Cello Teacher's Friend

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Anita Prince in - Dealing with Performance Anxiety

I’ve always been very reluctant to use beta blockers to prevent performance anxiety, so I limit myself to more innocuous calming agents, such as bananas and aspirin. I prefer aspirin, because in my experience eating several bananas at the same time is completely nauseating. Either way, I’m not sure if there is really any scientific backing to support the idea that bananas and aspirin help with performance anxiety, maybe they are just placebos, but it works for me.

(Eat the bananas or take a couple of aspirin about 30 minutes before you perform. I don’t know exactly how the bananas are supposed to work, but I’ve been told that the blood thinning properties of aspirin help to reduce the effects of adrenaline.)