Peering at Pressure

Like many people, I have spent the summer watching some of the many sports going on, from the Tour de France to the Euros to the Olympics to the Paralympics. And for me, the constant theme throughout seemed to be the pressure felt by the athletes. It is a hugely known struggle in many scenarios where for some, the pressure all gets too much and they seem to unexpectedly perform worse than expected. And this is exactly what happens with pressure.

Pressure is something that we as musicians don’t seem to discuss much. However, with the fact that it can be heightened by environmental, personal or social factors, and can be a huge cause of performance anxiety or lead to diminished performance quality, it is definitely worth exploring.

As ever, it is important to make a disclaimer: It is hardly surprising that pressure has been widely researched amongst athletes and students, but it is a struggle to find research articles focusing on musicians and pressure. While it is worth being weary about generalising musicians too much to other populations, we can still explore important aspects of pressure, along with possible strategies to dissolve any debilitating effects.

So what is pressure ?

“Choking under pressure is defined as performance decrements under circumstances that increase the importance of good or improved performance.”

(Baumeister, 1984)

This definition doesn’t need much elaboration at all but it’s important to note that a decrease in our ability to perform well is a big aspect, especially in times when the perceived importance to do well is heightened. With that being said, pressure almost seems like the perfect set up for failure. This is also of course why it is so important to find ways in which to deal with pressure in order to dissipate the negative impact as much as possible.

Pressure can be a result of a number of aspects such as pressure we put on ourselves to perform well, social pressure, where we’re concerned about how people will perceive us or our playing, or environmental factors, which could be a large concert venue or new scenario. Everyone will feel pressured by different situations but let’s have a quick look at an example of why we might be impacted by pressure.

Fear of Failure

We often find it hard to move on after a bad performance. Unfortunately the longer we’re caught up about a failure, the more pressure we will put on ourselves to do well. This worry will then distract us from the actual task at hand which has more of an impact than you might think.

“belief that the probability of success on one play(performance) is influenced by previous plays (performance)”

(Harris, Vine, Eysenck & Wilson, 2021)

It is worth also mentioning that research has shown that we are much more likely to remember the negatives over the positives. Which is why it is so easy to get bogged down by the smallest mistakes or stressors, when actually 90% of the performance went well. All of this leads to plenty of self-destructive, self-imposed pressure.

“bad events have longer lasting and more intense consequences than good events and that the effects of good events dissipate more rapidly than those of bad events.”

(Harris, Vine, Eysenck & Wilson, 2021)

But why is our performance often impacted when we feel these pressures?

1. Distraction Theory:

Have you ever felt your focus being stolen away from your performance? Maybe you’re thinking about a technical section coming up later, or you’re worried about how it sounds to the audience instead of thinking about what you’re playing? Well, this is a symptom of you ‘choking under pressure’.

“mental distractions compete for and reduce working memory capacity that would otherwise be needed to perform at an optimal level.”

(Yu, 2015)

But why is this happening? In short, it is because pressure affects the working memory, which is the memory system that processes information. Have you ever made mistakes whilst performing that you have never made before? Well, in a performance, we are more often than not, processing and reacting to new situations. So if our working memory is being overloaded by thinking unnecessarily about our worries there is no doubt that there is less capacity to focus on our playing, leading to you to potentially make more mistakes whilst performing.

“If the ability of WM (working memory) to maintain task focus is disrupted, performance may suffer. We refer to this as the distraction account of failure because we believe that stress-laden environments essentially place individuals in a dual-task situation.”

(Beilock, 2008)

1. Over-arousal Theory

The over-arousal theory uses the Yerkes-Dodson Law, which you might have heard of before in connection to performance anxiety. The Yerkes-Dodson Law uses an inverted-U shaped-graph illustrating how over-arousal (ie. too much pressure) can impact our performance quality whilst too little pressure can also be detrimental to performance quality. So in short, pressure presents itself in similar ways to performance anxiety, and so maybe pressure is more prominent than we may think?

With this being said, according to the Yerkes-Dodson Law, feeling a bit of pressure in certain situations isn’t always bad. So maybe it is something that you are able to come to terms with in some way? To do this, it is worth looking at how we might be able to eliminate debilitating levels of pressure.

So how might we reduce the pressure we feel over performance scenarios in order to give us the best success?

Watching the Olympics this year, I saw a few examples of how too much pressure to perform can have debilitating consequences on performance quality, but there are also many examples of the opposite actually being true. But how does this happen? I’ve said this in previous blogs but the big difference can be in the mindset. We can train our mind to adapt our way of thinking about things and there are a few ways in which we can do this.

1. Changing negatives into positives.

Who doesn’t feel uneasy when performance anxiety sets in? It can be easy to dread that feeling. However, maybe this might change with the knowledge that this added adrenalin might actually help rather than hinder. It’s also worth remembering that anxiety has similar physiological and cognitive responses to excitement. It might just help to remind yourself about why you enjoy performing or that the audience has come to appreciate the music and will never be as aware of mistakes as you are, regardless of whether they are also musicians or not. So allow that anxiety to transform into excitement.

2. Rationalise Interpretations

“maintain a rational interpretation of the competitive environment”

(Harris, Vine Eysenck & Wilson, 2021)

As we mentioned, pressure can be heightened if we are particularly concerned about a big concert venue, or if we are concerned about making the same mistakes we have made in the past. And this concern steals our concentration away from our working memory which is trying to process the situation. But what if we weren’t so scared of making mistakes? If we are able to quash the emphasis we are putting on our worries, the pressure we are feeling will immediately reduce, allowing our working memory to focus on what we should be focusing on.

“anxiety can be limited if performers can reduce the perceived costs of failure, and do not associate mistakes with an increased probability of further mistakes”

(Harris, Vine Eysenck & Wilson, 2021)

So the main thing that we need to do is remove the distraction of irrational worries so we stop overloading our working memory system. So how can we do this?

Pre-performance Journaling

There are a few reasons why writing down your worries before a performance can be beneficial. Firstly, it will allow you the opportunity to make sense of your thoughts and even possibly enable you to rationalise your specific worries that are increasing the pressure you feel during a performance.

“Writing may alleviate the burden that worries place on working memory by affording people an opportunity to reevaluate the stressful experience in a manner that reduces the necessity to worry altogether.”

(Yu, 2015)

Secondly, if we look at how our memory system works, information is processed by our working memory before moving into our short-term memory after a certain level of rehearsal. Writing about the aspects that you are feeling pressured by will allow you extra time to process these worries, giving your working memory one less thing to do during your performance, resulting in less distractions and therefore lower chances of your performance being negatively impacted.

Of course it can be difficult to internalise the thinks you’re feeling pressured about before a performance, but even a small amount of internalisation will reduce the overload.

It is also important to note that it can take time to workout how to rationalise your interpretations, or how to journal effectively. It might not work first time. But it also might just be worth taking the time to try.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, pressure seems to be an aspect that musicians often forget about. So much so that I found ZERO studies focused on musicians. But maybe this needs to change. From the vast amount of musicians who are also perfectionists and struggle with performance anxiety, it seems clear to me that there may be way more of us who feel the pressure of situations, or who inflict a huge amount of pressure on ourselves. Again, as we mentioned, both pressure and performance anxiety can be explained using the Yerkes-Dodson Law and there may be way more similarities than we might think. But why is it worth saying this? Mainly because if we can work to improve one, we might just sub-consciously improve the other, and kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

And lastly, one important thing that I noticed from all of the sports I watched this summer was the unwavering support athletes offered to each other when the pressures seemed to get too much. The understanding that it can go wrong for anyone at any time. For me, this was a huge, reminder of the importance for musicians to also show this same level of humanity and kindness to each other. Maybe it is time to be more open and share the lows just as much as the highs, to enable a more open and supportive environment? Where we can all share our experiences and thoughts, to help others who may also feel similar pressures when it comes to performing.   

Thank you for reading!

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