Nutrition for Musicians

Even though the post is in the "Nutrition for Musicians " section, the content applies to anyone who makes a living of passionately sharing materials with an audience (e.g. artists, athletes, professionals in training and ppt)

“Actions seem to follow feeling, but really actions and feeling go together; and by regulating the action, which is under the more direct control of the will, we can indirectly regulate the feeling, which is not. Thus the sovereign voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our cheerfulness be lost, is to sit up cheerfully and to act and speak as if cheerfulness were already there.” William James Psychologist (1842 – 1910).

It is scientifically proven that there is a positive correlation between our body posture, facial expressions and our emotional state. When Paul Ekman was studying which muscles are used to make an angry or sad face, he notice that along with mimicking the expressions he experienced the emotions. 

If your facial muscles seem to tense in a way that makes you look angry or in pain when you play your instrument, your body will think that you are in distress and will act upon it by releasing stress management hormones.  

A lot of instrumentalists practice in front of a mirror to adjust their performance posture and facial expressions for the purpose of looking good on stage.  Doing this is not only important for the looks, but also, and more importantly, it helps decrease the amount of stress your body goes through on stage, which consequently alleviates the Post-Performance Depression (PPD) symptoms after gigs.  

Changing postures and facial expression on the subconscious level require a lot of practice and time. But hey.. that’s what musicians’ life is made of, so one more practice is not going to kill

Also your thoughts will have an effect on your emotions, hence on your body reacting to the performance experience.  

If an artist getting on stage with strong believe that this gig will be catastrophic, his/her body will prepare for the disaster before it even happens (if it ever does), and vice versa, if the artist is relaxed, even if the gig turn to be a disaster the body will not forgo as much stress and the recovery will be way faster.  

This has a major role in managing PPD. The more you give in to the thoughts of how miserable you are (at this moment) and how life sucks and how bad (or great) this gig was, the deeper the “low” will go.  

Rather, talk yourself into the absolute biological function of PPD. That this is normal because you just had a huge “high” on stage, and that your body is working on rebalancing its hormones. This will give you a milder “low” and quick recovery.  

As usual help your body by providing amazing herbal support like adaptogens (Rhodiola, maca root, holy basil, etc…) before the gig and natural sleep aid (valerian, passion flower, lavender) before you go to bed.