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Stage Fright

It stems from a tendency to resist and fight your anxiety, rather than to accept and work with it. Stage fright is like being heckled mercilessly during your performance, and getting into an argument with the heckler, except that it's your own mind doing the heckling. You get so involved in your internal struggle that you don't get involved with the actual performance.

Most people with performance anxiety fright get tricked into focusing on themselves, struggling against anxiety in a vain effort to get rid of it. To illustrate this point, here's an excerpt from a consumer review I saw on amazon.

Stage fright

Get immediate response from audience. You know, the last thing I want to do in a presentation is further prolong it by asking what they think of it. See what's happening here? The goal this reviewer sets for himself is to get through the presentation without anxiety. That's almost certainly not going to happen, because even people who love public speaking get some anxiety when they present. I really like to get in front of an audience, but one time, offering a toast at a friend's wedding, I found my arm shook so much I couldn't keep the champagne in the glass.

So, when he does feel anxiety, he's going to think he's really in trouble, and will struggle more How does he make himself more nervous? He tries not to involve his audience, because he doesn't want them to slow him down. So he hurries through it, keeping it dull, maybe even just reading it and not looking at the audience. This means he doesn't establish any connection with his audience, which will make him feel more lonely and isolated up there.


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It means he won't get any encouragement or show of interest from them, which would help him calm down. It means he's just up there by himself, struggling with his own self criticism.

Four Types

One of the keys to mastering stage fright is to become truly involved in, and focused on, your material. In a complete program for stage fright, you'll need to work with the anticipation you experience in the hours, days, and weeks maybe months!


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You'll need to work with the anxious symptoms you experience during the presentation. You'll need to know how to defuse the Panic Trick. And you'll need practice with the performance situation itself. Here are a few tips that can help you during the actual presentation.

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Compare them to what you usually do when you have to perform. You may find that these tips are the opposite of what you usually do when you have to get in front of an audience. That was true for the consumer book review mentioned above. If that's the case for you, as it generally is for people who struggle with this phobia, it will hopefully suggest a direction for you to try something different.

And different is what you need. If you keep doing the same thing, you can only expect the same result. If you want to talk or sing, act, etc. And if you want to do these things calmly, you'll need to breathe diaphragmatically. This won't always come naturally, and you'll probably need to practice. The function of the adrenaline is to provide energy to the body in order to respond to the stimulus - fight or flight response stimulus. When the adrenaline gets into the blood stream, there are side effects as stomach pain, shaking, trembling, vomiting and shortness of breath.

This is the reason for the symptoms of stage fright. The symptoms of stage fright and social anxiety are often the same, although the former is more severe.

Symptoms of stage fright are classified into physical and emotional. The physical symptoms are manifestations in the body like cold hands, dry mouth, fast pulse, nausea, nervous tics, shaky hands, shaky knees, or trembling lips. Emotional symptoms are related to feelings as racing thoughts, feeling incompetent for the task, embarrassment or fear of forgetting what to say. Any of these will happen before or during the stimulus.

Here is a description of a person with stage fright: The beating of his heart is so fast like having a heart attack. In more severe conditions, he freezes and cannot speak. He feels giddy and nauseated. This is an expression of the animal instinct of fight or flight in response to unpleasant stimulus.

There are simple ways and means to cope with stage fright which you can do. Follow the regimen strictly if you want to get rid of stage fright. Learn some techniques of relaxation like hypnosis and biofeedback.

Stagefright (bug)

Relaxation is a good way to encounter stress and alleviates symptoms. The ancient Oriental technique of Shiatsu massage therapy makes use of pressure point to relieve stress. Redirect the energy causing those symptoms by changing its focus. The best way to change the direction of the energy is by exercise. Do some of your usual exercise before going to the venue.

Stagefright (bug) - Wikipedia

Constricted blood vessels also gives the body extra blood flow to the vital organs. In addition, those experiencing stage fright will have an increase in blood pressure , which supplies the body with more nutrients and oxygen in response to the "fight or flight" instincts. This, in return, causes the body to overheat and sweat. Breathing will increase so that the body can obtain the desired amount of oxygen for the muscles and organs. Pupils will dilate giving someone the inability to view any notes they have in close proximity; however, long range vision is improved making the speaker more aware of their audience's facial expressions and nonverbal cues in response to the speaker's performance.

Lastly, the digestive system shuts down to prepare for producing energy for an immediate emergency response. This can leave the body with the effects of dry mouth, nausea, or butterflies. In some cases, famous stars have struggled to cope with their anxiety. Hugh Grant said on starring in the movie Music and Lyrics that he "did the whole film full of lorazepam.

Ethel Merman was one performer who never suffered from stage fright: I know my lines.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about an aspect of human behavior. For the software bug in Android operating system, see Stagefright bug. For other uses, see Stage fright disambiguation. This section needs additional citations for verification.