February 17th, 2010

If you have ever had to speak in public in the past then you’ll understand that it can be a nerve racking or even a terrifying experience if you haven’t done it before. Even for experienced speakers it can still cause sleepless nights or sweaty palms before the event.

So can anything be done to ease the feeling of terror? Or is it something you are just going to have to live with? Well this may not seem so reassuring at this point, but, its good to have a little nervousness before you speak in public. In fact it could be safe to say that the time to start worrying is when you do not feel nervous before you stand up, because that’s when complacency can creep in.

What causes public speaking anxiety?

So how do you know when you are nervous or suffering from anxiety? In other words, what indicators do you have that say to you “I am nervous”? do you have the sweaty hands? The pounding heart, a dry mouth, a wobbly voice when you speak, do you feel really hot? They all seem bad enough don’t they? But if you are experiencing these symptoms then relax – you’re normal. Everybody will experience some if not all of these to some degree.

Lets look at this rationally and see if we can negate these feelings of public speaking anxiety you are experiencing. What’s happening here is that your body is trying to protect you. You are experiencing what’s known as fight or flight. An animal instinct that’s there to keep you alive, it’s kind of left over from when we came down from the trees.

Picture the scene, it’s 10,000 years ago and you’re walking through the woods. A sabre tooth tiger jumps out from behind a tree, and your brain says “oh my god I’m going to die!”. So it sends a signal to a gland in the body and adrenalin rushes into the muscle and the blood. Your senses and your ability to react heighten so that you can either hit the tiger harder than you have ever hit anything or run away faster than you have ever run. Hence “fight or flight”.

Of course we don’t have sabre tooth tigers now, what we have is your boss saying to you “I want you to do a presentation”. You start to feel anxious, wondering how you can get out of it and your brain thinks “uh oh, we’re going to die” and the whole process starts over, after all your brain is trying to protect you.

How to overcome public speaking anxiety

All of the feelings you experience are the result of adrenalin but we put them down to nervousness or anxiety.

The power of positive thinking

If you hold your hand out in front of you and tense the muscle in you lower arm, you will see your fingers tremble. This is what is happening when you think you are suffering from anxiety.The adrenalin causes the muscle to tense and your fingers tremble.

From this point on when you see your fingers tremble you have to say to yourself “that’s not nerves or anxiety, that’s adrenalin – fantastic!” because you need the adrenalin to give your presentation more energy and power.

The power of controlled breathing

The feeling hot is because the adrenalin is making your blood pressure rise, the wobbly voice is because you are shallow breathing.

So try slowing down the breathing, taking nice slow breaths in and out through the nose.

As you start to take more air in your heart rate will start to slow down. Aim to take three or four deep breaths a minute. As you start to control your breathing you will start to control the wobble in your voice because the voice needs air to work and shallow breathing will keep the body ticking over but not support the voice.

Try these tips next time you you have to speak in public

Think of these two important points. When you have watched a presentation or speech that is going really badly and the speaker is really nervous, how have you felt? You have probably felt really sorry for them and been pleased that its not you up there. So you have empathised.

Secondly, when you stand in front of us we believe that you are an expert and that know what you are talking about. So you have two things going for you before you start. We want you to do well because watching you suffer makes us feel bad and we believe you are an expert.

Keep that in mind and the adrenalin flowing and presenting starts to become fun. Trust me.