Rebrand Stage Fright to Overcome It | Hacker News Reader

Rebrand Stage Fright to Overcome It

scientificamerican.com

33 pointsSwellJoe5 comments

This is definitely true. I say this as someone who has performed classical music in various venues like Carnegie Hall etc. (http://magarshak.com/piano) I started as a kid when I didn't feel much stage fright at all, and after a break of a couple years I remember the stage fright coming on. I was a pianist, so what if I would make a mistake? Feeling like I needed to calm down and concentrate caused the jitters. Whereas traning to express yourself and just perform in the moment takes it away.

In general, accepting some kind of discomfort helps the body to accept it and deal with it. I discovered this a few years ago when walking through biting cold and deciding to EXPECT the sensation and accept it. My body kicked up the temperature production, and I felt a bit like that guy who can regulate his body temperature naked in the snow. Although of course less genetically adapted than he is :)

I came here to say the same thing. I have also been performing music since I was a child. I never really experienced any sort of anxiety about it because I have always associated the feeling with excitement. I accept the feeling will arrive, generally shortly before the performance, and that it usually helps push me to do better. If the performance is really short I find that I can feel a bit jittery afterwards since I don't get enough time to burn off the extra adrenaline.

I can contrast this with rehearsals, where I typically feel no 'excitement' when working with familiar musicians. In this situation the music might feel a little flat, and sometimes I look forward to the actual performance where the adrenaline will help carry the weight.

Yeah, I first noticed this from music performance. Simply being excited to play with and for people made it much more enjoyable and reduced my playing errors. It applies to public speaking, as well. I came to think of it in terms of the awesome feeling that comes after a good event. I actually like speaking and performing in public these days. I wish I'd known this when I was a kid. It took me until my early 30s to be reasonably awesome in performance situations...I was probably qualitatively a better guitarist when I was 22, because I spent so much more time doing it. But, I'm a more effective performer today.

This sounds like the same concept from Kelly McGonigal's TED Talk, "How to Make Stress Your Friend" [1]. For those who don't want to sign up to read the Scientific American article, the video will give you the gist of the article.

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_...

Separate from stage fright, there's also a kind of "deer in the headlights" moment many presenters experience right as they try to start talking.

If your anxiety is low but you still get tongue-tied at the start of a pitch, taking a couple minutes to stand at the front of the room before people walk in, getting accustomed to the view room from that position, can do wonders for a presentation. Even if you need to go sit back down in your chair until you're called to present, having that mental picture already familiar in your mind helps get past the shock of the unfamiliar room view.

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