I recently came across an article in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. The article tittle is Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement. An intriguing tittle to say the least. The author, Alison Wood Brooks is from the Harvard Business School and has conducted research about people feeling the symptoms of anxiety. She writes that most people feel its best to calm down when these feelings start, but her research shows that it may work better for some people to reappraise anxious arousal as excitement. This may help individuals perform better.
The article isn't specifically about music performance, but I do think it applies. Sometimes its fun to just let go and let a performance happen! I wonder if encouraging this mind set with ourselves and our students would help remove some of the crippling effects of anxiety?
You can read the abstract and view the article here.
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