Peform at your best, sustainably, with
ACT WELL
“Anastasia’s work is life changing and life enhancing”
- Nicola Larder, Producer and Writer.
The Truth…
Depression is twice as likely to occur for performers than in the general population.
(Maxwell et al, 2025)52% of drama students and 60% of professional actors suffer from anxiety, compared to 19.1% of the general population.
(Searl et al, 2019) and (Brodsky, 2001)1/4 of all actors experience bullying or harassment at work, with women thought to experience higher levels of sexual harassment.
(The University of Sydney, 2022)Unstable work schedules, long working hours, time away from home and financial fears, matched with chronic exposure to the heavy emotional themes in many of the roles we play… and we have a perfect mental health storm for actors and performers.
And here is why:
It takes a certain kind of person to want to perform for a living…
A person who cares about and notices the predicaments faced by those around them. Who feels things deeply. A person who’s dedication to storytelling and reflecting the nature of humanity back to itself, so we all get to understand ourselves that little bit better, takes precedent over almost everything else…
It takes a highly sensitive person, who then steps into one of the most competitive and demanding work environments there is.
I work with actors and performers in the entertainment industry to actualise their version of success and ACT WELL, creating lasting health from the inside out despite the unique challenges we face.
My clients learn to build longterm wellbeing and sustainable success, personally and professionally, doing the job they set out to love.
Mental Health Matters…
“The mind is everything. What you think you become”
If we are to maximize our talent, impact and longevity in this business we must prioritise our mental wellbeing and emotional health along the way.
We know that our mental processes can radically dictate the quality of our lives, playing a huge role in not only our relationships, and energy levels but our physical health too. We now also know, given the role our mental health plays in our nervous system, that it impacts our ability to be creative, perform at our best and therefore our likeliness to succeed.
It is imperative that we actors and performers learn how to maintain good mental and emotional hygiene as a way of life. So that we can
Sustain self belief and confidence doing the work that we were born to do
Avoid burn out from long hours and emotional exposure
Create resilience in the face of uncertainty
Prevent anxiety and scarcity mindset
Step into abundance and the infinite possibility available to us
… and enjoy the ride along the way.
No doubt about it, the work we do and the environment we do it in is demanding: a lot balances on us being at the top of our game, showing up in truth and integrity while being the leaders our employers need us to be. BUT, we are not taught how to take care of ourselves or develop the capacity to meet these expectations. Burn out is rife in our industry, having detrimental affect on our own wellbeing, that of our loved ones, as well as the quality of our work.
The good news is, the advances in modern psychology and somatic healing have provided us with highly effective, easy to implement solutions to support our mental, physical and spiritual health in longterm sustainable ways.
Making sure we have the tools, skills and strategies in place to ‘carry it all’ must not be considered a luxury but part of the job, with support provided for us both through our training and professional contracts.
I am passionate about preparing aspiring performers and supporting seasoned professionals to thrive in this extraordinary business, and beyond.
I OFFER A FREE INVITE ONLY EVENT FOR ANYONE INTERESTED: CLICK LEARN MORE TO MESSAGE ME.
“This course was unlike any kind of therapy I have ever ventured. Most left me wondering where I was at, alone, sometimes utterly confused due to a lack of understanding, real support or actual tools to implement. Therapy had me in it’s grips for years.
We all want solutions to our problems with instant effect, we want immediate change, we want to progress out of the washing machine cycle… and it IS possible.”
- Karima McAdams, Actor
For Production Companies, Studios and Directors…
In 2019 a charity, Looking Glass, conducted a research project into mental health in the film and TV industry. The findings were pretty bleak, concluding that “there is a mental health crisis in the film and TV sector”. While this study looked at all departments of the film and TV industry, it included performers, and we know how much balances on our ability to show up.
The study discovered, at the heart of the problem, was the ‘3 Cs’:
Poor working CONDITIONS
A CULTURE of bullying and stigma around mental health
A lack of CAPABILITIES in the industry to the mental health of employees.
Two years later, after the pandemic, the situation had worsened considerably with 90% of people working in the film and TV industry experiencing depression (to 65% of the wider population at that time), and 55% had considered taking their own life.
There is clearly a responsibility for those above the line to take better care of those below it, in terms of mental health in this business.
But let’s talk productivity and creativity.
You need your performers to show up with these 3 Cs:
Consistency,
Creativity and
Collaboration.
The best way for them to do so, is to have good nervous system health and a resilience practice that can sustain their mental wellbeing through triggering emotional performances, demanding schedules and overexposure. Without it, they get stuck in a chronic fight/flight response cutting them off from the parts of their physiology that allows for these 3 Cs to occur.
Let me help you build the happiest and most productive cast, and set, in the business.
I OFFER A FREE INVITE ONLY EVENT FOR ANYONE INTERESTED: CLICK LEARN MORE TO MESSAGE ME.
For Drama Schools and Universities…
While it is your job to maximize talent in your performers, it is also to provide a proverbial tool box from which to pull resources and techniques. Preventative mental health practices MUST now be part of that toolbox you offer.
We now know that presence, playfulness and creativity, three qualities you celebrate in your best students, can only be accessed when coming from a regulated nervous system - an impossibility when facing anxiety, self-criticism or internalised stress. You want good performances? You must teach them how to perform at their best.
The lucky students who later find themselves to be working actors will inevitably face public scrutiny, gruelling schedules, chronic exposure to challenging emotional states and a need to advocate for themselves when faced with conflict. Those who do not, rejection and financial stress. Either way, part of the job we actors do is to navigate the extraordinary ups and downs this career imposes upon us. To be employable, and not burn out over time, we must prepare our young actors and performers with the skills and practices that will support their resilience and self-atunement long term.
Let me help you build the happiest, healthiest and most confident performers ever to be set loose on this business!
I OFFER A FREE INVITE ONLY EVENT FOR ANYONE INTERESTED: CLICK LEARN MORE TO MESSAGE ME.
“The work Anastasia does is magical”
— Sarah Flower, actor
The ACT WELL Process…
As part of the ACT WELL program I offer group and 1:1 programs, guiding clients through 6 key concepts.
Specifically with you actors and performers in mind, ACT WELL is designed to build the resilience, confidence and unshakable internal security needed to protect you from the threat of depression, anxiety or burn out in this business. Using practical tools, increased awareness and easy to apply skills, ACT WELL empowers you to take back control of your own mental, emotional and physical wellbeing so you can perform at your best and actualise the career you desire, long term.
The process will address:
MENTAL HEALTH FOR PERFORMANCE WEALTH - Why sustaining good mental health is essential to becoming a success
MANAGING NERVES - Nervous system health for longterm success and physical, mental, emotional wellbeing.
UNCERTAINTY RESILIENCY - making change at the root: cultivating beliefs, thoughts and habits for unshakable resilience and confidence, no matter the circumstances you face.
PROCESSING EMOTIONS - The body and brain cannot distinguish between fact and fiction! Both imagined circumstances and real life experiences must be adequately processed in real time to allow for emotional freedom and good health.
COMMUNICATION, COLLABORATION AND CONSENT - learning how to advocate for yourself in the work place, without getting a ‘rep’.
TAKING YOUR POWER BACK - stepping out of victim and becoming the co-creator of your own existence.
The program is offered through both an online curriculum and weekly live coaching calls with Anastasia, personally. In our experience, this combination of independent study (with workbooks, audios and videos), live in-person coaching and community accountability brings the most tangible, long lasting results.
I OFFER A FREE 1:1 CALL or INVITE ONLY GROUP EVENT for those who are interested in supporting themselves, or their students/employers in this way.
“Anastasia has helped me appreciate and value myself more, improve my confidence and breakthrough the negative thought patterns that had become entrenched... stopping the cycle of procrastination. ”
— Charlotte Cavaghan, Writer
My Story:
Over the stretch of my career, I have enjoyed some meaningful successes and endured many challenging pauses! I have lead big TV shows and ‘supported’ the cast in others. I’ve had posters in Time Square, walked a few red carpets and met some incredibly inspiring people along the way. I have been fortunate enough to be in that 1% of ‘successful’ actors.
At the age of 36, however, after years of high pressure, self-criticism, body image issues and ‘not-enoughness’, I hit burnout, causing a mental and physical breakdown. On deep reflection, it became apparent that I was not pursuing acting success for the right reasons, and was therefore feeling empty and unfulfilled by the work I was doing. I realised, that I had been using my career in an attempt to heal a significant childhood wound and meet long standing unmet needs for connection, validation, belonging and approval. Needs that this business, or any other, was never going to fulfil!
As we all do, I had created some powerful beliefs about myself, my worth and my value in the world based on the relationships I had had growing up. I realised that the dream I had long been reaching for was born out of a desperate need for the love and approval of men (in particular) and was, in fact, perpetuating the lack of it! It was clear to me then, that acting had not only stopped being ‘my purpose’ in life, but it was keeping me from it - making me sad, single and unwell.
After long re-evaluation, I took a step back from the career I had worked so hard to achieve and, unbeknownst to me, started the studies that would eventually birth Anastasia Griffith Coaching and the Actualise programme itself.
Over the following year I learned that ‘success' for me, at that stage of my life, had nothing to do with acting at all. I longed to become a mother and re-learn how to truly love, connect with and belong to other beings. Almost miraculously, I called in my beautiful son (a story you can read more about here) and my life took a whole new direction that provided me with a peace and happiness I had never known before.
I made a conscious choice to focus my time and energy on raising my child through those formative first 7 years and created my coaching business, inspired by my personal journey. The Actualise process was born using the tools I had adopted to heal myself and the studies in interpersonal psychology, energy psychology and self development I had long been committed to.
I am delighted to say I have recently come back to my acting career, but with a whole new identity! I am no longer driven by the need for external validation and approval but by creative expression and a love of the people I get to collaborate with! And because I can now counterbalance the self-focused work of the actor with the ‘in service’ work of the coach, I am much more balanced and contented in my life.