When fear makes its grand entrance
By no means everyone is born a great speaker, performance musician or actor. Quite a few people are afraid to stand in front of a group and give a presentation, a play, a dance performance, or something similar. As a result, they suffer from stage fright, presentation anxiety or speech anxiety. But stage fright is also a major problem for many sufferers outside the big stage.
For example, a salary negotiation, an audition, a job interview, or an important meeting at the office can trigger typical symptoms of performance anxiety. These include a slightly increased heartbeat, a dry mouth, a shaky voice or excessive sweating. Furthermore, the uneasiness is accompanied by a queasy feeling even before the actual performance.
In most cases, performance anxiety does not require treatment, especially since some anxiety is not bad per se. Because in the right dose, the stress hormones released as a result of anxiety keep us focused and alert, spurring us on to peak performance.
What science says about it:
American psychologists found that we perform at our strongest at an intermediate level of anxiety – too much or too little anxiety, on the other hand, diminishes this performance potential. Accordingly, a heightened adrenaline level is helpful in delivering an exciting presentation and making a good entrance.
A pathological form of performance anxiety could be present if the affected person can no longer control their excitement at all and the fear is regularly accompanied by panic attacks, depression, dizzy spells, intestinal and stomach problems or hectic breathing, among other things.
Performance anxiety: the fear of embarrassing yourself
The decisive factor in stage fright is the audience, especially since it is a form of social evaluation anxiety. Affected people fear negative feedback in particular as part of their performance anxiety. The fear of attracting ridicule, failing to convince the audience, missing an opportunity, or embarrassing oneself in front of everyone is downright paralyzing for some.
Performance anxiety occurs in many forms, for example as already mentioned presentation anxiety, stage anxiety or speech anxiety. Performance anxiety differs from closely related test anxiety in its focus on social attention. A higher tendency to stage fright and test anxiety is shown above all by people who are particularly perfectionistic and ambitious or generally anxious and insecure.
Most often, this form of anxiety is also accompanied by negative experiences. For example, anyone who has been embarrassed by their classmates in connection with a presentation during their school years will, in many cases, be unable to forget this feeling for the rest of their lives and will be more susceptible to performance anxiety.
But how can we free ourselves from performance anxiety?
The speech at the wedding for your best friend doesn’t have to be a nightmare. Also the presentation in front of colleagues can be held with a relaxed feeling. So what can we do?
EMDR self-coaching usually helps with this. Read more at Overcoming Anxiety in EMDR Self-Coaching with EMDR Goggles REMSTIM 3000.
How we can manage our fear
Overcoming fear in EMDR self-coaching with the EMDR goggles REMSTIM 3000
How we can unlearn our fears in self-coaching with EMDR and the EMDR glasses Remstim 3000. Fear reactions sometimes make themselves felt as quiet sensations, but more often than not,
Overcoming fear in EMDR self-coaching with the EMDR goggles REMSTIM 3000
How we can unlearn our fears in self-coaching with EMDR and the EMDR glasses Remstim 3000. Fear reactions sometimes make themselves felt as quiet sensations, but more often than not,
