Music Performance Anxiety, Trauma, and Mental Health Distress

This literature review explores the interconnectedness of music performance anxiety (MPA), trauma, and mental health distress through attachment theory, emphasizing emotion regulation and self-compassion as key factors influencing student well-being and performance. MPA, trauma, and mental health issues often involve difficulties in emotion regulation, especially in stressful environments such as a performance. Attachment theory explains how early interactions with caregivers shape emotional coping; insecure attachment (avoidant or anxious) correlates with poorer emotion regulation and higher vulnerability to MPA, trauma effects, anxiety, and depression.TEXT

According to studies cited in this literature review, 20% of students who do not continue with pursuit of a music career indicate MPA as a main contributing factor. Beyond higher education, researchers for the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative report that 29%-42% of U.S. high school students have been negatively impacted by issues surrounding mental health. Since MPA, trauma, and mental health are prevalent among this generation of students, it is important the music educators consider how these issues affect children’s learning in music classrooms, of which performance is generally a part.

While music educators cannot change a student’s prior experience, we can strive to foster a caring and compassionate environment, which can reduce performance-related stress. Some suggestions for music educators are to adopt additional wellness strategies into the classroom/rehearsal, including mindfulness, yoga, expressing gratitude, or even reflecting on positive memories regularly. Not only does this support the student in the learning space, but it models ways for the students to cope with MPA and anxiety beyond our classroom.

For my last two years of teaching in middle school, I had adopted a mindfulness practice using Mindful Music Moments (link here), sponsored by The Well. While there was a learning curve in adopting this practice in my general music classroom, I noticed a significant difference in the stability of my students post-COVID and felt strongly that this would positively impact my classroom. After several weeks of consistency, students became open and expected the mindful music moment (MMM) each day. By the end of the year, students from both school years indicated that the MMM were their favorite part of my class. This was for a general music class, and I would be interested to see if there could be a positive effect on performing groups in secondary schools.