The art of overcoming stage fright

Performance anxiety doesn't just hold you back - it's contagious. Sara Solovitch learns how to deal with hers

A few weeks ago I was due to play the first movement of Beethoven's "Tempest" Sonata at my piano teacher's student recital. I had worked on the piece for months. Sitting in my teacher's studio, I told myself I wasn't nervous - I was excited. This distinction came by way of a Harvard Business School study, which found that people who view their anxiety as excitement actually perform better on all kinds of tasks, from public speaking to karaoke singing. In other words, it's about rebranding your fear.

Two years earlier I had set out on a quest to overcome a lifetime of performance anxiety. I had studied the piano seriously as a girl but quit when I was 19, in large part due to stage fright. When I returned to the piano 30 years later, I discovered that while my fingers could no longer fly across the keys, my fear was right where I'd left it.