Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Lesson Anxiety -- Exercise Helped a Lot

Someone on these forums suggested that a bit of mild, physical exercise before your lesson could help lessen the shakes from performance anxiety.

I tried this the last two weeks and, so far, it made a very significant difference. I still get the stomach flip flops, but my hands didn't shake and I didn't get the extreme black outs that make note recognition difficult.

About 2 hours before my lesson I did 30 minutes of physical work (in my case some vigorous weeding in my vegetable garden) sufficient to get my heart racing and work up a sweat.

The theory is that the exercise burns off some of the adrenaline so the fight or flight response has less impact. I was also very happy to find that the cotton-mouth sensation was lessened significantly. In addition, I played a piece perfectly in the lesson that has been perfect at home for 2 months and always fell apart in the lesson.

So, maybe worth a try for other sufferers.

Do you mean you have it when taking normal lessons with your teacher? Why not discuss it with her/him. It will feel as a relief.

You've given good, actually excellent, general advice for anxiety .

.. Specifically for and in lessons anxiety is a totally good topic to discuss. Because for better or worse playing an instrument can and usually does raise anxiety st certain times and points, and, particularly for adult learners. Your teacher can help you with this and over time experience will become a good teacher.

There's a book related to this you might enjoy and benefit from. It's called the Listening Book, by WA Mathieu. I recommend it to all of my students and no one has yet said anything about it except to comment on its greatness! Of course sooner or later someone will not like it!

In any case, I recommend it highly.

Monkey Mind: A memoir of anxiety by Daniel Smith is great, but not for the squeamish.

Yes, this happens during my regular weekly lesson. I have discussed this with my teacher, and he's great about it. But, the reality, for some people like me, is this is as crippling as stage fright. Everything shuts down, fingers shake and get stiff, short and long term memory stops working, visual perception and recognition deteriorates, peripheral vision shuts down. It's a physical response to excessive adrenaline production and it takes a lot of work to make it manageable.

Consider seeing a mental health professional.
It's none of my business, but I'm curious if you experience symptoms of anxiety in other situations too, or just around piano.

I suspect the various performance coaches, like the BulletProof Musician, offer more practical advice than the mental health professionals. Maybe the behavior mod folks would be helpful.

I wouldn't characterize this as anxiety, as there's no crippling fear, it's just a physiological response that prevents effective application of fine motor control.

In general, any situation where I feel my existential worth is being evaluated causes a similar response. It's not limited to piano lessons, although the lessons are currently the highest profile activity of this sort in which I'm engaged.

Thanks, that's interesting. I'm rather anxious myself although most of the time at a subclinical level, or at least that's what I like to believe!

For me at piano lessons it has been useful to remind myself that my teacher is evaluating my skill at playing the piano and working on remediating that. My existential worth isn't really on the table. I feel better about the whole process, but I still have lessons where the sheet music or the keyboard look completely unfamiliar or sometimes everything just turns sort of blue and swirly.

Try eating a banana about half an hour before the lesson. They help lessen anxiety.

Scgrant, I'm glad this approach is helping you!

I don't think I was the person who posted this idea as a solution to lesson anxiety, but I've posted here suggesting exercise before a recital or other performance probably a billion times! I received the suggestion from a professional pianist, and after taking here advice, I found that exercise prior to a performance made a huge difference for me.

It's just a biological reality, too much adrenaline manifests in various physical ways (shaky hands, dry mouth) that are unpleasant and get in the way of playing. Reduce that adrenaline and there's less of it there when you sit down to play.

To the suggestion to see a mental health professional, why do that if exercise is making an improvement? Why add drugs (which would be the likely suggestion) when a non-medicinal approach is working? And I agree with Scgrant, information geared specifically for musicians is probably better than what you'd get from a generalized mental health practitioner.

Having performance anxiety (whether when playing an instrument or in public speaking) is normal and incredibly common. In the absence of other problems, there's no reason to assume it's part of some larger mental health problem.

Scgrant if you, or anyone else, are looking for more things to read, I highly recommend the following three books: The Inner game of Music (by Barry Green), A Soprano On Her Head (by Eloise Ristad), and the Art of Practicing (by Madeline Bruser). These have been my go-to guides for getting past performance anxiety.

And keep up with the pre-lesson exercise!

My suggestion to seek professional help was in response to this statement:



which sounded pretty severe to me. Competent professionals are able to address a client's individual needs in ways that self-help books can't, but suit yourself. Exercise is always good and so are bananas.

Well, yes, the physical manifestations of performance anxiety can be quite severe, I say this from my own experience. It's just a biological reality. But that doesn't mean the person experiencing that necessarily has an anxiety disorder or other mental illness.



Yes of course, I'm sure that's true, although I would still want it to be someone who was experienced in working with musicians. Nevertheless, it is good advice for someone who has tried everything and is not seeing any improvement. This isn't the case with the OP.

I guess my reaction is (as I said before) why medicalize it? Especially when the OP has found something that's helping.

Anyway, I don't mean to be argumentative, and I certainly don't want to suggest that there's something wrong with seeking out mental health care, so I'll stop here.

The symptoms are severe, but very compartmentalized. I know that my existence is in large Box A and the response of my autonomic nervous system is in small Box B, over to the left. Clinical anxiety sufferers, as I understand it, are overtaken by the experience and feel that they're actually in jeopardy.

It is remarkable how much nerves affect performance. Security forces, as I've heard, train to work through this as the tunnel vision can actually prevent one from seeing clearly. Worst case for me is when I look at the keyboard and can't recognize the notes. That's a little daunting.

All the suggestions and debate in the forum are a very useful part of alleviating the symptoms as any analysis creates distance, and distance makes the small box smaller.

I'm glad exercise is helping--that's great.

I want to say, though, that suggestions of professional help do not necessarily imply "medicalization." I'm struck by the idea mentioned, that a piano lesson is an evaluation of existential worth. I recognize this feeling really well from my own experiences of performance anxiety! But it's exactly the kind of thing that cognitive therapy helps address. Because if you examine it rationally, it becomes rather absurd. (Do people who are not able to play the piano really have low existential worth?)

Of course, if exercise solves the problem, fine. But there are other types of non-invasive help. Often just a handful of sessions can give people tools that help combat self-defeating habits of thought. There's good info on this in a book called Feeling Good by David Burns. People also can benefit from the book alone--but only if they actually do some of the exercises rather than just reading it.

Nice post jdw.

All very good points, jdw. Again, I didn't mean to imply that there's something wrong with seeking professional help. (Not that I'm defensive or something!

And as with anything, whether it's a self-help book or visits with a professional, your point that it only works if the person does the exercises (or in the case of working with a professional, follows the advice etc.) is well-made.

Great suggestions on techniques and books, thank you all.

To summarize, I'd say my nervous reaction to piano lessons has decreased by about 75% over the last few months of seriously working this issue.

Four primary drivers of the improvement, as far as I can tell:

1. Happy Talk.
2. Visualization.
3. Exercise.
4. More Effective Practicing.

1. Happy talk is very simple. Just physically force yourself to smile whenever you feel the jitters coming on and repeat whatever phrase you find soothing while doing a few slow, deep breaths. I use, "mistakes are only human, it's divine to keep going." 2 or 3 seconds of this is usually enough.
2. Visualization is useful because you can practice visualization at any time before you get the shakes and build up some reserves of resolve. I visualize the lesson going well, see a few small mistakes occur, the teacher provides very polite and helpful feedback to overcome the mistake, then the lesson goes forward extremely well." This only takes 2 or 3 minutes a few times a day.
3. Exercise we've talked about. 30 minutes of exercise, an hour or so before the lesson. Nothing hard core, just enough to work up a light sweat and raise the resting heart rate.
4. Practice practicing. The more effective my practice, the better I know the material, the more confidence I have going into the lesson, the better the lesson goes, the more I learn. The classic virtuous cycle. Many, many books and videos can double or quadruple the effectiveness of each practice session and dramatically raise the educative value of each lesson.

I've also started carrying a water bottle to the lesson as this eliminates the cotton mouth.

I sure there are dozens (maybe, hundreds) of other techniques that work for other individuals. If you suffer from lesson anxiety, just try anything. Something will work.

Thanks, glad if the comments are helpful.