What is Performance Anxiety?
There are many different types of anxiety that a person can suffer from, and performance anxiety is one of the most common. Performance anxiety, also often known as stage fright, is a condition that can range in severity. It may be so mild that the person hardly notices to being so severe that it is causing serious problems in the person's life and possibly even debilitating them in some ways.
This is a type of anxiety that typically comes on right before the person is about to do something public, for instance giving a speech or singing at a concert. Most performers have experienced this anxiety in at least some form and to various degrees. The fear may be experienced while preparing for a performance or during.
It can even start coming on days to weeks beforehand, which can be very hard to deal with. But, in some cases the performer will be fine as soon as they finally do get on stage and are ready to go.
How to Deal
Dealing with performance anxiety can be a little difficult, depending on the severity of your condition. When it comes to treatment, fortunately there are a few different options which are available. The decision of which is going to work best for your particular condition should really only be decided by your doctor or another medical professional.
The first step is often to speak to a psychologist. They may be able to talk with you and discuss what, if any, the underlying conditions are that are causing your anxiety problem. Behavioral therapy is another option, and this is a therapy that assumes that anxiety is a learned or conditioned response to a particular situation and the therapy used attempts to break the link between the situation and the response.
There are also cognitive therapies which are very effective at treating performance anxiety. Medication may also be used here, but is usually only considered as being a short term solution and is often used with other therapies until you are feeling enough relief that you can get off the medication and just stick to the other treatments.
The most important thing is that you realize, if you have performance anxiety, that understanding your mind and body are linked. You need to change the way you think if you want to change the way that you act, and so the worst thing you can do is think negatively and keep telling yourself how horrible you feel and how there is nothing you can do about it.
