perform better under pressure by tweaking this one belief — the bulletproof musician

7/29/2019 Perform Better Under Pressure by Tweaking This One Belief The Bulletproof Musician

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Perform Better Under Pressure by Tweaking This

One Belief

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by Dr. Noa Kageyama 16 comments

Stress management is a huge business. A quick Amazon search yields 18,558 books, ranging from Stress

form Better Under Pressure by Tweaking This One Belief The B... http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/perform-better-under-pressure-b...

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Management for Dummies to Stress-Free Potty Training.

No surprise I suppose, because weve all experienced varying degrees of stress in the last year, on-stage

and off. Heck, the last weekdayhour, even.

Kids fighting with each other in the back seat as we try to navigate rush hour traffic to get to a doctors

appointment. Worrying about how were going to pay our rent at the end of the month. Having 15

different windows open on the computer, texting on one phone, while putting out a fire on the other line,having been so busy all day that were hungry, tired, and incredibly thirstybut also have to pee really

badly.

Stress sucks.

But could it be that we have it wrong? Is stress really the enemy, or is there something more subtle at

work?

Stress kills

We are bombarded by messages about how bad stress is for us. How job stress alone costs the US over

$300 billion in medical costs, missed work days, etc. annually.

How it increases our risk of chronic diseases, strokes, heart attacks, even gum disease, and makes us sick,

depressed, shrinks our brain, makes cancer worse, ages our kids prematurely, is implicated in 60-90% of

the things we go to our doctor for, and so on and so on (e.g. Stress Health Effects).

Indeed, an 8-year study of 30,000 people found that people who experienced lots of stress were at a 43%

increased risk of dying prematurely.

Yikes.

But wait! Theres a catch.

This statistic was only true of those who believedthat stress was bad. Those experiencing lots of stress

who didnt really buy into the stress affects my health notion actually had the lowestrisk of dying.

So perhaps its not so much the stress thats killing usbut our beliefs about stress that are the problem.

Check out this video of psychologist Kelly McGonigal at TED


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Its all in our headsAs it happens, this phenomenon is true among performers too. Sport psychologists have observed that

some athletes thrive on stress and pressure because of how they interpretwhat is happening to their

bodies.

When your heart starts pounding, when you feel your energy rising, and the adrenaline is pumping

through your system, do you start thinking, Oh, crap. Here we go again. with a sense of trepidation and

despair?

Or do you think OK, its go time. Lets do this! feeling excited, and a bit nervous perhaps, but knowingthat your body is primed to deliver something spectacular that isnt possible when youre in your normal

calm state?

Totally calm performances might be more comfortable for you. They might make you feel more at ease,

and probably even improve technical accuracy to a degree. But who says performing is all about you and

what feels more comfortable?

Doesnt your audience deserve an electrifying performance that reaches inside and lights a fire inside of

them, melts their heart, or impacts them on some emotional level?

If audiences wanted technical perfection, they would stay at home and listen to recordings with higheraudio fidelity and expertly engineered audio perfection. They could avoid the hassle of dressing up,

fighting through traffic, finding parking, paying for tickets, waiting in line, sitting in an uncomfortable

seat that keeps squeaking, squished between people wearing too much perfume, waiting in lines to go to


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the bathroom, squinting to see the performers, sitting through a piece they dont want to hear, being stuck

in a dead spot in the hall, etc.

If you want your audience to have a good time, it may be time to embrace stress as your friend. As your

partner in crime. Like that workout buddy who can get on your nerves (ha ha), but ultimately forces you

to bring your A game, resulting in more rapid gains in the weight room.

What message are we sending our students?

Researchers have investigated this in a range of performance settings, from academia to the military. In

one study, Harvard undergraduates were given test instructions that implied stress and anxiety were a bad

thing, while others were given the message that feeling anxious was a sign they might perform betteron

the test.

Students in the stress-might-be-helpful condition scored 50 points higher on the practice test, and 65

points higher on the actual GRE a couple months later.

Take action

It helps to have a strategy, and an understanding of how to utilize stress to our advantage (a

pre-performance routine, for instance), but think back to your best performances ever. Didnt at least one

of them occur at a time when you were nervous, but somehow still managed to pull everything together

and enjoy one of those transcendent performances that was a great experience for both you and the

audience?

Remind yourself that feeling some increased energy or pre-performance activation (aka anxiety) can help

you. That it has helped you in some situations. And perhaps this could be the message you explicitly and

implicitly send to your students as well. Especially the young ones, who havent yet learned that stress is

supposed to be bad

Additional reading

Why can some kids handle pressure while others fall apart (@New York Times)

How to turn bad stress into good (@Wall Street Journal)

photo credit: topgoldviaphotopincc

New to the blog? Here are a few reasons to sign up for free weekly email updates (plus your copy of

the Bulletproof Musician practice hacking guide)!

Thanks for visiting!

Further Reading:

Is It Bad if Im Nervous Before a Big Performance?1.

How to Care More Without Putting Too Much Pressure On Yourself2.


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How the Right Habits Can Save Us Under Pressure (or, Why Is There Cream Cheese in my

Freezer?)

3.

How to Clear Your Mind of Worries Before a Big Performance4.

What Should You Think About When You Perform?5.

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About Dr. Noa Kageyama

Performance psychologist and Juilliard alumnus & faculty member Dr. Noa Kageyama teaches musicians

how to play their best under pressure through live classes, coachings, and an online course. Based in

NYC, he is married to a terrific pianist, has two hilarious kids, and is a wee bit obsessed with technology

and all things Apple.

Visit my website

The Psychological Skills of Top Performers

How do great artists perform flawlessly to packed houses? How do some

musicians consistently advance in even the toughest auditions?

Is it the number of hours they practice? Natural talent? An extra hour of scales?

Hard work and talent are important, of course. But once you get to a level where everyone is talented and

everyone has done the work, it comes down to a different set of skills.Mental skills that can be the

difference between a sub-par performance, and one that people remember and talk about for days

afterwards.

Click to learn more...

*Just FYI, if you've been thinking about signing up, I've got a bit of news. Version 2.0 of Beyond

Practicing is on its way, and there will be a price increase when it goes live. But if you enroll before 2.0

goes live, you can get all the 2.0 updates for the 1.0 price.

Enroll now


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{ 14 comments read them below or add one }

Anna September 8, 2013 at 8:33 am

I think its important here to differentiate between stress that comes from a situation such as a

performance, and chronic stress that comes from having an unsustainable, disorganized, orimbalanced lifestyle. The former is definitely desirable, the second I doubt is good for anyone.

I nailed an audition this week as I waited to go into the audition room, I reminded myself that

fight or flight response has a purpose to prepare to to, well, either fight or fly. Since I was planning

on fighting, feeling its effects therefore poses no problem

Reply

Dr. Noa KageyamaSeptember 8, 2013 at 11:39 am

Hi Anna,

Good point. Though were learning that how we interpret things really does make a

difference in how our bodies respond even when it comes to chronic life stress (even

chronic pain, etc.).

Terrific to hear about your nailing the audition!

Reply

Janis September 8, 2013 at 3:08 pm

Yeah did I choose to be in this stressful position or didnt I? That can be used to reframe a

lot of things, but not everything.

Reply

Roger Kaza September 8, 2013 at 10:56 am

Great postespecially liked the part about what audiences think. My teacher in college used to

say, Roger, theyve dressed up, theyve hired a baby sitter. Make it special.

When Im feeling especially uptight, I sometimes use logic to calm myself. Its a series of

questions:

1. Is this piece worth hearing by live audiences?

2. Is it within my abilities to play it?3. Can I play it probably as well as anyoneat least anyone thats available to play it at this time and

place?

4. If someone else played it, would they play it any better? (If so, then I can always turn it over to


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them, change majors, change jobs, change careers, whatever.)

5. If someone else played it, isnt it likely theyd be just as uptight as I am, or maybe even worse?

6. Given all of the above, and that someone has to play it because its great music worth hearing

Why not me?

It sounds convoluted, the above really does help me accept the fact that I am the one that should

play it, and will play it.

Roger Kaza

Principal Horn

St. Louis Symphony

Reply

Dr. Noa KageyamaSeptember 8, 2013 at 11:47 am

This is great Roger, thank you for sharing these questions (and the story about your teacher)!

I really like them all (and am super curious what happens when your answer to #1 is no),

and I especially like the combination of questions #3 and #5.

Reply

Ray September 8, 2013 at 11:44 am

Thank you, youve given me something to seriously think about.

Reply

Hart LinkerSeptember 8, 2013 at 1:08 pm

Dr. Kageyama,

As both a classically trained musician (MM from the Peabody Conservatory) and currently a healthsciences student, I generally agree with your assertion that performers need to have an arsenal of

strategies to help them manage the psychological effects of stress on and off the stage.

However, I do take issue with your assertion that stress might just be all in our heads. As Dr.

Robert Sapolsky (Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Standford University) and

other researchers have pointed out, stress (both psychological and physical) does have a direct

impact on our physical bodies. In particular, there is a fairly extensive body of research that

indicates that stress physically impacts human genetics, telomeres, heart disease, and quality of

sleep (particularly Beta brain waves).

Here are some direct links to this research:

1) Stress, Portrait of a Killer PBS documentary

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYG0ZuTv5rs


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2) Stress Management- Medline Plus (Website of the National Institutes of Health)

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001942.htm

3) Professor Richard Sapolskys homepage at the Stanford University School of Medicine (In

particular, this page provides information about his published research articles/studies) :

http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/Robert_Sapolsky/

4) Stress Management and Your Heart- Cleveland Clinichttp://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/prevention/stress/stressheart.aspx

Reply

Dr. Noa KageyamaSeptember 8, 2013 at 1:37 pm

Hi Hart,

Thanks for the note and links to resources. You are, of course, correct that stress is not just inour heads, but is quite a complex interaction of a variety of factors both internal and external,

and either way can wreak quite a bit of havoc on our bodies, the brain included. I suppose

all in our heads may not have been the best subheading ever

Reply

Dwight P. Dillon SeminarioSeptember 8, 2013 at 6:04 pm

This is so right on! I had this realization not too long ago. Just posted it on my blog because once

people make this mental shift, and actually be grateful for the stress, and USE IT as a vehicle rather

than pushing away, they play great! Great article.

Reply

aranolga September 8, 2013 at 7:44 pm

I already did the change. . .

Reply

Janis September 9, 2013 at 11:00 am

Just saw this blog post by one of the astronauts on the ISS this morning and thought of THIS blog

post: http://blogs.esa.int/luca-parmitano/2013/09/09/fear-and-other-demons/

There is a lot of similarity in both the attitudes that fear or stress are not really things you canstub your toe on

Reply


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Dr. Noa KageyamaSeptember 9, 2013 at 9:40 pm

Great find, Janis; nice dose of perspective.

Reply

Roger Kaza September 9, 2013 at 11:10 am

Noa, thanks for your reply. The answer to question # 1 is almost always yeseven if I dont like

the piece, whoever programmed it does! If its really music I cant stand, I liken it to an actor cast to

play an unsympathetic characteryou just do it as well as you can out of sheer craft. (If its part

your job obligations, then you can approach it from that directionworking, eating, supporting

familyall good things!)

I suppose its really kind of a rhetorical question, but I always start with it anyway, since if there isno point in doing what we are doing, it begs the question of why we are doing it.

Reply

Janis September 9, 2013 at 4:43 pm

Maybe #1 could be Does this piece deserve a chance to be heard?

Reply

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