Tame the Monster of Performance Anxiety: Activate Neural Pathways for Success

Posted on January 25, 2021 by Vicki Eaton, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

Imagine yourself in a situation where you want to perform at your best…a job interview, doing a presentation for work, making a sale, taking an exam, engaging in a competition, or doing something in the performing arts world. What’s the picture that comes to your mind? An image of success, or a memory of a time when you “choked,” lost your concentration, “blanked out,” stumbled over your words, or your heart raced and it was hard to catch your breath? A memory of feeling confidant and competent, or one where you felt fear, then embarrassment, and then you became self-critical? And does that memory now replay in your mind when you think about any future times of needing to perform at your best?

If it was the second image, then you experienced a bout of Performance Anxiety, more commonly known as Stage Fright. Fortunately, there are a lot of tools that can be used to overcome it and move towards performing with a much greater sense of freedom and success.

But first, what is it?

Performance Anxiety, or Stage Fright, is a strong sense of dread that something disastrous is going to happen precisely when you need to perform at your best or are in the spotlight. It involves the fight, flight, or freeze response, which is an automatic, biological response hardwired into your mind and body, and gets activated in times of extreme stress, or times that feel like that to you. It can be accompanied by a wide variety of physical, mental, emotional and behavioral symptoms. What often happens then is that the next time you are in a similar situation, you anxiously begin to say to yourself, “I hope that doesn’t happen again…what if it does?”

Does this sound familiar? Unfortunately, if these are the pictures from which you draw as you prepare for future performances, presentations, interviews, exams, or anytime you are on stage, then you are not only rehearsing the problem, but you are actually reinforcing the neural pathways in your brain associated with performance anxiety, and you are also programming yourself to experience more stage fright.

The good news is that if you have an image in your memory bank of ever having done something well…with competence, confidence, and enjoyment, then you have a resource within that you can access in preparing for future performances. The idea is to learn to substitute the confidant picture for the anxious one, then daily recall that positive memory. This activates the neural pathways in your brain associated with being and feeling successful. Replay THAT in your mind over and over and here is what will likely begin to happen: You will begin to re-experience feelings of competence, confidence and decrease anxiety. And you will begin to reprogram your mind to believe you can perform in that manner in the future.

Here’s how to do this:

First, get comfortable and do some abdominal breathing, being aware of where your breath goes when it goes to the floor of your lungs. Think about breathing into your pelvis, though you aren’t literally doing that. If you find yourself struggling to breathe in this manner, try doing it while you are lying down, because it’s almost impossible to breath incorrectly when in that position. As you breathe slowly and deeply, your heart, brain and autonomic nervous system begin to get into greater synchronicity with each other, and you start to feel calmer.

Second, take some time to relax your muscles by slowly giving suggestions to them to do such things, as, “Unwind, loosen up, relax, release, open up, slow down, soften up, let go,” or whatever helps you to become relaxed. Sometimes recalling a peaceful memory of something like, being on the beach or your favorite vacation memory can help you relax your muscles and your mind.

Third, once you feel relaxed, do an imagery exercise in three steps:

Step 1: Recall an old memory…any memory whether you were an adult, a teen, or a child…of a time when you did something very well and you felt a sense of accomplishment and pleasure. Maybe you built a birdhouse by yourself when you were 10, or perhaps you organized the kids in your neighborhood to put on a circus. Or maybe you recall a sense of elation when you walked across the stage to receive a diploma. Whatever it was, “relive” the event by recalling sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and kinesthetic sensations in as much detail as you can, along with the positive emotions in that memory. Recall how good it felt to succeed in what you were doing. Hold on to those feelings and then transfer them to the image in Step 2.

Step 2: Recall your very best experience in doing an activity that resembles the kind of activity you want to be free to do, except minus the performance anxiety. Again, it’s not important if you were a child, adolescent or an adult, nor does it matter if it occurred during a rehearsal time, during “show time,” or whether you were simply doing it for your own enjoyment. If you have a wonderful memory of speaking in front of a group of peers and feeling confident, even if it was encouraging your teammates in a sport you played, or if you recall a time of dancing, singing, or playing an instrument while feeling you were “in the zone,” or if you did a presentation that went well and you felt calm & centered and connected with your audience, then recall that memory in as much detail as you can, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, body sensations, and emotions. Recall how good it felt to be doing your best. Feel the energy you experienced at that time. Relive the sense of accomplishment, confidence, and competence. Take your time on this, as you want to create a mental picture of yourself doing what you desire to do with excellence and enjoyment. Once the image has fully developed and you have re-experienced the good emotions associated with it, transfer those powerful feelings and body sensations from Steps 1 & 2 to the image in Step 3.

Step 3: Imagine yourself in the future, performing just the way you most desire to perform, confidently, successfully, with energy and pleasure. Since anything is possible in your imagination, see yourself performing at your very best in a job interview, giving a presentation, making music or acting, competing in a tournament, taking an exam, or engaged in any activity for which you have previously felt anxiety. Hold the positive mental image and then ask your body and mind to do whatever it needs to do to experience this in real life. Tell yourself that soon you will begin to experience this in future interviews, auditions, performances, or any other time you want to perform at your best.

Practice the above every day. It takes times to build that up in your mind…sometimes at least 6 – 8 weeks. So, it’s possible you might not see results right away, although I’ve worked with people who employed this strategy and who quickly began to experience improvements.

Our tendency is to move in the direction of the pictures we hold in our mind, and you can choose the ones on which you want to focus. When you do this, you are activating neural pathways for success by mentally rehearsing doing something well, with confidence, freedom, and enjoyment, and you are increasing the likelihood of future success.