your speech, routine or performance would help engrave it into your muscle memory. Practicing again and again will help you make the mistakes that you may have made on stage and help to correct them. In this, the mistakes won’t happen again– making you feel more confident.
#2: Imagine that you are on stage while you are practicing
This is a piece of advice I have heard many people say over and over again, and before, I had always thought that that didn’t really make sense. Being on stage is very different from being in your room and no amount of concentration or imagination can ever change that fact.
Being onstage, one tends to hyperfocus on every small thing that they are doing and begin self-doubting. Therefore, something that really helps is to really focus in on every single little aspect that you are doing. I find that that helps to make some mistakes while you are practicing, which tends to be the mistakes that you would have made onstage, had you not caught them in your practice. Whether it be actually helping or you just tricking your brain, by making a few mistakes in practice, my brain tends to think that I’ve already made all the mistakes that I could possibly make and therefore, I’m less nervous when I go on stage to perform.
#3: Engrave the performance in your brain.
When I was younger, I used to think that if I practiced a lot and focused hard during practice, I wouldn’t be scared when I went on stage because I had done a lot of work to prepare for it. But as I got older, I started to learn that practicing is great, focusing during practice is amazing, but stage fright is scary in the way that it can scramble your brain in more ways than one, causing your practice and concentration to fly out the window.
What I have started doing is trying to memorize, not just with muscle memory, but also with my brain. By having some “memory checkpoints,” such as specific sentences in a speech, or certain parts of a song, I feel more secure when going up to perform or to give a speech, because I know that even if I forget, I’ll be able to find my way back and at least finish.
Stage fright really is a normal thing to experience and I don’t believe there is truly anyone in the world that hasn’t felt it at one point in their lives or another. But something that I believe in is that if you are going to have to face it at some point, might as well face it early on and learn from the experience than avoid it forever until you can’t run from it anymore.
