Adele has recently been all over the news because she dramatically cancelled her Las Vegas series of shows at the last minute. Speculation has been rife about whether this is a sign that anxiety about performing and worries that her show would not be ‘perfect’ finally got the better of her. Well, who knows the truth in this case, but it is certainly true that anxiety can cripple many performers, whether that’s singers, dancers or actors.

So what can we do about it? Don’t they just have to steel themselves and get on with it?

The answer is that there is a lot that can be done to help – and hypnotherapy is one of the best strategies for this type of help.

Over the past couple of years I have worked with a number of students from a prestigious West London performing arts college on tackling the issue from two perspectives. On the one hand, there have been several students who needed individual help, whilst also working with whole year groups to teach tools and techniques for general anxiety and stress management.

One of the particular issues over the past year was thrown up by getting back into the studio for in-person teaching following Covid restrictions. As one of the teachers commented: “Like the industry outside, the students felt uncertain about what the future held, confidence was lower than normal given that they had been – if lucky – working on their own in a bedroom, not having had to perform to audiences or even their peers.” 

In fact, the need to work alone, at home, particularly videoing performances for assessment was responsible for a great deal of anxiety for some students. Of course, when you record a video, you need to watch it back, assess how well you think you performed, and there is the chance to do it again and correct perceived mistakes. But this ability to correct ‘mistakes’ can very quickly spiral into unhelpful perfectionism and mean that no performance will be considered ‘good enough’. The next stage might then be highly critical self-judgement leading into feelings of low self-esteem. A horrible pattern to fall into. Then when the student found themselves back in the studio in front of teachers and peers, the negative self-judgement went into overdrive and anxiety went sky high!

Students told me:

”Singing in front of classmates is hell on earth.”

“I felt totally embarrassed, terrified and stupid. I hate my voice. I know everyone is thinking that I shouldn’t be here.”

“I felt very isolated – you have to be the best, you have to be as good as everyone else. I have the thought that I won’t be able to do the hard part of the song and my body just shuts down, my brain won’t let me go on.”

“Before a singing lesson I felt sweaty and a bit dizzy, defeated. Afterwards, I can’t stop thinking about it, I ruminate, replay it and feel anxious about how it went.”

How can hypnosis help?

One of the first things that we do in learn relaxation techniques. What was happening for students feeling anxiety like this was that their brain was perceiving singing as a threat, and going into full-on fight or flight mode. When we learn deep relaxation techniques, and practise ways of taking the feelings of relaxation out into the real-world situations, then we can change our body’s response to a perceived threat and ultimately, allow the threat to become much reduced.

Visualisation is also a key part of the technique. When we are practising hypnosis, we are using our imagination to focus on suggestions for change, so we imagine, for example, what would somebody we admire do if they were in the same situation. How would they behave, what would they be thinking, what would their body language look like? We could then perhaps imaging what it would be like to slip inside the skin of the admired person in the situation that scares us and imagine how that would change things. Another technique is to think through how you feel when you achieve something, and practise taking those feelings of achievement into a situation where you feel anxious. One of the most straightforward tools is to practise relaxation and use the relaxed sensation to reduce the anxiety of facing a feared situation. 

Simple breathing relaxation tools can also be very helpful, as can tools for improving sleep and for letting go of unhelpful worrying thoughts.

Happily, hypnotherapy has helped these students get back on track and feel the joy in performing that led them to study musical theatre in the first place. As the teacher said:”It is hard watching very talented and able students being held back by their own anxieties and personal insecurities. I was able to spot it and try and help them through. Our business is based around being able to put ourselves on show and be judged for it, from the first audition to the last performance, which for anxiety sufferers is a hard, but necessary, ask.

“Watching students put the work in and start to overcome these issues or at least find ways of coping that help them get through, is such a blessing. It is like watching a gem that you know has not been able to shine due to these internal fears, finally say ‘you are not holding me back’ and burst through with all their shinning glory. It has been many of my proudest moments watching these moments of breakthrough.”

As one of the students told me: “I never thought I would say that I enjoy auditions, but I did! People have said that I seem like a different girl.

“I now have a toolkit that I can use when I feel anxious and these things work. I feel better. It’s made me realise that things aren’t so much of a threat as I was seeing.”

Even well established performers such as Olivia Colman and Charles Dance have sought help from hypnotherapy to tackle anxieties about performing and found it helpful. But in fact, these techniques aren’t just useful for people who need to get up on a stage in front of many people, they are equally applicable in all kinds of situations when you need to push yourself outside your comfort zone, for example, presenting in front of your boss, bringing up an issue with your child’s teacher, talking to customers are work, going on a date. Many, many situations that people face every day can cause anxiety. Hypnotherapy can give you the tools and the ability to tackle the anxiety and win through.

Why not find out if it could help you?