Fright at the Mic

Earlier this week, I stood in front of my company - a room of zoom-video-heads-turned-life-size-bodies - while all the water in my body was gushing through my palms and my armpits. My attempted effort to slow my breathing turned futile at bringing my heart rate even just one beat per minute below 90. My vision was throbbing around the edges like pulsing light at a nightclub as I repeated the first line of my presentation 20 times over in my head before being handed the mic.

As a remote employee, I am all too used to hiding behind a computer screen. High-pressure meetings are less high-pressure from the comfort of my home and presentations are much less scary while Bruno, my bobcat-sized house cat, purrs aggressively, but comfortingly, in my lap.

At the commencement of my presentation, my hormones evolved from moving in synchronicity like a well-orchestrated symphony to full-metal head-banging and mosh-pitting. The biological and physiological changes pushed my body and mind into an uncomfortable state of disequilibrium. My senses became sharper - the whispers in the corner of the room became audible and the crinkling of Dorito bags in the audience became overstimulating.

From 9:00 am to 3:00 pm (the time of my presentation), I was running on overdrive. By the time I sat in the speaker’s seat, I was in a full episode of stage fright.

After my presentation had come and gone, relief replaced fear, and all I could think about was how to break up with stage fright for good. Stage fright in my life has been unavoidable which left me wondering what I can do to mitigate my stress response in high-pressure situations. I sought answers to the following questions and was pretty astounded at what I found:

1. What does stage fright look like from a neurological perspective?

2. What aspects of stage fright are within my control?

3. How can I use stage fright or similar states of disequilibrium to my advantage in high-pressure situations?

What is stage fright?

Despite my prior beliefs, stage fright is not its own phenomenon but rather the anxiety or fear response we call fight-or-flight.

When there is the possible threat of an adverse situation: danger, vulnerability, or exposure, the amygdala - a portion of the limbic system in the brain responsible for processing emotions and memories associated with fear - is signaled to determine whether the adverse stimuli is a threat to our equilibrium. In the event that a threat is present, information is relayed to the nervous system responsible for preparing our mind and body to fight or take flight. The adrenal glands are signaled to release adrenaline and suddenly your slow rhythmic heart rate spurs into drumming chaos.

What is interesting about the fight or flight response to me is that it kicks in when there is a perceived survival-based threat. While speaking in front of a crowd or playing an instrument in front of an audience may present no imminent danger, the body acts in a way to protect us and guarantee our survival by triggering us to run or fight what is opposing us. Survival in modern times may no longer be about finding food and shelter or withstanding the elements but it is fascinating that our body responds in very similar if not the same way. If survival in modern times is not about true survival, what is our limbic system protecting us against? Is it possible that our survival instincts protect a higher level of human need such as belonging or esteem?

What aspects of state fright are in my control?

Now that we know that stage fright is a natural response to perceived danger, we can dig into the emotional response of fear.

In moments of fear, certain personality traits or dispositions can perpetuate a fear response for an extended period of time. Highly negative inner chatter may start to increase, deeply analytical personalities will fall into analysis paralysis and perfectionists may find themselves in a state of hyper-awareness of both their surroundings and their person.

Stage fright can quickly become a downward spiral as a person eliciting a fear response will be perpetually on the lookout for anything that reinforces the emotion they are experiencing. This is the window of opportunity to reduce or prevent fear reinforcement.

From physical activity to cardio imagery to meditation, I have read tens of methods to reduce stage fright, but I found one in particular to be the most interesting. Neuroscientist, Sian Beilock, who has devoted her work to performance-based anxiety and particularly the concept of choking under pressure, has found a strong correlation between the reliance on working memory and the decrement in a skill when under pressure. Working memory is the small amount of information that can be held in mind and used in the execution of a cognitive task. So what this means is that performance pressure will be detrimental to individuals - even those most qualified to succeed - by consuming the working memory capacity that they rely on for superior performance.

When I was learning about this concept, the lightbulbs were going off. Sian has been able to prove that there is a bridge between practice and performance that must be bridged in order to transfer reliance on working memory to reliance on procedural memory. Procedural memory is our memory for motor skills and tasks that are achieved through repetition and practice - it is in charge of the encoding, storage, and retrieval procedures than underlie motor and cognitive skills.

This work caveats the age-old saying practice makes perfect, by demonstrating that practice without increased pressure may be in vain. We see very similar concepts paralleled in the psychological practice called exposure therapy. Exposure therapy is a technique used to help people overcome fears and anxieties by breaking the pattern of fear and avoidance. The premise of exposure therapy is to “expose” individuals to the things they fear or avoid in controlled settings such that the anxiety associated will eventually decline so much that the subject will no longer exhibit avoidance.

While practice itself might not make perfect, practice - even under small amounts of pressure - will teach the body and mind to stay calm and collected in scenarios of high pressure. While not known to the mind, the art of practice and training will transfer the ability to execute a motor or cognitive task away from working memory to procedural memory. What is so fascinating about this to me is that this concept extends well beyond stage fright - it bleeds into our everyday lives and begs the question, what fears do we avoid that exposure therapy could prime us to respond better under pressure?

How can I use stage fright or similar states of disequilibrium to my advantage in high-pressure situations?

The truth about stress responses such as fight or flight is that they will never truly vanish from our lives. If stress is an inevitable consequence of engaging in roles and aspects of life that feed our sense of purpose, then why do we have a culture that views stress as strictly harmful?

If we diminish stress to being harmful, we will ultimately become more and more avoidant of stress-inducing activities, we will begin to doubt our abilities to handle challenges, and we will struggle to find positive meaning in hardship. In certain situations - for example, my work presentation - there was a certain level of stress I neglected to embrace. What my stress told me about myself at that moment was not that I was ill-prepared but rather that I wanted to convey my passion and excitement in a way that resonated with the audience. Perhaps in that situation, my stress could have been my superpower instead of a limiting factor; in that world, self-doubt looks more like confidence, fear looks more like courage, and anxious behavior looks more like a resolute demeanor.

Through my own episode of fright at the mic this week, I’ve become more deeply enchanted with the brain and the nervous system and its drive to protect us. Is it possible that the brain is hardwired to send us into a frenzy of fight or flight no matter what the imminent danger is? Or is the fight or flight response evolving with us to protect our ever-evolving needs? I’d love to know what your thoughts are on this topic!

Thank you for reading and for being here - I am looking forward to chatting again next week. Until then!