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Improvising Your Way Out of Anxiety

Could this theatre technique help improve mental health?

You鈥檙e standing on a stage, blinded by a spotlight trained on your face, knees weak, hands sweaty. Someone from the audience calls out a random word and you have to immediately react and come up with an amusing sketch or skit. This is improv, the unscripted theatre form that seems like it would cause rather than cure anxiety. But across North America people with the mental health condition are signing up for special 鈥淚mprov for Anxiety鈥 courses where the techniques and practices of the stage art are used to boost confidence.

Producer: Harriet Noble
Presenter: Tom Colls
Photo Credit: 大象传媒

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