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- When Being on Camera Makes You Feel Like You're Always Being Watched
- Why Does Zoom Make Some People Anxious?
- Signs of Zoom and Virtual Performance Anxiety
- The Problem With Constant Self-Monitoring
- Zoom Anxiety and Zoom Fatigue Aren't Exactly the Same
- Why Brainspotting for Zoom Anxiety?
- Virtual Presentations, Interviews, and High-Stakes Meetings
- Practical Ways to Reduce Zoom Self-Consciousness
- Potential Benefits of Brainspotting for Zoom Anxiety
- Become More Present, Not More Perfect
When Being on Camera Makes You Feel Like You're Always Being Watched
You're sitting alone in a room. So why can a Zoom meeting feel like you're standing onstage?
You can see yourself. You can see everyone else. You may wonder where to look, what your face is doing, whether you're talking too much, whether you're talking enough, and how you're coming across. For some people, virtual meetings create a unique kind of performance anxiety.
Brainspotting can help address the anxiety, self-consciousness, and brain-body response that can make Zoom meetings, virtual presentations, interviews, and other on-camera situations feel far more stressful than they seem like they should.
Why Does Zoom Make Some People Anxious?
Video calls combine several factors that can increase self-consciousness. You may be looking at other people while simultaneously seeing yourself. You have less access to the subtle social feedback you receive in person. Silences can feel awkward. Eye contact feels different. And when you're speaking, multiple faces may appear to be looking directly at you.
For someone already sensitive to being evaluated, a video meeting can feel like a digital stage.
Research using real-time online video calls has found that people with higher social anxiety may direct more attention toward themselves and experience greater anxiety during virtual interactions. Research on attention and anxiety during online video calls also found that anxiety was greater during virtual speeches than during conversations, supporting the connection between perceived performance demands and anxiety.
Signs of Zoom and Virtual Performance Anxiety
You may notice:
- Anxiety before virtual meetings
- Constantly looking at your own image
- Worrying about your appearance
- Difficulty knowing where to look
- A racing heart when it's your turn to speak
- Overthinking what you're going to say
- Mental fog
- Difficulty speaking naturally
- Fear of awkward pauses
- Replaying what you said afterward
- Avoiding turning your camera on
- Feeling unusually exhausted after video calls
Some people are comfortable talking with the same colleagues in person but become noticeably more self-conscious on camera. That's an important clue. The issue may not be your ability to communicate. It may be what happens when communicating also means watching yourself communicate.
The Problem With Constant Self-Monitoring
Imagine having an in-person conversation while looking into a mirror the entire time. That's essentially what can happen during a video meeting when your own image remains visible.
Instead of simply listening and responding, part of your attention may be monitoring:
How do I look?
Do I look nervous?
Was that expression weird?
Where should I look?
Can they tell I'm uncomfortable?
The more attention you direct toward yourself, the less attention may be available for the actual conversation. This can create a frustrating cycle. You become anxious about appearing anxious, which can make you even more self-conscious.
Research supports this connection. In an eye-tracking study of real-time video conversations, researchers found that people with social anxiety showed greater self-focused attention. Among participants with social anxiety disorder, increased self-focused attention was also associated with greater self-reported anxiety during the interaction.
Zoom Anxiety and Zoom Fatigue Aren't Exactly the Same
Zoom fatigue refers to the exhaustion that can accompany frequent videoconferencing. Zoom anxiety is more specifically connected with fear, self-consciousness, evaluation, or performance. The two can overlap.
Videoconferencing asks us to communicate in ways that differ from ordinary face-to-face interactions. We may spend more time looking at faces at close range, see our own image throughout the conversation, have less freedom to move, and work harder to interpret and send nonverbal cues.
Research has specifically examined what happens when we continuously see ourselves on screen. In an experimental study using EEG, researchers found evidence of greater videoconferencing fatigue when self-view was turned on compared with when participants' own images were hidden.
If you're already anxious about how you're being perceived, these features may make virtual communication particularly draining.
Why Brainspotting for Zoom Anxiety?
Brainspotting is a brain-body therapy that uses focused visual attention, awareness of internal sensations, and the attuned presence of a therapist to work with emotional activation.
We might begin by imagining the moment your camera turns on.
You see yourself on the screen. Someone calls your name. It's your turn to present.
What happens?
Maybe your chest tightens. Your face feels hot. Your mind goes blank. You become intensely aware of yourself.
Instead of only discussing those reactions, Brainspotting gives us a way to work with the internal experience connected with them. The work may connect with fear of judgment, previous embarrassing experiences, appearance concerns, perfectionism, or simply the physical feeling of being watched.
Virtual Presentations, Interviews, and High-Stakes Meetings
Zoom anxiety isn't limited to routine meetings. It may become much stronger when the stakes rise.
You may feel comfortable talking with coworkers but freeze during a virtual interview. You may participate easily in small meetings but become highly anxious when presenting to a large group.
You may be comfortable with your camera off but feel exposed when it turns on.
Brainspotting can focus on the particular situation that activates your anxiety rather than treating every virtual interaction as though it were the same.
Practical Ways to Reduce Zoom Self-Consciousness
Along with therapeutic work, simple changes can sometimes reduce unnecessary self-monitoring:
- Hide your self-view when possible
- Ground your feet on the floor
- Allow yourself to move naturally
- Slow your breathing before speaking
- Focus on the person you're communicating with rather than your own image
- Give yourself brief transitions between video meetings
The goal isn't to perform perfectly on camera. It's to become less preoccupied with watching yourself perform.
Potential Benefits of Brainspotting for Zoom Anxiety
Goals may include:
- Less anticipatory anxiety
- Reduced self-consciousness
- Less appearance monitoring
- Greater comfort speaking
- Clearer thinking
- Less fear of being watched
- Greater confidence during virtual presentations
- More natural communication
- Less emotional exhaustion connected with performance anxiety
Direct research specifically establishing Brainspotting as a treatment for Zoom anxiety is limited. However, research on virtual communication supports connections among self-focused attention, social anxiety, self-view, and videoconference fatigue.
Brainspotting can be used to address the emotional and physical activation surrounding these experiences.
Become More Present, Not More Perfect
You don't need to become better at watching yourself. You may need to become more comfortable forgetting that you're being watched.
The goal is not to eliminate every nervous feeling before a Zoom meeting, interview, or presentation. It's to help you stay connected to yourself and the people you're communicating with rather than becoming consumed by how you're performing.
Contact us to learn more about online Brainspotting for Zoom anxiety, camera anxiety, virtual presentations, and performance anxiety.
