How to Master Stage Fright by Using a Simple Navy SEAL Technique

Transform yourself into a calm and focused master of your own mind.

Your heart is pounding. Your palms are sweaty. Mouth dry, breathing shallow. You can feel the nervousness and anxiety creeping up on you. Your mind goes from racing with all sorts of different thoughts to completely blank. There is nothing but nothingness and you wish for the earth to open up and just swallow you.

Are you familiar with this situation?

Have you had times where you were expected to give a presentation, went to interview for a job, wanted to ask someone out or had to have a very serious and important conversation only to experience what I have described above?

Often, these situations develop into one of the following:

• Bad: What often starts as a slight nervous tingle can quickly derail and become full-blown stress overload for your nervous system, leaving you completely incapable of doing or thinking of anything helpful.
• Even worse: These situations are the prime example of a vicious cycle. You notice that you get nervous, which makes you think of everything that could possibly go wrong (What if I blank and everybody just stares at me?!) This, in turn, makes you even more nervous, which then causes you to actually blank, which causes you to panic, which… You get the point.
• The worst: This often happens in high-stakes situations in which you don’t have the time or the space to retreat and calm yourself down. After you knocked on your boss’s door, in front of a crowd of people awaiting your talk, next to the hot blonde or buff guy you want to impress, etc.

I was giving a presentation with one of the guys from my university class recently. For him, it was a high-stakes situation because he was dedicated to getting a job with the company we were presenting in front of. I could tell he was getting more and more nervous the closer we got to his part in the presentation, as his hands were getting shaky and he started to go through his notes aimlessly.

I felt sorry for him, but there was nothing I could do. When it was his turn to speak, he managed to get a few sentences out, but then started mixing up words until he blanked completely and our group had to cover.

Being super-nervous in a high-stakes situation in which you can’t retreat to calm down — those are not the circumstances you want to find yourself in.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a technique that could help you calm down quickly and without attracting attention? Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could push a little button that makes you calm down in a minute without anyone noticing?

As it turns out, you don’t need a button for that, just a pair of more or less healthy lungs.

How to Breathe Like a Navy SEAL

Imagine being a Navy SEAL. These guys find themselves in high-pressure situations more often than not. Of course, they need to keep their cool — if they started panicking or their minds went blank, it might well cost them (and their team members) their lives.

One of the techniques these guys employ to keep their calm before the storm is called box breathing. The name comes from the fact that you divide your breathing into four steps, like you’re breathing along the four edges of a box.

• Step 1: Inhale slowly. Inhale through your nose, slowly counting to 4 in your mind. Focus on filling your whole lungs and abdomen with air. Feel how it fills your chest.
• Step 2: Hold your breath. Hold your breath, again slowly counting to 4 in your mind.
• Step 3: Exhale slowly. Exhale through your mouth, again slowly counting to 4 in your mind. Focus on getting all the air out of your lungs in one continuous stream.
• Step 4: Hold your breath. Hold your breath, again slowly counting to 4 in your mind.

After this, return to step 1 and go through some more cycles, until you can feel yourself getting more calm and relaxed.

That’s all the magic. Simple, but effective.

Box Breathing: How it Works

While slow breathing techniques have been shown to be effective for stress reduction and heart rate decrease in the long term, methods such as box breathing also work wonders in urgent stress situations by calming your autonomic nervous system.

This system regulates many autonomous bodily functions, such as blood pressure, body temperature and heart rate. It consists of the sympathetic system, which increases bodily activity (fight-or-flight) and the parasympathetic system, which calms your body (rest-and-digest).

When you hold your breath, you increase the levels of CO2 in your blood, which in turn increases the cardioinhibitory response (reducing your heart rate) of the vagus nerve when you exhale. This stimulates the parasympathetic system, causing a calming and relaxing effect.

Or, in simple terms: Breathe slowly, stress less.

Practical Tips to Keep Calm

First of all, you don’t have to hit an exact four-count for this method to work. But counting to four forces you to slow down your breathing and takes your mind off the stressful situation by making you focus on your count. Plus, four seconds seem to be a good tradeoff between breathing too fast and going blue in the face.

(Here is a visual guide if you need help becoming familiar with the breathing rhythm.)

Second, don’t wait until your panic and stress meter reaches its maximum. Apply this technique as soon as you feel the first indicators of a stressful situation. Once you feel your nervousness creeping up on you, have a quick breather.

‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. ’— Benjamin Franklin

Stage fright, feeling nervous and a little stressed are all perfectly normal reactions to scary situations. In fact, they can even be beneficial to your performance, since they put your body and brain into a stage of high alertness. But too much of that and you might overdose, rendering you incapable of action.

As famous singer and five times Grammy winner Faith Hill put it:

‘A little bit of stage fright, then I’m ready. ’

The key is to keep your nervousness at the right level. With little tricks like box breathing, you’ll be able to master your stage fright.

Mind Cafe in Your Inbox

Want to stay up to date with our top-performing posts each week? Sign up for email updates by following this link.