Member Article

(Don't) take a deep breath

With Simon Raybould of Curved Vision Theatre

“How do I deal with the nerves?” - the most common question I get on our courses.

Everywhere I go on the web there’s a list, it seems, of presentation tips: one of the most common is (unfortunately) to “Take a few deep breaths”. It’s not actually wrong, but it’s not any use, which is why I say ‘unfortunately’. If you’re nervous you’ll tend to breathe in your upper chest, using your fight-or-flight syndrome: being told to take big breaths simply means you’ll do more of the same, but bigger…

…unless someone tells you differently.

Next time you’re nervous try this: don’t just take big or deep breaths, take low ones. By low, I mean that you should try and breathe down into your belly, or even your shoes. The idea is to get the air down into the lower part of your lungs, using your diaphragm muscles, not the muscles you use to breathe when you’re scared – your chest muscles. Using your chest muscles only ups the level of adrenaline in your systems – getting the air lower in your lungs will reduce the adrenaline and replace it with some of the feel-good hormones.

If you have any questions or comments, send them to sme@curved-vision.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .