Stage Fright? Just Breathe!

In stressful moments, being told to "just breathe" can feel like a slap in the face. Of course, we are breathing, even when things are tense. However, certain types of breathe can aggravate the sympathetic nervous system even more, while others can allow balance with the parasympathetic nervous system.

The sympathetic nervous system activates the "fight or flight" response, sending signals to your body that you are in danger. For people with anxiety, or even just nerves, the sympathetic nervous system often activates in situations where you are not in danger, but rather, facing everyday stressors.

Stage fright is common among performers. However, not all of the adrenaline released through the sympathetic nervous system is harmful. Energy is important onstage, so nerves can be a positive, in moderation, allowing the songs to have more of a drive to them.

As Emily Kristen Morris notes, when practicing demanding songs like "No Good Deed" before performing onstage as Elphaba in Wicked, "I had to sort of train those songs under similar circumstances." When activity occurs during a song, for example, the running that Elphaba must do while belting high notes for long periods of time, breath must be engaged properly. She said that practicing for those conditions meant not just sitting at a piano singing, but intentionally exercising while singing, because "it's another thing to do it when your heart rate is up." She does squats or burpees, or even "jogs around backstage" in order to practice in similar conditions.

For stage anxiety, this is an important thing to balance when calming nerves. Getting one's heart rate up could be conducive to the song itself, yet taking slow, low breaths to ensure a full diaphragmatic breathing style is as well. As those breaths will naturally engage the parasympathetic nervous system, increasing calmness, sometimes a balance of cardio or activity is more important than it may appear.

The Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT) and the Bohr Effect

Surprise! You're a dysfunctional breather! For 90% of the population, this is what they find out after taking the Body Oxygen Level Test (BOLT). This test measures one's chemo sensitivity to carbon dioxide -- that is, how much CO2 can fill one's lungs before another breath is necessary.

Carbon dioxide has a bad reputation. We all have seen the news; climate change is an issue because of rising carbon dioxide levels in earth's atmosphere. But when breathing, our bodies need more carbon dioxide than we think we do.

In 1904, Danish physicist Niels Bohr discovered what we now call the "Bohr Effect." This Nobel Prize winning discovery, in its simplest form, is the discovery that you do not need more oxygen to breathe at a higher capacity; rather, you need more carbon dioxide. This is because, as oxygen is picked up by hemoglobin, a protein in the bloodstream, and travels through your body, it needs to infiltrate the mitochondria of various cells. It cannot do this however, without some sort of energy transfer, in the form of carbon dioxide. If the mitochondria does not sense enough carbon dioxide present, this transfer cannot happen, and all the extra oxygen is lost, nothing gained. Yet, when carbon dioxide is present, the mitochondria's process of transferring oxygen works at an accelerated rate.

When taking the BOLT test, 10-20 seconds of breath holding before needed to breath yields a response: "dysfunctional breathing." This simply means that one is not well accustomed enough to carbon dioxide in their blood stream. By increasing interaction with CO2, through tailored exercises to expand lung capacity, one will be able to hold breath for longer periods of time, without stress. Finally, the functional breathing label does not seem so far away. Check out the "exercises" page for breathing exercises to increase lung capacity!

Take the BOLT test!

1. Inhale and Exhale as normal, through your nose.

2. After the exhale, pinch your nostrils, blocking the airflow, and hold your breath.

3. Start a stopwatch as soon as you do this, and time yourself.

4. At the first sign of breath constriction, take a breath as normal, and stop the timer!

What Your Scores Mean

0-10: You likely have some sort of diagnosed trouble breathing (think asthma, congestion, sickness related).

10-20: You are a dysfunctional breather (maybe not enough nose-breathing, too many breaths, shallow breathing often).

20-30: The sweet spot for functional breathing (usually only nose-breathing, lower and deeper breaths, not as sensitive to carbon dioxide).

What is Breath Control? Why is it important for singing?

Breath control is a commonly used "buzzword," often evoking confusion among singers. How is controlling breath even possible? Breathing is a natural process that we don't even think about in our day-to-day lives. However, as we age, we lose sight of the low, "belly breaths" that allow for maximum oxygen optimization.

When interviewing Emily Kristen Morris, vocal coach and Elphaba on the national tour of Wicked, she noted that "a low belly breath, or a singer's breath is a super natural way of breathing. That's how babies breathe. When you look at babies, it's a low breath, you know, they're certainly not breathing into that area. They're breathing into their diaphragm, so to speak. So it's sort of retraining us to do what we already do naturally. And what we do in our sleep, we breathe slow, low breaths in our sleep, and that's a singers breath."

Breath control is all about reverting back to this diaphragmatic breathing. Instead of hiking up shoulders, one is supposed to do the opposite: Relax shoulders, and breathe not just through your belly, but imagine filling your entire lower body cavity with air. Expansion should be felt through your entire intercostal muscle area as your diaphragm expands. This is fundamental to breathing properly, the true natural form.

For singers, it is also important to note how engaging your core with your diaphragm works on a muscular level. As Emily notes, intentionality when approaching songs "changes how you use your airflow through your sound." A pillar of breath control is funneling airflow correctly, to ensure proper airflow and resistance, which starts with engagement of your intercostal muscles.

Try this: Engage your core, as if you were preparing to do a pushup. Inhale, and when you exhale, keep your muscles engaged and make a whoosh sound. Don't allow all the air to escape at once, but rather, keep it controlled, the air moving out on the whoosh sound until you cannot exhale longer. This allows regulation of your breath, and is a great way to practice increasing your lung capacity. Each time you repeat, try to exhale for longer periods of time.