| Living a Healthy Lifestyle |
| General |
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Many people do not have performance anxiety, but do have concerns about some aspect of their performance or participation in the arts. To what extent do their concerns affect their art? The one thing that medicine and psychology know is that beliefs do have biological consequences. As an example, if you worry more than you want to, you may develop physiological symptoms which can interfere with your performing. In a word, stress is threat perception, which results when something causes your body to behave as if were under attack. Common sources are physical, such as aninjury or illness, or mental, like problems in your marriage, job, health, or finances. Research shows that the most potent source of stress for most people is relationship stress with a family member you live with, or with someone you work with. When stress occurs, the body immediately takes actcion by releasing hormones into the bloodstream and changing neurotransmitter release patterns in the brain. This preparation is called the fight-or-flight response. A few seconds later another release takes effect which causes a more long-term cascade of hormones and neurotransmitters. Their net effect is to make a lot of stored energy - glucose and fat - available to cells. These cells are then primed to help the body get away from danger. The body makes glucose, which piles up in the blood and immediately enters the body for extra energy. Many sources of stress are not short-term threats. For example, it can take many months to recover from surgery or an unwanted "guest" may be there to stay. Stress hormones that are designed to deal with short-term danger can end up staying turned on for a long time. As a result, long-term stress can cause a situation whereby a person becomes acclimated to high levels of stress and these high levels come to feel normal. In cases such as these, vulnerable organ systems can wear out sooner and the person can begin to experience symptoms early in life. As in music, many long-term sources of stress are mental. Your mind sometimes reacts to a non-physically-dangerous event as if it were a real threat. However, to a musician, threat often comes in the form of potential loss of belief in ones' self. It may be possibility of being shamed in public. Unlike taking a test or getting stuck in a traffic jam, the threat pf public shame or being criticized in public, or possibly having your art rejectecd can be the worst possible kind. Musicians cannot just get up and leave the performance; they must stay there and see it through, regardless of how they percieve it is going. In mental stress, the body pumps out hormones to no avail. Neither fighting nor fleeing is any help when the "enemy" is your own mind. What can you do now? DEVELOP GOOD STRESS BUFFERS High Social support and satisfaction with that support are known to be great stress buffers. Nurture your support and seek them out when you need them. Just talking things over really helps. The other great stress buffer is Approach Coping Skills, or being willing to solve the problems as they appear (or letting go of the unsolvable ones). Avoidance coping includes pretending the problem does not exist, "burying" the feelings, substance abuse, etc. The best approach is to face your problems and use your support when the problems appear overwhelming. WATCH OUT FOR THE TRIGGERS! Your physical health and your mental health go together, so you must take care of your body! Triggers are anything that cause the stress response in YOU. It is not the mountain in front of us that causes us to break down, but the grain of sand in our shoe. Daily Hassles are that type of trigger because it is the sheer number of them that pile up and get to us. Watch the hassles, and clear them out on an as-needed basis. Life Change Units are major stressors because they take adaptation on our part, and we often do not realize how much adaptation they take. For everyone, these numbers are a little different, and for further reading, look up Allostatic Load .
Remember: How you feel in practice is how you will feel in performance. Be well! |