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Cope With Nerves

by John Byrne
July 2005

John Byrne is a showbusiness life coach, the author of several best-selling career guides for performers and writers and a regular broadcaster on TV and radio.

How to cope with nerves

Many psychologists agree that, except for death, public speaking is the most commonly held human fear. Since performance involves not only public speaking but lots of other public activities, from singing to dancing to fire eating, it is no surprise that for many performers nerves are one of the biggest barriers to advancing their showbusiness careers.

At the outset, I should say that having advised many performers at many levels from beginner to highly experienced, my first response to the question "can you help me get rid of my nervousness?" is "are you sure you really want to get rid of your nervousness?"

Most seasoned performers will tell you that a certain degree of nervousness before a gig can be as much a 'friend' as an enemy - it means your senses are heightened and you are anxious to do well. Complacency and arrogance before a gig have led to far more onstage disasters and just plain lacklustre shows than nerves ever did.

It's also true that many of the most experienced and successful performers suffer bouts of nerves throughout their careers, and have just learned to accept them as part of their pre-gig routine. The best goal for you then, may be not so much to eradicate your nerves as to ensure that they work with you, not against you.

With this in mind, here are some tried and trusted coping skills:

1. Rehearsal

Since the focus of much nervousness tends to be the fear that it will all go wrong on stage, and since no matter how much of a control freak you are, it is virtually impossible to ensure that it will always go right on stage (think how many entertaining showbiz stories would never exist if we could), the only sensible route is to go on stage hoping for the best but prepared for the worst. This means your first anti-nerves strategy should be that almost forgotten 'secret' of rehearsal, rehearsal and more rehearsal.

Rehearsal has been described as "preparing in advance for everything you know might go wrong, so that you are free to deal on the night with the one thing you didn't expect to go wrong".

The very fears we are discussing here usually ensure that complete beginners need no extra prodding to put in a good deal of practise before their first few appearances. But, as one gets a little more used to being on stage, it's easy to skimp on rehearsal time, and often to give into the temptation to "blag" your show with no rehearsal at all. And you may even get away with it for a while. But performers who take the easy route usually find that, after they have left the nursery slopes of beginners nights, natural talent on its own is no match for the natural-talent-plus-professionalism they will be competing against on the top bills, and learn the hard way why performers who are genuinely at the top of their game tend to rehearse more, rather than less, as they progress up the career ladder.

Remember that rehearsal doesn't just include going over your lines or running through your lyrics - make sure you work out your stage movements and on handling any props you work with smoothly too.

Is it possible to 'over rehearse'? Well only in the sense that if you are doing something that doesn't work, doing it over and over won't make it any better. It's a good idea to do some of your rehearsing in front of people who will give you an honest opinion (much easier to assemble when you are starting out, before the "yes" people and hangers on turn up). Knowing you have already faced - and won over - a tough audience beforehand, is a great booster when facing a paying audience for the first time.

2. Self awareness

Some would say being too self-conscious is what leads to nerves in the first place, but what I am suggesting here is awareness of your own self-awareness, if that's not too much of a mind bender. To put it simply, you live inside your own body while the rest of us live outside it - so it makes sense that you will be a lot more aware of how your body is feeling and behaving then the rest of us are. Therefore, when you are about to do your thing and feeling nervous, it's easy to assume that the nerves will be equally obvious to everybody else and then compound the situation by becoming 'nervous about being nervous'. Actually, as the late Bob Monkhouse was fond of advising beginners, you will always appear far more nervous to yourself than you will seem to the audience. In other words, if you are breathing a little fast and shaking a bit, this may not be obvious to the audience at all, even though you will be aware of it. Even if you are in a serious shaking-and-sweating scenario from your own point of view, you may just look a little perturbed to the people watching.

The real giveaways of nervousness tend to be to be not so much physical, as more obvious ones like hands flapping when holding paper, or forgetting lines. You'll know your own nervous signs, so plan in advance to cloak them if you can - say, by reading from card or a book rather than paper, or wearing a jacket (if it suits your character) to make flapping less obvious. Always be familiar with the general plot and direction of the show you are in, rather than just your own lines - that way, if you forget your words you can invent some new ones to get you back on track.

3. Breathing

Correct breathing isn't just important for actors and singers. Since nervousness makes us take slow and shallow breaths, which means our body has to fight harder for the oxygen it needs to function, deeper breathing before going on stage not only gives us more control of what we are doing and helps us do it with more smoothness and power, it is also the first strategy to adopt when something goes wrong. Our natural tendency in a crisis is usually to speed up and plow ahead - but taking the time to stop, take a deep breath and refocus gives us a far better chance of bringing the performance back on track. Remember that audiences (yes, even stand-up comedy crowds) are more interested in a performer who appears in control, nerves or no nerves, than one who is either panicked or emotionless.

4. Medication?

Actually, this section might better be termed 'how NOT to cope with nerves'.

Alcohol and drugs are the obvious avenues to be avoided, not so much because they might not work or will impair your performance. In truth a single drink or a tranquilizer might well give you "dutch courage". The real problem with medicating your nerves is the law of diminishing returns. We lie to ourselves that one drink or one pill will get us over the early stages of nerves and once our confidence develops we'll let them go - what usually happens is one drink or one pill ceases to be effective so we up the dosage and we're on a slippery slope that countless showbusiness careers have crashed down before us.

Alternative remedies such as aromatherapy may be safer - for years actors have associated lavender with calming the nerves. But be aware that just because a medicine or therapy is labelled "natural" doesn't make it safe. And it certainly doesn't make it inexpensive. Also, even when such approaches do work, they tend to suppress the symptoms of nerves rather than deal with the root cause, so you'll still need a better long term approach.

The other not-so-sensible way to cope with nerves is superstition - 'lucky' waistcoats, rings and trousers abound backstage - while they undoubtedly provide some performers with reassurance, their main miraculous ability, in my experience, is the uncanny knack of going missing just before an important performance, triggering a megadose of the jitters at the very worst time.

5. Just do it...

Ultimately the only effective way to cope with your fears is to get as much stage time as you can. Either repeated performances will slowly but surely reduce your apprehension beforehand or they won't - but you'll learn that it is possible to 'feel the fear and do it anyway'.

Note: While the above information relates to general nervousness common to most performers, chronic or debilitating Stage Fright, especially if it appears without obvious explanation or strikes in mid career may be due to depression or other mental issues.

Here are some resources which can be particularly helpful in seeking support:

SANE: www.sane.org.uk
Helpline 0845767 8000 (12noon to 2am)

The Samaritans: www.samaritans.org.uk
08457909090 (24 hours)

MIND: www.mind.org.uk

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Also check out the chapter on nerves in our EXTRActs section:

Secrets of Performing Confidence - Overcoming Performance Anxiety

And visit John's showbusiness advice column online: Dear John