Today we’re going to continue expanding on our strategies for managing stage fright with featuring strategies to help you focus and really get those jitters under control.
Visualizations:
Professional athletes use visualizations to help them calm their nerves and to support their win. The belief is that if you can see yourself winning, then you will! There is some truth to this as our mindset plays a huge role in what we believe we are capable of. From a different perspective, it’s possible that athletes who use visualizations may increase their chances of winning, not necessarily because they think “I’m a winner”, but because they run through the different scenarios or potential outcomes of the game. Doing this allows them to think about how they would respond if something goes wrong. If ball gets dropped after the snap they can think the action steps they need to take in order to fix the situation.
I actually think this is a great exercise for those who suffer from extreme stage fright. Seeing yourself on stage and thinking through all the different ways things could possibly go wrong can help you too. If you have extreme stage fright, you may have a tendency of freezing when something doesn’t go according to plan. Finding a quiet place to relax and working through a mental plan for how to handle those situations can be extremely valuable in helping you calm your nerves. In fact consider visualizing yourself in front of the audience and completely freezing. What will you do? How can you move forward? Can you think of a joke or something you can do to snap yourself out of that moment and regain control?
Deep Breathing:
This is a really important strategy for helping you deal with stage fright for a number of reasons, but most importantly because if you’re breathing improperly, you could pass out. Nobody wants that to happen to learn to “breath from your belly”. What does that mean? Well, when most people get nervous, they start to breathe from their chest, more so their upper chest. Your body isn’t designed to breathe this way, you pull in less air and if you’re speaking you’re going to need more air. So you start to inhale more frequently, faster breathing and less air leads to lightheadedness. But if you breathe from your belly, you’ll be fine. So how do you learn to breathe from your belly? Here is a simple and easy exercise.
- Lay on a flat surface (a floor is best, but you can lay on a bed or couch too)
- Place your hands lightly on the sides of your belly
- Close your eyes and relax.
- Just start breathing normally.
- After a few breaths pay attention to the movement of your chest and belly
- Which one moves more as you breathe?
- The difference may be subtle, but it’s actually your belly that moves more.
- Keep breathing like this until you feel like you’ve got the movement down
- Now practice this standing up.
Once you have mastered this breathing technique lying down, try it in a standing position. Then practice giving your speech with the focus on your breathing rather than on your words. Plus, this gives you something else to focus your nervous energy on. You’ll be amazed at the difference this can make when you’re giving a presentation.