John and I discuss mindfulness and meditation and how it can help singers in both practice and performance. You can also check out my blog post HERE on this topic.
Listen below, or on any of your favorite podcast platforms.
These thoughts can be anything from your to-do list, thoughts of self-judgment, or wondering what you should have for lunch. Sound familiar? It happens to the best of us, and it doesn’t really benefit us when we are trying to learn a new skill or perform at our best.
This mind chatter can be especially unhelpful right before a performance. The more we try to control it, the more work it is and the more distracted we become.
Sometimes, even if you are trying to think positively or self-coach with uplifting and encouraging thoughts, it can cause over-excitement and can even cause us to produce too much adrenaline, neither of which is that helpful right before a performance.
Mindfulness can help. Perhaps you’ve heard the term mindfulness, or your teacher has told you to practice mindfully.
There are a lot of benefits to this as singers and performers, and also just for life!
We have more self-awareness and compassion.
We feel calmer, have more clarity, and are less reactive to stress.
We are fully engaged in what we are doing, free from distractions and judgment.
Sounds pretty good right? I think so, too! So, how do we do it?
In the same way, we exercise our bodies to stay physically fit, we have to train our minds to be mentally fit.
Meditation has been a powerful tool for me in training my own mind. It’s something I have done for the better part of 20 years. It’s benefited me both as an artist and in my life in general. It’s helped me deal with anxiety (performance and other), stress, and depression.
I’ve tried many different kinds of meditation, and the beautiful thing is that there is no one right way to do it, so you can find what works best for you.
While meditation can be a part of someone’s spiritual or religious practice, it doesn’t have to be, if that’s not your thing. So, if you’ve always thought meditation was only for monks and yogis, it’s not. Anyone can meditate.
“In the same way we exercise our bodies to stay physically fit, we have to train our minds to be mentally fit.”
You can do guided or unguided meditations. Guided meditations may be a bit easier for people who are new to meditation, and I like guided meditations for myself, as I feel like I am more easily able to surrender to the experience.
Choosing something to focus on, like your breath.
Noticing when the mind wonders.
Bringing your attention back to the breath.
The mind is going to wander, and that’s okay. It’s not about trying to push away your thoughts and feelings. It’s about allowing them to come and go without judgement, and not follow them as a train of thought.
When you do notice the mind wondering, just gently bring it back to your point of focus.
Some days this will feel easier than others. Sometimes a lot of thoughts and feelings will keep coming into the mind. That’s fine. We want to gently stay with that exercise of bringing the mind back to the point of focus, no matter how it feels. That’s the exercise. The act of bringing your focus back is what meditation is.
“We are training the mind to have the ability to be intensely focused on one object, yet be aware of everything else. This creates a state of mind that is focused on the one hand and relaxed on the other. This is a state of flow.”
- Excerpt from a Headspace meditation with Andy Puddicombe
Benefits like increased awareness and improved focus come in handy when it comes to learning or improving your singing skills.
I always take my students through a mini guided meditation at the beginning of each lesson, and I consistently notice an increase in focus, relaxation, and a willingness to learn.
Awareness is so important when learning to sing, especially on a physical level. There are so many sensations that we feel when we use our voices. It’s helpful to deepen your awareness of your body to be able to map these sensations, so you can recreate the ones that work.
When the body is stressed, it triggers the sympathetic nervous system to release stress hormones like epinephrine and cortisol into the blood stream, causing a fight or flight response.
This can result in the heart pounding, sweaty palms, and tunnel vision, which can be enough to make some people not even want to perform.
Meditation can help keep the mind and body relaxed, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and causes the body to stop releasing all those stress hormones.
Meditation can help us learn to condition the body to relax when we need it the most, allowing for a more optimal performance experience.
Think of a cheetah in the wild, still and relaxed, in no rush at all, yet ready to pounce at any moment. This condition of being relaxed and focused at the same time allows us to be in a state of flow, present in our minds and bodies. We are able to more easily tap into our intuition, allowing the “magic” of the present moment into our experience, letting go and trusting ourselves.
Like most skills, we get the most benefit from meditation when we do it as a regular practice. The brain reacts just like our body does when we stop exercising. It likes to go back to it’s old ways.
So, to keep these benefits and continue to increase them takes regular practice on our parts, so we are continuing to train the brain.
Creating a habit of it by doing it at the same time each day and attaching it to another habit like brushing your teach, can be really helpful.
Even 10 minutes a day can cause positive changes in the brain.
The science behind the benefits of meditation is growing rapidly, and it can really motivate us to keep a regular practice.
Functional MRIs have allowed us to actually observe what happens in the brain when people meditate. Meditation can literally change the brain. Studies show that it can rewire neural pathways that improve both the mind and body by building new positive neural pathways and decreasing the negative ones. This is called neuroplasticity.
Studies showed an increase in gray-matter density in the hippocampus (where learning, memory, self-awareness, compassion, and introspection happen in the brain) and decreased density in the amygdala (otherwise known as the lizard brain, which processes fear, anxiety and stress). The amygdala is also involved in the processing of emotions triggering the fight or flight response.
Meditation also effects the medial pre-frontal cortex, the “me center” of the brain, from where we primarily interpret the world. This part of the brain is involved in regulating feelings of fear and anxiety. Meditation can decrease the neural connections to the “me center”, allowing the brain to less focused on yourself, so when bodily sensations of fear and anxiety come up, you have the ability to not respond as strongly to them.
Your ability to assess momentary physical sensations for what they are increases, so you allow them to come and go without becoming caught up in a story about what they mean. This allows you to be less reactive and feel more balanced.
Headspace - Headspace is currently offering a year of Headspace Plus for anyone who is unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an incredible resource for learning and maintaining a regular practice.
Deepak Chopra’s 21-Day Guided Meditations - Deepak Chopra regularly offers free 21-Day Meditation Challenges that are wonderfully insightful and another way to start the habit of meditating regularly.
Waking Up - Created by neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris, Waking Up is a guide to understanding the mind, for the purpose of living a more balanced and fulfilling life.
INLP Center - Mindfulness Training: Experience the Benefits in Your Life - More about mindfulness and training opportunities here.
https://www.headspace.com/blog/2015/01/30/which-parts-of-the-brain-are-most-resilient-to-change/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/05/15/the-effects-of-meditation-on-the-brain/#5e2c08272ddb