Stage fright measured with a heart rate monitor
Data from two performance nights, spike by spike.
- Answers
- What does stage fright do to your heart rate?
- Topics
- creativity · data · experiment · health · heart · people · sensors
- Full article on willem.com
- https://willem.com/en/2018-04-18_outside-the-comfort-zone-amateur-acting/
Summary
It shows up clearly in the data. During my 2018 stage debut, anxiety built up before my first entrance and every appearance produced a sharp spike in heart rate, with the first appearance the hardest by far.
Full text
I wore a waist mounted heart rate monitor during both performance nights and a Biostrap sensor for the month around them. The debut night showed higher average and peak heart rates than the second night, and each of my six appearances produced a clear spike, with the break giving visible relief in between. On both nights the first appearance was the hardest, and my second was notably less stressful than the third because I felt much more confident with those lines. One night of playing burned about 1800 kcal, roughly comparable to 50 km of cycling. The long term data moved too: resting heart rate rose during the final two weeks of rehearsals and my respiratory rate climbed steadily towards the performance nights, a clear marker of anxiety.