Understanding Music Performance Anxiety (MPA)
Worried and stressed about an upcoming concert? Heart beating faster? Hands cold? Why does this always happen before a performance? Is it because your worried you might make a mistake?
According to the Centre for Studies on Human Stress (CSHS) there are four
general ingredients that can make you stressed: Novelty, Unpredictability,
Threat to the ego, and Sense of control.
The link is Home – CESH / CSHS (humanstress.ca)
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[tab title=”NOVELTY“]
Its human nature to be scared of the unknown. Often when we don’t know something we will be stressed. For example, a musician playing for the first time with a professional orchestra might be stressed and nervous about playing in a new environment.
“Something that is new that you haven’t experienced before”
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[tab title=”UNPREDICTABILITY“]
There’s a string that seems to be on the verge of snapping and your not sure if it will hold through the performance or if it might snap while performing.
“Something you had no way of knowing it would occur”
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[tab title=”THREAT TO THE EGO“]
You’ve been accepted to audition to the Julliard school of music and are going to perform in front of judges who will decide if your accepted or not. if you fail what will your parents think?
“Your competence as a person is called into question”
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[tab title=”SENSE OF CONTROL“]
Your next performance is outside but the forecast says that there is 50 % chance of rain and you don’t know if your performance will be canceled.
“You feel you have little or no control over the situation”
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When any of these four categories occurs a number of reactions happen in your body to trigger the stress response. This response is called the fight-or-flight response coined by Walter Bradford Cannon an American physiologist. It basically means raise your hands to fight or run away. (http://scihi.org/walter-bradford-cannon-homeostasis/)
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[toggle title=”Fight-or-flight response“]
Your body activates the fight-or-flight response when it detects a threat. But what actually constitutes a threat? From an evolutionary perspective it would be something that causes us danger and threatens our survival, but in our age, there aren’t any dinosaurs or sabretooth tigers attacking us, in fact there aren’t many things attacking us at all so why are we having this response? Well that’s because today we are scared of things that we shouldn’t really be afraid of like an exam, or speaking in front of a crowd, and our brain think it’s a threat.
This fight-or-flight response that makes you stressed isn’t supposed to make your
life difficult its actually meant to protect you from harm. It dilates your
pupils so you can see better, raises your heart rate and your blood pressure,
brings your blood to your essential muscles and limbs all so that you can
protect yourself from the threat.
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This is a response in our human DNA from long ago and we can’t get rid of stress but we can learn how to cope with it. Let’s look into how it happens.
[toggle title=”The Limbic System“]
To know how stress occurs we have to understand the Limbic system. When we speak about emotion and anything to do with it, it all happens within the structures of what we call our limbic system.
The limbic system is composed of many structures though the main structures that cause stress are: The thalamus, the amygdala, the hippocampus and the pituitary gland.
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[tab title=”Thalamus“]
The Thalamus is the brains relay center. All sensory signals and motor information travel up the spinal cord and into the thalamus, which lies just above the brainstem. The thalamus then interprets these signals and passes them on to the relevant brain region. This means your vision, taste, touch, sound and balance are all processed by your thalamus. The only sense that doesn’t pass through the thalamus is smell. (More information about smell in references *1)
”
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[tab title=”Amygdala“]
Your walking down the street and a car turns and almost hits you but you jump out of the way. What happened? You probably don’t even remember the color of the car or model. What is that scared feeling that you are experiencing in your body? Well, that’s your Amygdala, your brains fear center. It is where your brain detects threats and your body reacts before even processing all the information, this is how your body sometimes reacts without even realizing it.
When the brain detects danger the thalamus sends that information to your amygdala and while your brain is still processing the information the amygdala immediately acts sending the signal to the hypothalamus.
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[tab title=”Hypothalamus“]
The Hypothalamus is the primary link between the central nervous system and the endocrine system. The endocrine system is responsible for releasing different hormones (chemical messengers) into the bloodstream to help the body function properly.
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[tab title=”Pituitary gland“]
The pituitary gland is your major endocrine organ that regulates hormones. Hormones are the chemicals that travel through your body to operate and coordinate different systems in your body. The messages travel through your blood stream to your skin muscle and organs.
The hormones regulate:
◉ Body temperature
◉Blood pressure
◉Respiration
◉Digestive secretions
◉Appetite
◉Hydration
◉Weight
◉Breast milk production
◉Growth
◉Emotions and behavior
◉Memory
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Now that we have discussed the four parts of the limbic system, we can move on to the final step called the HPA axis.
[toggle title=”HPA axis:“]
The HPA axis stands for the first letters of
Hypothalamus
Pituitary gland
Adrenal cortex
Lets go over the steps quickly, your body senses danger and then sends those signals to the thalamus, your thalamus relays the signals to your amygdala which contacts your hypothalamus, from the hypothalamus the HPA axis begins,
Your hypothalamus sends CRH (corticotropin releasing hormone) to your pituitary gland, your pituitary gland which then releases ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) to your
adrenal glands which are located directly on top of your two kidneys,
The adrenal cortex releases 30 hormones and the hormone we called cortisol which one of the main hormones responsible for the fight-or-flight response
At the same time your brain is doing this your sympathetic nerves system also sends a signal to your adrenal medulla to release epinephrine and norepinephrine more commonly known as adrenaline and noradrenalin.
These hormones prepare us for a prolonged response to danger. Their effects include increasing heart rate, constriction of veins in the skin, allowing improved blood flow to major muscles. Muscles becoming tense and energized, and non-essential systems, like digestion and the immune system, shutting down to free up energy for defense. These effects reduce blood flow to different body parts and your extremities-hands, feet, resulting in them becoming cold
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Awareness and acceptance
First thing you have to realize is that you’re not alone. Even the most famous musicians have performance anxiety and have yet to eliminate it. Understanding what is happening and why is this happening to your body is the first key to dealing with it.
Find ‘your’ way of dealing with it
- Start by working on little things that will increase your confidence or reducing things that are causing you to do doubt yourself and be uncertain. For example if your having cold hands find a way to warm them up before the concert. There is no one solution, you can wear gloves, run your hands under hot water, massage them before your concert. Find the method that works for you to reduce your level of anxiety before you perform. “You can stop a cycle of perceived negative emotions in its tracks or prevent it from even starting by knowing how to target the types of symptoms of performance anxiety and by using strategies to do that.” AMY JOY
Presence
-Find your presence. Everyone will face a certain moment in their life where they need to find themselves and establish their presence. You have to attain a state of true self when you go perform because you can’t be struggling with yourself you need to be your truest self during performance.
Establishing your presence means three things: “confidence, comfort level, and passionate enthusiasm” Presence means tapping in to your inner self to be confidant without judgment from anyone and expressing your true self, thoughts, and feelings. This is the state that we are able to manage through stress and the state we need to achieve when we perform for someone.
To conclude
There is no solution to eliminate stress as it is a part of us. It may even help us deal with situations with more focus. What we can do is learn how to deal with our emotion, psychological, and physical reactions to stress and organize them. The good news is that even though it sounds like you may need many techniques in reality everything is connected and even one technique might help reduce all other reactions in your body.
[toggle title=”References:“]
Barbeau, A. (2017). Is Performing Music Soothing or Stressful? Two Perspectives: Music Performance Anxiety among Musicians and the Effect of Active Music-Making on Seniors’ Health (Order No. 28250195). Available from Dissertations & Theses @ McGill University. (2507522804). https://proxy.library.mcgill.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/is-performing-music-soothing-stressful-two/docview/2507522804/se-2
Kenny, D. T. (2011). The psychology of music performance anxiety (First). Oxford University Press.
Watson, A. H. D. (2009). The biology of musical performance and performance-related injury. Scarecrow Press.
Cuddy, A. J. C. (2015). Presence: bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges (First). Little, Brown and Company.
Sinnamon, S. (2021). Achieving peak performance in music: psychological strategies for optimal flow. Routledge.
“Stress as a Biological Process: Psychology Concepts.” Films On Demand, Films Media Group, 2016, fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=103901&xtid=129132. Accessed 13 Oct. 2022.
Chrousos GP. Stress and disorders of the stress system. Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2009 Jul;5(7):374-81. doi: 10.1038/nrendo.2009.106. Epub 2009 Jun 2. PMID: 19488073.
https://neuroscientificallychallenged.com/posts/what-is-the-hpa-axis
Nicolaides NC, Kino T, Chrousos G. AIDS and HPA Axis. [Updated 2020 Nov 24]. In: Feingold KR, Anawalt B, Boyce A, et al., editors. Endotext [Internet]. South Dartmouth (MA): MDText.com, Inc.; 2000-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK279014
Biologydictionary.net Editors. (2020, July 24). HPA Axis. Retrieved from https://biologydictionary.net/hpa-axis/
Brunno R. Levone, John F. Cryan, Olivia F. O’Leary, Role of adult hippocampal neurogenesis in stress resilience, Neurobiology of Stress,
Volume 1, 2015, Pages 147-155, ISSN 2352-2895, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2014.11.003.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352289514000198)
*1. https://whyy.org/segments/why-smell-is-so-closely-connected-to-our-memories-and-emotions/#:~:text=Smell%20bypasses%20the%20thalamus%2C%20which,sensory%20stimuli%2C%E2%80%9D%20Dalton%20said.
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[toggle title=”Image references:“]
1. Moyan Brenn,” some rock peaks with a person on one side taken in silhouette”, CC-BY-2.0.
2. OswaldLR, “Screenshot from the PD cartoon Porky Pig’s Feat (1943)”, PD US not renewed.
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