Ten Instant Remedies For Performance Anxiety

What is Performance Anxiety

When someone has performance anxiety, they might fear that the performance will be a failure even if they are well prepared. It is quite natural and normal to have some degree of discomfort before a performance situation. The fear can be devastating even when we are prepared for it. The subjective doom-like state is experienced.

We can deal with it by some simple changes in our life and behavior. Here is a list of ten remedies that we can instantly apply to our performance situation.

1. keep hydrated and satiated

Most of the time when we are going through some competition, exam, or any other anxiety-provoking situation. Our diet pattern gets disturbed. We feel unable to consume proper food. It drains the energy even more. If you are going through an exam and just before sitting on the chair you are feeling drowsy because you are an empty stomach, or did not have enough water in your body, you will feel drowsy and weaker. If you are going to drop a live performance and you are very anxious about it, your throat might get dry and stuck, and you will feel less energy as a result of it your power-packed performance turns into a flop. Just as the matter of fact, if your body does not hold sufficient strength to face the anxiety coming ahead your system will collapse sooner. Stay hydrated and satiated with something healthy, prepare your stomach well before preparing you for the performative situation.

2. Take a pause

We spend hours and hours for preparing the exam, or our music performance at a school concert, delivering a motivational speech, making a U tube video, or a Tik Tok, we are practicing more and more for a better outcome. As a matter of fact, despite all efforts we make, what we are getting, in the end, is fatigue, exhaustion, and no or little improvement, After a while we are frustrated. The idea of working, more working, and just working is not working here.

Take a pause, leave your chore behind for a while. Distract yourself into something different. Eat some food, call some old relative, hang out, and take a snap check around your house. According to psychological research, when we actively stop working on a problem that we are unable to solve. Our brain keeps on working on it, subconsciously. our brain wants to have all answers that it comes across.

You must have sometimes experienced this phenomenon, you started solving a sum during a maths exam, and all of a sudden you are stuck in an equation. you tried but you could not solve it instantly, you thought to leave some space and went to the other question, just in the middle of your next sum, your mind struck with the solution of the question you could not remember a few moments earlier. Our brain cells are working inside to find the engrams where the retention was made about the sum. When we go through the trouble and do not find solutions directly. Stop working on it, a small pause is helpful for the brain to go inside and search for the relevant material. This process is called the incubation period. This period is necessary for the brain to relax, to solve a problem.

3. Deep breathing

Most practitioners recommend adding deep breathing as a start-up session for psychotherapy. Deep breathing has multiple effects on brain cells and our body. It helps us control our body system in a better way. Controlled breathing techniques help our Peripheral Nervous System to monitor flight or flight mechanisms. Deep breathing is a technique through which better oxygen can be supplied to each brain region. It is necessary to learn the proper way of deep breathing. Instantly download video from an authentic source. Or learn about it from a recognized person. Deep breathing will help us combat while we are delivering some performance.

if we have a satiated stomach, and a hydrated body, and take a deep breath, we will start experiencing that we are the master of our body, and everything is under control.

Take a deep breath through your nose hold for three seconds, fill your diaphragm, feel the oxygen coming through your head, and release through your mouth open. Let all air from your body go out. Sit in a relaxed position.

Morning time is better when we have fresh air. If we are living in an area where fresh air is scarce, due to pollution, or harsh weather. We can use indoor air for deep breathing.

  • Anxiety and depression. Deep breathing can reduce anxiety and depressive symptoms in the general population and people with those clinical conditions (Jerath, Crawford, Barnes, & Harden, 2015).

 

 

4. Meditationhttps://www.supportkindness.org/

We have different brain waves. During meditation our Alpha and gamma brain waves are active. These brain waves are responsible for relaxation. The calmness of mind from anxiety, typically related to performance can be achieved by meditation. We will experience, more focus, relaxation, and deep understanding. This state is more receptive to intuitive thinking, creativity, and reasoning. .https://mindowl.org/brainwaves-during-meditation/.

There are various mediation programs, types, and methods that we see in practice, We have observed that Muslim’s method of praying i.e. Namaz is the best meditation, in covering all aspects of meditational sciences, both in a somatic and spiritual sense.

5. Ask for help

The stereotypical patterns that we employ include self-reliance to such an extent that we seldom ask for professional help and guidance from others. We consider it a weak impulse, we are fearful of being judged by others, and we try to remain strong all by ourselves. This pattern can damage us due to the heavy burden that we imply on ourselves, without knowing the fact that we can not get through each time all by ourselves. It is not a weak impulse if we ask for genuine help. Seek out others, with similar problems. It helps us relate to others. Asking others for good tips and solutions can improve our deal with our anxious situations in a better way.

6. Read about your problem for a solution

Now that we all have google to search for anything we want. Why not use it as a platform to solve our problems. Read more about your issue, and know that people have to share with you, there is always an interesting bit of information, that can be helpful for you as well.

Reading more about our problems helps us understand that we are not alone to struggle with the devil. Group Self-Help Programs are much beneficial.

7. Practice alone

practice, more practice, and practice. There is no other one-point solution than practice alone. It is something that will pay off one day. If we have patience and consistency, we will ultimately learn from our experiences, our shortcomings, and our failures and there will be an error-free,  mind-blowing anxiety-free performance at hand to us.

Self Efficacy is much connected with Practice during your alone time. Once we are well prepared before a performance by rehearsal we feel more confident. 

8. Rehearse affirmative sentences

This is the little cute princess solution. I saw a video where a little girl was talking to herself, “I am strong, I am loved, I can do anything in the world”, It was a feast to see her chanting these powerful words. You can choose words or sentences that you can rehearse in mind when you feel anxious in your life.

We can use Ayat from Quran which we think is helpful for us to repeat in mind. The affirmation from Allah is indeed the greatest of all.

9. Sleep well

Deep sleep is very crucial for overall health. Delta waves take action when we fall asleep this type of brain wave is associated with deep or dreamless sleep. Our neural processes slow down considerably, There are no tasks to be completed, Our brains are not trying to make sense of the world around us. Instead, we can focus on what we have seen and heard during the day. It is at this point that our body heals, the data we received via our senses during the day is consolidated and the information we have collected is stored in our memory. This is why sleep is so important to the learning process — it is when our minds make sure we retain what we have been thinking about during our waking hours.

Sound sleep helps us combat anxiety.

10. Nature walk/ exercise/ outdoor activity

If you hit a gym or exercise at home it is equally beneficial for your health. Anxiety is deeply related to connection with nature m the more you are connected to better you feel. A soft mindful nature walks if possible for you is the sweet candy that you can give to yourself as a self-care gift. It will further help to control anxiety. If you exercise you can opt-out of the outdoor, depending on our weather conditions and environment. Life is busy metropolitans are more anxious than in natural habitats.

Panic is created when we feel that things are not under our control, we can not handle our circumstances, and the performance coming ahead in a few moments is just slipping through our hands. If we track this path step by step, we will see an improved delivery during the performance.

What Performance Anxiety Looks Like

 

 The symptoms of Performance Anxiety are commonly the same as any other form of anxiety.

  • Increased Heart palpitations (racing heartbeat)
  • Increased level of blood pressure (may cause dizziness)
  • Sweating
  • Hot or Cold Chills
  • Trembling & shaking off  of hands
  • Shaky voice
  • Nausea
  • Faint or drowsiness  (in rare and severe cases)

 

 

Key Points

  • Ten remedies to Performance Anxiety.
  • What Performance Anxiety Look like.

Citation

G. J. Kenneth. (2016).Incubation and Intuition in Creative Problem Solving. Frontiers in Psychology .doi: Frontiers | Incubation, and Intuition in Creative Problem Solving (frontiersin.org)

Brainwaves During Meditation – MindOwl

Varendonck, J. (1921). The Psychology of Daydreams. New York, NY: Macmillan.

What is Performance Anxiety? Causes, Symptoms & Solutions. 30, June 2021

Abraham, M.10, October 2020.How to Overcome Performance Anxiety. How to Overcome Performance Anxiety (calmclinic.com)