Pressure - Tension

It is almost the end of my first year at Michigan State and I am beginning to feel tension to perform higher than I did last semester, and I am sure many other freshman would agree with me - college got a lot harder.  I am confident in my abilities as a learner, so I am positive I will reach the level I need to be at in my classes, however there are many classes I am taking and it's difficult to pay individual attention to them all - there is a lot of information to gain, but it's not humanly possible to aquire it all at the same time. 

As a voice major, I feel there is a lot of pressure to perform; on stage, in voice lessons, in choir. Not long ago, I began to feel like the pressure was too much for me and that I was dissapointing everyone I knew because I was not growing as quickly as I felt I needed to. This pressure turned into tension, which affected my instrument (my body and voice), thus creating more pressure because I was not relaxed while singing and was struggling to sing notes that I previously has. After a while, I has a mini-break down and I realized that this "pressure" I was feeling was not being presented to me by my professors and colleagues, but from myself - I was pressuring myself to perform at a higher level vocally to get me to practice and work harder at singing. However, this led to (as I said before) tension in my body which caused my voice to struggle. Luckily, I realized what I was doing (thanks to a few mentors) and have been to able to begin working back to where I was - every day I try to get myself to relax and I work on altering my thinking so I don't create pressure or tension within myself. One way for me to do this is by letting go of my habit to procrastinate and work on projects a little at a time; this allows me to accomplish small things without overwhelming myself. Also, whenever I feel tension within my body I acknowledge its presence and then relax it somehow - this is especially prevalent in my jaw and sholders. So, whenever my sholders tense up I recognize it and then relax them down. Taking deep breaths has also helped me relax my entire body and keep my stress levels down - oxygen deprivation is not healthy to begin with. Slowly, I am beginning to find that these techniques are becoming habitual, and soon they will be a part of who I am. 

Why am I telling you all this? I believe that every student should understand the pressures put upon them in college can be delt with in a way that doesn't create tension within their bodies - some students don't even realize they are tense (like myself a year ago). I would hope that because I have shared my story about how tension and pressure negatively affected other students will become concious to the hidden manerism of their body language and alter them so they can better themselves for the future. 

 

 

Marcus

Marcus

Blog for WRA 150 Section 8

Posterous theme by Cory Watilo