Why actors don’t want to “just relax” when performing…

Let’s start with how you define relaxation:

What does it feel like?

In your body? Your thoughts? Your emotions?

In my workshops, most actors define relaxation two ways. The first definition: a blissed out, fully present, beach vacation escape. No worries, no cares, no responsibilities. Which sounds fantastic, but not really useful when performing.

Acting requires a certain amount of arousal; it requires a certain amount of energy, attention, and alertness in order perform the intensity required of the piece. To effectively tell the story, actors must mobilize towards the material, the song, the dance or the blocking.

Culturally, we actors are trained to push through. As in “the show must go on,” “raise the stakes,” “make it mean more,” “more urgency.” Push through regardless of how much energy and attention we have available to us at the time. Which results in a lot of us overshooting it into too much arousal.

In fact, we might feel more comfortable there! We might feel more comfortable hitting and maintaining a high level of arousal, or bumping up to that high level when things aren’t going as planned. This is how I was trained as an actor: if a performance wasn’t going well, I raised the stakes! Sound familiar to anyone else?

Sometimes this helped me access the material, and sometimes it didn’t. I also had little control about how I “relaxed.” Which brings me to that second definition of relaxation: collapse, exhaustion, and/or numbing out. This is the type of “relaxation” that makes us actors scared to reduce our stress because “If I relax, I collapse!”

Collapse used to be only way I was able to “relax” from too much arousal. I now see this less as relaxation, and more as a shutting down. It was a lack of arousal that prevented me from feeling connected to the material. So much so that when I did “relax,” it was near impossible for me to rev back up again.

Performing requires an optimal level of arousal, an optimal level of attention, alertness, and energy. Too much and we dip into overwhelm, loss of control, can’t slow down. Too little and we dip into shut down, can’t connect, can’t rev up. Just right and we feel grounded, connected, and super creative.

And hey, time and place for everything. There are some performances where overwhelm or shutting down helps us. In certain situations, those responses help us survive and can be perfectly adaptive. Context is key.

But if too much or too little arousal are our go-to’s, we actors can get stuck out in those extremes. And if we’re stuck out there too long with no way of coming back to our optimal level, we may start judging ourselves and questioning our abilities and our talent. Doesn’t feel good to work like that!

Bouncing back to our optimal level of arousal allows us to perform at our best. It’s how we can reclaim our energy, our connection, and our artistry. It also prevents burnout and helps us relax without collapse. It is a practice and one that I help actors build around auditioning.

So what is your optimal level of arousal?

How do you know when you’ve got too much? Too little? Is there an extreme that you spend more time in?

How do you bounce back?

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