Stage Fright: What You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know

The symptoms of stage fright are largely the manifestation of the brain’s autonomic nervous system (ANS) preparing the body to fight or flee whenever it perceives a threat.

It reacts instantly and without conscious thought, largely through the release of adrenalin into the bloodstream. That’s what causes your heart to pound and your breathing to become labored in addition to the other physical symptoms you suffer.

That’s how I know you perceive a threat when you experience stage fright. If you didn’t, the ANS wouldn’t kick in to cause your symptoms.

Here’s a fun fact, by the way. Autonomic means “occurring involuntarily or spontaneously.” That means we don’t have much direct control over the autonomic nervous system.

If it perceives a threat, you’re going to experience the symptoms of stage fright.

So, getting nervous when the stakes are high makes sense, like during a make-or-break audition or an important performance.

What’s mysterious about stage fright, though, is that it can even strike when the stakes don’t seem all that high.

Even at such a time, you’re still sensing a threat. And it’s a true threat that represents a deep danger to you as a performer. It’s just buried under layers of less consequential surface worries.

(Continue on to the next page to understand why all of this means there’s no one-and-done cure for stage fright.)