The first semi–final of Eurovision 2026 will be broadcast tonight – which causes great excitement for fans of the competition, but imagine what Noam Batane feels – who is about to sing the song "Michelle" in front of an audience of thousands of people in the hall and millions at home.
"An international stage, tens of millions of viewers, representing an entire country with all the accompanying meanings brings with it a demand for high performance under pressure, load, and high expectations from the audience and yourself," explains Liora Goichman Magril, a clinical psychologist at Maccabi Healthcare Services Southern District. "Even the most talented and experienced are required to have high abilities of concentration, precision, a combination of singing skills, movement, and stage presence, and all of this in 3 minutes."
As a Eurovision fan, I feel a national, professional, and personal mission to give a few tips that will help the talented and charismatic Noam succeed in the event:
1. Automation and reliance on routines: Rehearsals of the same line in the song, the same dance dozens and hundreds of times, rehearsals of the same movement –their purpose is not only to improve the performance but to make the performance automatic, and therefore less activated by conscious thought and less affected by pressure. Many artists describe a feeling like "disconnection" and a "high" at the moment of going on the stage –and this disconnection is positive because the performance and the song are activated by themselves, it only remains to arrive.
2. Social support: It is not for nothing that an entire delegation and even an entire country are behind the artist. They are there to support, to strengthen, to show Noam that he is not alone in the face of the magnitude of the occasion.
3. A sense of meaning: Being that the competition is also a competition representing an entire country, the sense of meaning constitutes a resilience factor against the effects of stress, offensive reactions on the web, and self–criticism that is not beneficial.
4. Anxiety is fine – as long as it is under control: Remember that anxiety at levels that are too high or too low is not effective, but anxiety in the right measure certainly improves performance and can be accepted and embraced with love.
Wishing a Douze Points to our Noam.