Performance Anxiety and Students

We have all been there as teachers - they have an exam, they are playing well in lessons. Then exams and concerts get close. The same questions come up:

“What if I play a note wrong?”

“What if I fail?'“

“What if I forget my scales?”

We know that the more they perform, the more confident they will be become. But what can we do as teachers to help them understand?

Types of Anxiety

This article will refer purely to state anxiety, but it’s important to be aware of different types of anxiety when exploring this with students. It may be a student had a diagnosed anxiety disorder, or may shift in presenting with concerning signs.

State anxiety

State anxiety is what we experience when we are faced with a specific challenge. Like a solo concert. This is human and experienced by the masses.

Generalised anxiety

Generalised anxiety is long-term anxiety, experiencing anxiety constantly in every day issues. There is no particular one event.

Signs of Generalised Anxiety include (NHS, 2025):

• feeling restless, irritable or finding it difficult to concentrate

• difficulty sleeping

• getting tired easily

• feeling tense

• stomach problems

• a more noticeable or unusual heartbeat (palpitations)

• feeling lightheaded or dizzy

• low mood or depression

To read more about signs of social anxiety, OCD and other related anxiety - visit Young Minds.

If you have a student who you are concerned presents with these signs, please speak to your schools Designated Safeguarding Lead or if you’re a private teacher parent/guardians. If you are teaching privately and you are concerned about speaking to the parents, you can always contact their schools Safeguarding Lead which should be on the schools website.

Understanding Performance Anxiety

Understanding biology: the autonomic nervous system

We know that most musicians experience performance anxiety. But how much do we understand why we feel nerves at all? That all comes down to biology and history.

Autonomic Nervous System

This is an umbrella term for our involuntarily bodily movements. Breathing, sleeping, digesting, our heart beating. Pretty essential things for a concert. This system tells our body what needs to happen in priority order - engaging either the parasympathetic or sympathetic nervous systems. The bodies ideal is keeping both sides in perfect balance - known as homeostasis.

Parasympathetic Nervous System

(rest & digest)

Think about a time you have a huge meal, maybe Christmas dinner. What did you want to do afterwards? I bet lay down, rest and nap right? That’s our parasympathetic nervous system telling us to rest so it can digest.

Sympathetic Nervous System (fight/flight/freeze/fawn)

Now, our bodies haven’t updated very much in the past 300,000 years. Back in caveman days, our function was to survive. That means if a lion was running towards us - our bodies had to make a choice immediately.

Fight: Fight the lion with your barehands!

Flight: Run away and hope you lose the lion

Freeze: Just freeze in indecisiveness and hopefully you become uninteresting…

Fawn: Try to be friends with lion in the hopes it spares you

Reframing state anxiety as a great thing!

Now we know how our bodies work and why - but how does this help us help our students?

Sympathetic nervous system - Our bodies aren’t updated enough to know that playing some music is not the same level of danger as being attacked by a lion. That’s why it can feel SO intense. But in the right environment, it can also gives us the energy to perform the best we have ever played whilst having the most fun.

Parasympathetic nervous system - Think about that feeling of being SO full. It’s like your body is dead weighting you to the sofa. This is the ultimate “relaxed”. Now, would you want to feel like this before going to do a concert? Absolutely not. You may have felt this way after doing a concert of music you really don’t care much for whilst missing hanging out with friends. Did you perform your best? Probably not.

Result? Balance: So, anxiety is NOT a bad thing. It is an incredibly useful human thing. We don’t want to have “no nerves” - we should strive to have them. The challenge is in find the right balance and manipulating our bodies to be at as close to the right level as possible.

Self awareness: opening up conversation

Age is really interesting here. Think about little you aged 8. Were you confident, nervous - bit of both depending on the scenario? Now think about you aged 13. Probably way more anxiety, huh? But, you may have presented very differently. This important for teaching in considering how our students present vs what they are feeling inside. To learn about how to have these conversations, have a look at our page on skills for talking to students.

Self awareness: identifying our performance signature

Here are some questions to break this down with students. You can use the worksheet at the top of this page for students to keep hold of it.

Psychological: what happens in your head when you get nervous?

Physical: what happens in your body when you get nervous?

Behavioural: have you noticed anything you tend to do when you get nervous?