The Jumping-Jacks Trick for Shaky Nerves
Oh man, this one's practical. No warm-up game, no icebreaker. Just a tool for when your body decides it hates you thirty seconds before you have to say something out loud.
Here's the situation. You know your lines. You know what you're supposed to do. And your hands are shaking anyway, your voice has gone thin, and your brain is doing that thing where it just repeats "don't mess up don't mess up don't mess up" instead of, you know, letting you act.
That's not a you problem. That's a body problem. And the fix is a body fix, not a mental one.
Give the body something else to do
I ran lines once with a fifteen-year-old backstage who was shaking so hard he couldn't hold his script steady. Not nervous-shaking, actual-shaking. We didn't have time for a pep talk, curtain was coming up in ten minutes, so I just said "do jumping jacks while you say it." He looked at me like I was nuts, but he didn't have a better idea, so he did it. Said his lines while jumping. Kept going.
By the third round he wasn't shaking anymore. Not because I'd calmed him down with words — I hadn't said anything encouraging at all, really — but because his body had a job. It couldn't do "panic" and "jumping jacks" at the same time. One of them had to win, and it wasn't going to be the panic, because jumping jacks are loud and physical and take up all the space panic usually lives in.
I've used it constantly since. It's my go-to now for anybody backstage who's vibrating.
How to actually do this at home
You don't need a script or a scene partner for this. Here's the version you can run solo, tonight, in your living room.
- Pick something you have to say. Your lines for this class, a toast you're dreading, whatever's making your stomach drop.
- Start moving before you start talking. Jumping jacks are what I use, but honestly any repetitive full-body movement works — marching in place, running stairs if you've got them, that kind of thing.
- Say your lines while you're moving. Out loud. Don't slow down to get it perfect. Let the words come out a little breathless and messy.
- Notice what happens to your voice. It'll probably drop the careful, performed quality. That's the good part, not a flaw. A little breathless and real beats smooth and stiff every time.
- Do it two or three times, then stop moving and say the lines standing still. See if some of that looseness stuck around even after your body calmed back down.
That's it. That's the whole exercise. It costs you nothing and you can do it in a bedroom with the door shut so nobody has to watch you jump around like a weirdo, which — fair, some people don't want witnesses for this part.
Why this actually works, not just "it distracts you"
Nervousness lives in the body before it ever shows up as a thought. Shaky hands, tight throat, shallow breathing — none of that is "in your head," even though we talk about nerves like they are. So trying to talk yourself out of nervous with logic is fighting a body problem with a brain tool. Doesn't usually work, at least not fast.
Moving hard for thirty seconds burns through some of that adrenaline your body dumped in there. It's not a trick, exactly. It's just giving the nervous energy an exit that isn't your voice or your hands.
And I'll say the thing I say a lot in this class: nervous isn't a problem you need to fix before you're allowed to act. It means you care about doing it well. I'd rather work with someone whose hands are shaking than someone who strolls in bored. The jumping jacks aren't about making the nerves go away — they're about giving the nerves somewhere to go so they're not sitting in your throat when you need your throat for something else.
A quick honest caution
If you've got a knee or back thing going on, don't do actual jumping jacks, obviously — march in place, shake out your arms hard, whatever gets your heart rate up without hurting you. The point is movement and a slightly elevated heart rate, not a specific exercise. Pick whatever your body can do without complaint.
Before next time
Try the jumping-jacks trick once this week, even just talking to yourself in the kitchen. I want to hear what it did to your voice, good or weird or nothing at all — all three count as data. 💛