At some point, if you’re serious about being a spoken word poet or storyteller, you’ll find yourself in front of an audience performing. Some people, no matter how often they perform in front of an audience, still get nervous or stage fright. Here are some helpful tips I’ve learned about public speaking to help you fight your nerves and stay calm:
- Get some exercise before the performance.. Any type of exercise (walking, jumping, running, etc.) can help you relax and calm you down. Running is my method of relaxation exercise before a poetry contest or business presentation.
- Represent your story in a mirror in the craziest way possible. I admit: this is my own advice, but I found out that vocalists are also advised to perform in front of a mirror. This technique works wonders for curing self-consciousness. I used to have this serious problem with memorizing my poetry. This can be very unnerving, I agree, but it’s also very powerful to look in the mirror and act and see yourself as you imagine the audience sees you when you’re on stage. How are you? What gestures do you do to distract yourself? How do you use your hands? All of these things are important, and it’s important to acknowledge all your little worries (sometimes the worry that I’ll cry during an emotional performance) and accept them so you can give a great performance.
- Avoid caffeine and sugar.. Caffeine and sugar make you hyperactive, increase your blood pressure and heart rate, all of which increase your jitters. Replace your coffee with water or decaffeinated tea.
- eat bananas. My speech teacher, Dale Deletes, always told us to eat bananas before a show. Bananas have potassium, which relaxes the muscles. It also slows your heart rate, helping you stay calm enough to perform great.
- visualize yourself performance. Many of our fears are subconscious and almost impossible for the conscious mind to combat using willpower alone. The good news is that you can trick your subconscious into thinking something has already happened when it hasn’t. You can do this through visualization because the subconscious mind cannot differentiate between reality and imagination. Make the visualization as real as possible and see yourself giving a stellar performance.
- Shout your work at the top of your lungs. Actually! Just go outside where no one can hear you and just say all those words out loud. This can also help you get rid of any shyness you have because it’s so out of place.
