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How to Manage Public Speaking Anxiety

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Speech Anxiety and SAD

How to prepare for a speech.

Public speaking anxiety, also known as glossophobia , is one of the most commonly reported social fears.

While some people may feel nervous about giving a speech or presentation if you have social anxiety disorder (SAD) , public speaking anxiety may take over your life.

Public speaking anxiety may also be called speech anxiety or performance anxiety and is a type of social anxiety disorder (SAD). Social anxiety disorder, also sometimes referred to as social phobia, is one of the most common types of mental health conditions.

Public Speaking Anxiety Symptoms

Symptoms of public speaking anxiety are the same as those that occur for social anxiety disorder, but they only happen in the context of speaking in public.

If you live with public speaking anxiety, you may worry weeks or months in advance of a speech or presentation, and you probably have severe physical symptoms of anxiety during a speech, such as:

• Pounding heart
• Quivering voice
• Shortness of breath
• Upset stomach

Causes of Public Speaking Anxiety

These symptoms are a result of the fight or flight response —a rush of adrenaline that prepares you for danger. When there is no real physical threat, it can feel as though you have lost control of your body. This makes it very hard to do well during public speaking and may cause you to avoid situations in which you may have to speak in public.

How Is Public Speaking Anxiety Is Diagnosed

Public speaking anxiety may be diagnosed as SAD if it significantly interferes with your life. This fear of public speaking anxiety can cause problems such as:

• Changing courses at college to avoid a required oral presentation
• Changing jobs or careers
• Turning down promotions because of public speaking obligations
• Failing to give a speech when it would be appropriate (e.g., best man at a wedding)

If you have intense anxiety symptoms while speaking in public and your ability to live your life the way that you would like is affected by it, you may have SAD.

Public Speaking Anxiety Treatment

Fortunately, effective treatments for public speaking anxiety are avaible. Such treatment may involve medication, therapy, or a combination of the two.

Short-term therapy such as systematic desensitization and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can be helpful to learn how to manage anxiety symptoms and anxious thoughts that trigger them.

Ask your doctor for a referral to a therapist who can offer this type of therapy; in particular, it will be helpful if the therapist has experience in treating social anxiety and/or public speaking anxiety.

Research has also found that virtual reality (VR) therapy can also be an effective way to treat public speaking anxiety. One analysis found that students treated with VR therapy were able to experience positive benefits in as little as a week with between one and 12 sessions of VR therapy. The research also found that VR sessions were effective while being less invasive than in-person treatment sessions.

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If you live with public speaking anxiety that is causing you significant distress, ask your doctor about medication that can help. Short-term medications known as beta-blockers (e.g., propranolol) can be taken prior to a speech or presentation to block the symptoms of anxiety.

Other medications may also be prescribed for longer-term treatment of SAD, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). When used in conjunction with therapy, you may find the medication helps to reduce your phobia of public speaking.

In addition to traditional treatment, there are several strategies that you can use to cope with speech anxiety and become better at public speaking in general . Public speaking is like any activity—better preparation equals better performance. Being better prepared will boost your confidence and make it easier to concentrate on delivering your message.

Even if you have SAD, with proper treatment and time invested in preparation, you can deliver a successful speech or presentation.

Pre-Performance Planning

Taking some steps to plan before you give a speech can help you better control feelings of anxiety. Before you give a speech or public performance:

• Choose a topic that interests you . If you are able, choose a topic that you are excited about. If you are not able to choose the topic, try using an approach to the topic that you find interesting. For example, you could tell a personal story that relates to the topic as a way to introduce your speech. This will ensure that you are engaged in your topic and motivated to research and prepare. When you present, others will feel your enthusiasm and be interested in what you have to say.
• Become familiar with the venue . Ideally, visit the conference room, classroom, auditorium, or banquet hall where you will be presenting before you give your speech. If possible, try practicing at least once in the environment that you will be speaking in. Being familiar with the venue and knowing where needed audio-visual components are ahead of time will mean one less thing to worry about at the time of your speech.
• Ask for accommodations . Accommodations are changes to your work environment that help you to manage your anxiety. This might mean asking for a podium, having a pitcher of ice water handy, bringing in audiovisual equipment, or even choosing to stay seated if appropriate. If you have been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder such as social anxiety disorder (SAD), you may be eligible for these through the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
• Don’t script it . Have you ever sat through a speech where someone read from a prepared script word for word? You probably don’t recall much of what was said. Instead, prepare a list of key points on paper or notecards that you can refer to.
• Develop a routine . Put together a routine for managing anxiety on the day of a speech or presentation. This routine should help to put you in the proper frame of mind and allow you to maintain a relaxed state. An example might be exercising or practicing meditation on the morning of a speech.

Practice and Visualization

Even people who are comfortable speaking in public rehearse their speeches many times to get them right. Practicing your speech 10, 20, or even 30 times will give you confidence in your ability to deliver.

If your talk has a time limit, time yourself during practice runs and adjust your content as needed to fit within the time that you have. Lots of practice will help boost your self-confidence .

• Prepare for difficult questions . Before your presentation, try to anticipate hard questions and critical comments that might arise, and prepare responses ahead of time. Deal with a difficult audience member by paying them a compliment or finding something that you can agree on. Say something like, “Thanks for that important question” or “I really appreciate your comment.” Convey that you are open-minded and relaxed. If you don’t know how to answer the question, say you will look into it.
• Get some perspective . During a practice run, speak in front of a mirror or record yourself on a smartphone. Make note of how you appear and identify any nervous habits to avoid. This step is best done after you have received therapy or medication to manage your anxiety.
• Imagine yourself succeeding . Did you know your brain can’t tell the difference between an imagined activity and a real one? That is why elite athletes use visualization to improve athletic performance. As you practice your speech (remember 10, 20, or even 30 times!), imagine yourself wowing the audience with your amazing oratorical skills. Over time, what you imagine will be translated into what you are capable of.
• Learn to accept some anxiety . Even professional performers experience a bit of nervous excitement before a performance—in fact, most believe that a little anxiety actually makes you a better speaker. Learn to accept that you will always be a little anxious about giving a speech, but that it is normal and common to feel this way.

Setting Goals

Instead of trying to just scrape by, make it a personal goal to become an excellent public speaker. With proper treatment and lots of practice, you can become good at speaking in public. You might even end up enjoying it!

Put things into perspective. If you find that public speaking isn’t one of your strengths, remember that it is only one aspect of your life. We all have strengths in different areas. Instead, make it a goal simply to be more comfortable in front of an audience, so that public speaking anxiety doesn’t prevent you from achieving other goals in life.

A Word From Verywell

In the end, preparing well for a speech or presentation gives you confidence that you have done everything possible to succeed. Give yourself the tools and the ability to succeed, and be sure to include strategies for managing anxiety. These public-speaking tips should be used to complement traditional treatment methods for SAD, such as therapy and medication.

Crome E, Baillie A. Mild to severe social fears: Ranking types of feared social situations using item response theory . J Anxiety Disord . 2014;28(5):471-479. doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2014.05.002

Pull CB. Current status of knowledge on public-speaking anxiety . Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2012;25(1):32-8. doi:10.1097/YCO.0b013e32834e06dc

Goldstein DS. Adrenal responses to stress . Cell Mol Neurobiol. 2010;30(8):1433-40. doi:10.1007/s10571-010-9606-9

Anderson PL, Zimand E, Hodges LF, Rothbaum BO. Cognitive behavioral therapy for public-speaking anxiety using virtual reality for exposure . Depress Anxiety. 2005;22(3):156-8. doi:10.1002/da.20090

Hinojo-Lucena FJ, Aznar-Díaz I, Cáceres-Reche MP, Trujillo-Torres JM, Romero-Rodríguez JM. Virtual reality treatment for public speaking anxiety in students. advancements and results in personalized medicine .  J Pers Med . 2020;10(1):14. doi:10.3390/jpm10010014

Steenen SA, van Wijk AJ, van der Heijden GJ, van Westrhenen R, de Lange J, de Jongh A. Propranolol for the treatment of anxiety disorders: Systematic review and meta-analysis . J Psychopharmacol (Oxford). 2016;30(2):128-39. doi:10.1177/0269881115612236

By Arlin Cuncic, MA Arlin Cuncic, MA, is the author of The Anxiety Workbook and founder of the website About Social Anxiety. She has a Master's degree in clinical psychology.

PUBLIC SPEAKING ANXIETY

The fear of public speaking is the most common phobia ahead of death, spiders, or heights. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that public speaking anxiety, or glossophobia, affects about 40%* of the population. The underlying fear is judgment or negative evaluation by others. Public speaking anxiety is considered a social anxiety disorder. * Gallup News Service, Geoffrey Brewer, March 19, 2001.

The fear of public speaking is worse than the fear of death

Evolution psychologists believe there are primordial roots. Our prehistoric ancestors were vulnerable to large animals and harsh elements. Living in a tribe was a basic survival skill. Rejection from the group led to death. Speaking to an audience makes us vulnerable to rejection, much like our ancestors’ fear.

A common fear in public speaking is the brain freeze. The prospect of having an audience’s attention while standing in silence feels like judgment and rejection.

Why the brain freezes

The pre-frontal lobes of our brain sort our memories and is sensitive to anxiety. Dr. Michael DeGeorgia of Case Western University Hospitals, says: “If your brain starts to freeze up, you get more stressed and the stress hormones go even higher. That shuts down the frontal lobe and disconnects it from the rest of the brain. It makes it even harder to retrieve those memories.”

The fight or flight response activates complex bodily changes to protect us. A threat to our safety requires immediate action. We need to respond without debating whether to jump out of the way of on oncoming car while in an intersection. Speaking to a crowd isn’t life threatening. The threat area of the brain can’t distinguish between these threats.

Help for public speaking anxiety

We want our brains to be alert to danger. The worry of having a brain freeze increases our anxiety. Ironically, it increases the likelihood of our mind’s going blank as Dr. DeGeorgia described. We need to recognize that the fear of brain freezing isn’t a life-or-death threat like a car barreling towards us while in a crosswalk.

Change how we think about our mind going blank.

De-catastrophize brain freezes . It might feel horrible if it happens in the moment. The audience will usually forget about it quickly. Most people are focused on themselves. We’ve handled more difficult and challenging situations before. The long-term consequence of this incident is minimal.

Leave it there . Don’t dwell on the negative aspects of the incidents. Focus on what we can learn from it. Worry that it will happen again will become self-fulfilling. Don’t avoid opportunities to create a more positive memory.

Perfectionism won’t help . Setting unachievable standards of delivering an unblemished speech increases anxiety. A perfect speech isn’t possible. We should aim to do our best instead of perfect.

Silence is gold . Get comfortable with silence by practicing it in conversations. What feels like an eternity to us may not feel that way to the audience. Silence is not bad. Let’s practice tolerating the discomfort that comes with elongated pauses.

Avoidance reinforces . Avoiding what frightens us makes it bigger in our mind. We miss out on the opportunity to obtain disconfirming information about the trigger.

Rehearse to increase confidence

Practice but don’t memorize . There’s no disputing that preparation will build confidence. Memorizing speeches will mislead us into thinking there is only one way to deliver an idea. Forgetting a phrase or sentence throw us off and hastens the brain freeze. Memorizing provides a false sense of security.

Practice with written notes. Writing out the speech may help formulate ideas. Practice speaking extemporaneously using bullet points to keep us on track.

Practice the flow of the presentation . Practice focusing on the message that’s delivered instead of the precise words to use. We want to internalize the flow of the speech and remember the key points.

Practice recovering from a brain freeze . Practice recovery strategies by purposely stopping the talk and shifting attention to elsewhere. Then, refer to notes to find where we left off. Look ahead to the next point and decide what we’d like to say next. Finally, we’ll find someone in the audience to start talking to and begin speaking.

Be prepared for the worst . If we know what to do in the worst-case scenario (and practice it), we’ll have confidence in our ability to handle it. We do that by preparing what to say to the audience if our mind goes blank. Visualizing successful recovery of the worst will help us figure out what needs to be done to get back on track.

Learn to relax

Remember to breathe . We can reduce anxiety by breathing differently. Take slow inhalations and even slower exhalations with brief pauses in between. We’ll be more likely to use this technique if practiced in times of low stress.

Speak slowly . It’s natural to speed up our speech when we are anxious. Practice slowing speech while rehearsing. When we talk quickly, our brain sees it is a threat. Speaking slowly and calmly gives the opposite message to our brain.

Make eye contact with the audience . Our nerves might tell us to avoid eye contact. Making deliberate eye contact with a friendly face will build confidence and slow our speaking.

Join a group . Practice builds confident in public speaking. Groups like Toastmasters International provide peer support to hone our public speaking skill. Repeated exposure allows us to develop new beliefs about our fear and ability to speak in public.

The fear of our mind going blank during a speech is common. Job advancement or college degree completion may be hampered by not addressing this fear.

Get additional practical suggestions on overcoming public speaking anxiety in this CNBC article by the director of NSAC Brooklyn, Chamin Ajjan, LCSW, A-CBT, CST.

How to Get Help for Social Anxiety

The National Social Anxiety Center (NSAC) is an association of independent Regional Clinics and Associates throughout the United States with certified cognitive-behavioral therapists (CBT) specializing in social anxiety and other anxiety-related problems.

Find an NSAC Regional Clinic or Associate which is licensed to help people in the state where you are located.

Places where nsac regional clinics and associates are based.

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Overcome your public speaking anxiety with these 10 tips

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What’s public speaking anxiety?

10 symptoms of public speaking anxiety, 10 common public speaking stressors, how to overcome public speaking anxiety: 10 tips, diagnosing and treating public speaking anxiety, speak with confidence.

Your opinion and expertise matter, so it can be frustrating when public speaking nerves leave you speechless. Maybe your heart races and you trip over your words, or you spend most of your presentation hoping no one asks questions. Fear not. Public speaking anxiety is a common experience that impacts even the most confident people — and it’s manageable.

The intense nerves associated with public speaking aren’t reserved for being on stage in front of a large audience. Discomfort might occur during small team presentations , a sales pitch with a client, or group brainstorming sessions . The stress may be so potent that you avoid important opportunities to showcase your expertise and advance your career. 

But identifying triggers and understanding your physiological response will help you overcome your anxiety. With practice and support, you’ll fearlessly share your important thoughts and opinions with others. 

Public speaking anxiety, or glossophobia, is the most common subset of social anxiety, affecting about 3–5% of the general population and 80% of people with social phobias . Those with glossophobia feel anxiety symptoms , like a racing heartbeat and stressful thoughts, when sharing ideas or asking questions in front of others. And those who experience public speaking anxiety often feel more general performance anxiety during activities like striking up a conversation with a stranger or eating in public.

But why does public speaking cause anxiety? According to an article by the Harvard Business Review, our ancestors perceived being watched as a predatory threat , so our brains evolved to have a fight-or-flight response . This is the body’s physiological response to danger, activating the nervous system to encourage us to return to safety.

While public speaking doesn’t present real physical dangers, social anxiety can trigger your stress response . Worrying about people judging you, making a mistake , or messing up an important professional opportunity are visceral fears that send messages to the brain to seek protection. 

In some cases, an acute fear can be motivating . Worrying about underperforming during a client presentation or making the right first impression at a face-to-face networking event could compel you to practice and perfect your speech. 

But a chronic and debilitating fear of public speaking can disrupt your career. You may become avoidant and miss important opportunities to show off your expertise, establish your personal brand , and achieve professional development goals . 

Publi c speaking anxiety is so all-encompassing you may not be conscientious of all the ways this type of stress affects the body. Acute anxiety symptoms are widespread and vary between people , but here are 10 common signs to be aware of:

Increased heart rate

Lack of concentration 

Avoidant behaviors like social isolation

Shortness of breath

Panic attacks

Intrusive thoughts

Shaky hands and legs

While you might associate public speaking anxiety with delivering a Ted Talk or corporate event presentation, plenty of everyday situations can trigger your fear of performing. Here are 10 common stressors of public speaking anxiety: 

Meeting new colleagues or coworkers

Job interviews

Sharing ideas in a brainstorming session

Giving a small presentation

Training new coworkers

Debriefing your team or managers on an ongoing project

Offering your opinion during a virtual meeting

Delivering an elevator pitch

Participating in a board meeting

Offering someone constructive criticism

Like any other challenge, thoughtful practice, care, and patience will help you approach public speaking confidently. Here are 10 tips for public speaking anxiety sufferers looking to improve.

1. Don’t expect perfection

Perfection is an unrealistic expectation that distracts from your good work and amplifies your anxiety. Instead of aiming for perfection , celebrate your improvements and seek out continuous learning opportunities . Every chance to speak in front of others is a chance to learn and grow — even if it means a few awkward pauses or stumbling over your words occasionally. 

2. Be yourself

While keeping your body language and humor professional, be your most authentic self and stick with what feels comfortable. Imitating others’ speaking styles could make you overthink each gesture or appear unnatural and insincere. And the more you step into your authenticity at work , the more comfortable you’ll feel being yourself in every area of your life. 

3. Remember your purpose

Whether delivering a presentation or making a sale, you’re speaking in public for a reason. Think about why you’re there — be it to share your experience or teach others — and focus on this core purpose. Doing so might get you out of your head and into the situation at hand so you can concentrate less on your anxiety symptoms and more on accomplishing your task.

4. Prepare and practice

The best way to feel comfortable speaking in front of others is to practice. Speech anxiety often focuses on the unknown, like audience questions or complex presentation materials. But subject-matter-familiarity quiets some of these questions and offers answers. 

You can jot down and prepare for questions you expect or memorize your materials so they feel less overwhelming. And p racticing your delivery and body language can take away the shock of talking to a group because you have less to worry about. 

5. Let your coworkers know

Consider informing coworkers and managers about your stage fright so they know to support you. They might make adjustments like offering you additional notice regarding presentations they’d like you to make or taking your questions last in a meeting so you have more time to calm your nerves. And you can also ask team members for feedback and encouragement on your public speaking skills . 

6. Visualize success

Use visualization , positive self-talk , and other manifestation methods to picture yourself confidently speaking in public. These positive projections can become a self-fulfilling prophecy as you do what’s necessary to make your vision a reality. You could also try anxiety journaling to shake negative automatic thoughts and track your positive thinking progress. 

7. Make eye contact

If you fear public speaking, you may instinctively avoid eye contact because it feels intimate or intimidating. But chances are everyone wants to encourage you, and you can feed off the room’s energy by looking your audience in the eye. If you see heads nodding and people paying attention, you may gain the confidence boost you need to continue nerves-free. 

8. Pose for success

Standing i n power poses (body postures expressing strength and assertiveness ) signals to audience members that you’re confident and comfortable. And embracing these postures can make you feel that way, too. For in-person speaking, try keeping your feet hip-distance and your shoulders back. And if you’re on a virtual call and have the option to stand, you can still carry yourself confidently to boost your own self-esteem. If you must sit, you can still hold your head high and posture straight. 

9. Create a plan

Feel in charge of your public speaking journey by creating an improvement plan. Start by outlining small objectives, like starting two conversations with colleagues each week or contributing an idea at a team meeting. Then, define larger goals further down your improvement timeline, like leading a brainstorming session or training a new coworker. You could also work with a career coach t o build the right plan for you and track your success.

10. Take a class

Structured learning might be the best way to reduce your public speaking anxiety and gain practice. Try asking your employer whether they subsidize professional development opportunities like a public speaking course or mentorship programs . Or invest in yourself by signing up for an after-hours class with a friend so you can hold each other accountable . 

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, public speaking anxiety is classified as a social anxiety disorder that causes symptoms like intense distress and panic attacks. While it’s common to feel nervous in social situations, a mental health professional might diagnose someone with public speaking anxiety if that person experiences symptoms that affect their day-to-day health, like missing out on job opportunities or having to leave a meeting due to nerves.

While social anxiety may feel overwhelming, the good news is that it’s treatable. The first step is finding a diagnosis. Treatment generally begins by identifying the root cause and any related medical conditions to ensure a larger issue isn’t causing your symptoms . Then, you’ll work with your mental health professional to determine the best treatment plan. Common remedies include psychotherapy, medication, or both. In some circumstances, you may also seek the help of a support group or work with a life coach to build an action plan . 

What you have to say matters, and you deserve to feel confident and comfortable when expressing yourself. While public speaking anxiety might quiet your voice, it doesn’t have to define your professional future. 

Now that you have some public speaking tips for anxiety, it’s time to start working toward easing your symptoms. Depending on the severity of your nerves, consider consulting with a mental health professional, career coach, or support group. From there, you can build an appropriate plan and begin speaking — one small speech at a time — with newfound confidence.

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Elizabeth Perry is a Coach Community Manager at BetterUp. She uses strategic engagement strategies to cultivate a learning community across a global network of Coaches through in-person and virtual experiences, technology-enabled platforms, and strategic coaching industry partnerships. With over 3 years of coaching experience and a certification in transformative leadership and life coaching from Sofia University, Elizabeth leverages transpersonal psychology expertise to help coaches and clients gain awareness of their behavioral and thought patterns, discover their purpose and passions, and elevate their potential. She is a lifelong student of psychology, personal growth, and human potential as well as an ICF-certified ACC transpersonal life and leadership Coach.

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How to Combat Public Speaking Anxiety

Strategies to help you prepare to speak confidently in front of an audience..

Posted February 2, 2023 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• What Is Stress?
• Take our Burnout Test
• Find a therapist to overcome stress
• Feelings of excitement will give you the energy necessary to project the slightly bigger-than-life persona you need.
• The mental exercise required to recall an emotion has the added benefit of making you forget your nerves.
• Use deep breathing to various forms of meditation to maintain your calm.

Is stress bad for humans? The popular view is that stress is bad, but neurological research shows a more nuanced view. Low to moderate levels of stress are good for improving memory , attention , task-switching abilities, and psychological health overall. High levels of stress are bad for us in all the ways we hear about, in general.

What about public speakers? Here’s the key for anyone who has to work with an audience: Stress is contagious . We leak our emotions to each other. What sort of stress do we leak to our audiences? Once again, we want medium to low levels of stress, not high levels.

Speakers need to be aware of their emotional states before and during their speeches. A highly stressed-out speaker will induce the wrong kind of stress in the audience. Imagine what that does for communication. If the stress levels are high, we don’t attend as well, we don’t concentrate as well, and we don’t remember as well.

You need to get your stress levels under control as a speaker, not just for you, but for your audience.

But what about the typical speaker’s nerves – that inevitable state of adrenaline-induced jitters? What can a speaker do about those?

Three strategies:

• Redefine the jitters as (positive) excitement and convey that positive energy to the audience
• Work on creating an alternative emotional state
• Calm yourself down

I’ve worked on all three over the years with many clients. Combinations of 1 and 2 are of course possible. The first approach is the easiest to take, for most people. The second is harder and takes longer to become proficient in; the third is perhaps the most appealing and, surprisingly, the least effective. Let’s look at them in a little more detail.

Redefine the jitters. If you can convert your pounding pulse from a scary feeling to a positive one by telling yourself I’m excited! I’m going to do a great job! I’m full of energy! Then you should do so. Those feelings of excitement will give you the energy necessary to project the slightly bigger-than-life persona you need on a big stage.

Create an alternative emotional state. A more sophisticated response to the problem of speaker’s nerves is to create an alternative emotional state in your mind, one that relates to the opening of your speech. If you are telling a touching story, then use a method actor’s technique: remember a time when you felt emotional in that way, using all five senses, and get yourself into that state. If you are all fired up with anger at some injustice, then work that up. And so on. The mental exercise required to recall and install the emotion has the added benefit (if you do it thoroughly enough) of making you forget your nerves as you work yourself into the new state.

This is the best method because it means you, your message, and your audience all meet emotionally, creating the conditions for a most memorable speech. But it is the most difficult method for many people to pull off. It takes time and imaginative work.

Calm yourself down. There are several techniques, from deep breathing to various forms of meditation , which will enable you to maintain calm in the face of pressure.

It’s appealing, at least in the abstract, to think that you could be the speaker who faces that audience of 1500 with a normal pulse, a relaxed manner, and an easy smile on your face.

But don’t be deceived . Your goal should not be to have a normal pulse. The advantage of being in adrenaline mode is that your racing heart and zippy mental state, if not completely out of control, will enable you to think and move a little faster than the audience. You’ll be able to think on your feet better, and that’s a good thing, by and large. You can handle sudden issues that come up with aplomb, and answer questions that the audience has with impressive mental dexterity.

A little adrenaline is a good thing. Calm is overrated in front of an audience. But stressing out the audience is not the goal. When you’re getting ready to speak, prepare your emotional state, and leak good, relevant, appropriate emotions to the crowd.

Nick Morgan, Ph.D. , is president of Public Words Inc., a communications consulting company, and the author of books including Can You Hear Me?: How to Connect with People in a Virtual World.

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Speaking Up Without Freaking Out: How to Tackle Communication Anxiety

In this podcast episode, we share the science behind nervousness and offer tips for keeping your cool during various speaking situations.

January 05, 2022

“Eighty five percent of people report being nervous about speaking in public, and I believe the other 15% are lying,” says Matt Abrahams, lecturer in strategic communication and podcast host. “What is it about speaking in front of others that makes most of us nervous? Well, those of us who study this ubiquitous fear believe it is part of our human condition.”

In this special episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart , Abrahams returns to one of the podcast’s main goals: helping people become more confident communicators. Listen to his interviews with Stanford University professors who research stress, as they share insights into why these feelings affect our communication, and how to overcome them.

Explore our 2022 Confident Communicator Challenge and discover more resources on public speaking anxiety.

Think Fast, Talk Smart is a podcast produced by Stanford Graduate School of Business. Each episode provides concrete, easy-to-implement tools and techniques to help you hone and enhance your communication skills.

Full Transcript

Matt Abrahams: According to comedian Jerry Seinfeld: People fear public speaking more than death, so at a funeral most people would rather be in the casket than give the eulogy. This joke is funny because it rings true for many of us.

Hello, I am Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast .

For today’s episode, we return to one of our podcast’s key goals: helping people feel more comfortable and confident in their communication. With this in mind, we have pulled together insights from three episodes to help us better understand our nervousness and provide us with specific tools to manage it.

To get started, we need to understand where our communication apprehension comes from, then we can explore how our mind set and framing of this stress can be hacked to help us. Finally, we’ll look at specific techniques we can use to manage our anxiety.

The fear of speaking in high stakes situations is very common. 85% percent of people report being nervous about speaking in public, and I believe the other 15% are lying. So why is this? What is it about speaking in front of others that makes most of us nervous? Those of us who study this ubiquitous fear believe it is part of our human condition. Evolution has wired us to pay very close attention to our relative status to others. Now, when I’m talking about status I’m not talking about who drives the fanciest car or who got the most likes on a social media post. What I’m referring to is back in our evolutionary past, when we were hanging around in groups of about 150 people, your status in comparison or relative to others meant your survival. The lower status you had the less opportunity you had to get shelter, to get food, for reproduction. Your life was literally on the line. When we speak in front of others, we risk that status. People are judging and assessing us. This is ingrained in who we are.

Just because this is ingrained in us does not mean we can’t manage our nerves. There will always be a situation that can make us nervous, but we can learn to manage our anxiety, so it doesn’t manage us.

Not only will this help us feel less nervous and more confident, but it helps our audience too.

Let me explain: We have all watched a nervous speaker. Most of us feel bad for them. Some of us begin to experience what I call secondhand anxiety…we get nervous because the presenter is nervous. We’re distracted and can’t focus on the speaker’s message. So, as a speaker, reducing anxiety also helps our audience by allowing them to focus on us and our message and not our anxiety and their reaction to it.

One way to address our speaking anxiety is to explore our mindset and framing. Here is a helpful exchange I had with Stanford psychology professor Alia Crum on this topic.

Matt Abrahams: When it comes to communication, stress and anxiety loom really large. Be it delivering a presentation, giving constructive feedback or answering questions. What insight does your work on stress provide to those of us suffering from communication anxiety and stress around speaking?

Alia Crum: Yeah, so … a lot of people have been studying stress and anxiety for over a century now from an academic standpoint, of course we’ve always experienced stress and anxiety to some degree. And by and large what they focus on is when it comes to the psychology of stress is what people call appraisal. So how do you appraise or think about the stressor and your ability to handle it. So, do you view a conflict or a challenging situation or an important presentation or an important meeting as a threat? Something that you don’t have the resources to overcome or a challenge. Something that’s difficult but you do have the resources to overcome. Those sort of appraisals have shown to be really important in shaping how we show up and how we perform in stressful situations. Our work on mindset goes a little bit deeper into the mind, into understanding not just sort of how we appraise a particular situation, but what are our core assumptions about the nature of stress itself.

The nature of a challenging situation or a demand in our life. That’s what we been focused on. And what we’ve found is that, if you kinda go back into those core assumptions, what you realize is that, most people have the mindset that stressful situations are inherently debilitating. They’re going to ultimately make us sick, make us struggle, make us crumble under pressure. And when you look at the truth about stress which is like most things very complicated, you realize that that is a simplified assumption. It’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s only one way of viewing stress and you start to realize that the true nature of stress is more complex.

And in fact, there’s a whole other side of stress that reveals to us that the body’s stress response, the mind stress response, was not designed to be debilitating, but instead designed to help us elevate our performance and behavior to meet the demands we’re facing. There’s a whole side of stress that shows that it can have enhancing qualities on our cognitive functioning, our physical health and on how we behave and interact with others. And so, our work is not necessarily to find out the truth of stress, what it is or what isn’t. But to look at how our mindsets, the core assumptions we make about it shape how we respond in stressful situations. And what we’ve shown is that if we can get people to open their minds to this notion that stress can be enhancing. That stress can help you rise to a new level of understanding, can deepen your connection with others, can make us even physiologically grow tougher and stronger. Having that focus shifts our attention and behaviors in ways that make that mindset more true.

Matt Abrahams: To reiterate what Alia said, Reappraising our communication stress and changing our mindset toward it, helps us put our anxiety into perspective and actually harness the benefits of it.

Next up is advice we heard from Stanford School of Medicine Professor Andrew Huberman. Andrew shares the purpose of reframing, while helping us understand the biology behind our anxiety.

Andrew Huberman: When we are in a state of alertness, whether because of excitement or fear, the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, let’s just call it the alertness system, deploys a hormone from our adrenal glands adrenaline and it deploys the equivalent chemical in the brain where it’s called epinephrine. It’s actually the same chemically identical structure, but called two different things, because neuroscientists and physiologists like to make things complicated. Not simple, but the role of adrenaline/epinephrine is to create agitation in the body and to create focus in the mind. And this is an important concept because that agitation makes it harder to be still, which is sort of a duh, right? That’s the definition of agitation, but it was designed to move us, to physically move us so that we would be biased toward ambulation or biased toward shifting from one position to a new one. And so one of the toughest things for many people is to tolerate that level of adrenaline or alertness when they have to be still.

The simplest example — I can give you this that I think most people will be familiar with, as if in the days where we congregated in person, this is this traditional practice of going around the room and introducing yourself and saying something about what you do and most people actually find that to be very stressful, especially if they toward the end of the line. Now, why would that be right? Most people know their name and can say their name. Most people know what they do and can say that — it’s anything but a high stress circumstance and occasionally there are some social pressure where someone’s very funny before us or they say something in a particularly nice way than we feel like some additional pressure to do that as well, but it really has more to do with the fact that when we’re in a room listening to somebody, we can we’re comfortable with the fact that we’re not going to speak or walk or do much and we could just sit there and write or listen or text or whatever it is we have to do. As we are called on to say something the reason it’s easier to do early in the line is because we are holding on to a reverberatory circuit. There are circuits in our brain that anticipate action and prepare us for action and the longer we keep that in check, the more challenging it becomes when we are trying to withhold action. But we’re preparing for action. There’s a lot of reverberating, excuse me, active activity in our nervous system and it feels like stress.

Getting ready to go up to the podium is tough. When we get up to the podium, many people, including myself, find that if we rock back and forth a little bit or we can engage some movement in our body, suddenly we start to relax and that’s because adrenaline/ epinephrine was designed to move us and it wasn’t designed to move us in response to incoming large predators. It was, but that’s not its primary function. Its primary function was to move us from whatever position we’re into a new position, sometimes towards things, sometimes away from things, depending on whether or not we want the experience or we want to avoid the experience. But the actual inner experience, what we call interception, our perception of our internal landscape, is identical for something that we want to approach versus we want to move away from; absolutely identical — below that from the neck down then.

Matt Abrahams: That is really interesting. So if you can reframe the physiological response, you can see it very differently. And I find it fascinating that when we see somebody who is nervous moving one way versus the other way, as an audience member, we have very different perceptions. So if somebody steps up on a stage and then takes a step back as they’re starting to speak, it looks like they’re retreating and therefore may be nervous or shy. But if somebody actually steps forward, we have a perception that they’re confident in stepping into the challenging situation. So it’s not only what we perceive, it’s how the audience perceives it as well.

Andrew Huberman: Absolutely. It might be useful for people to think about the fact that there’s only three responses we can have to any circumstance. One is to stay still. One is to move forward or one is to move back. Back in two-thousand eighteen a graduate student in the neurosciences program did her thesis with me Lindsays Tillet, and I published a paper in the journal Nature. Lindsay discovered a brain circuit that controls the movement toward threats. Now, this isn’t the kind of movement that will get you killed. This is the kind of movement toward an intelligent way, an adaptive way towards something that in this case, an animal or a person wants to do, but feels a tremendous amount of autonomic arousal, of stress and nervousness about.

And the take-home message is the following: forward movement under conditions of anxiety or high levels of alertness, a case, stress triggers the activation of a circuit deep in the brain that releases the neurochemical dopamine. Dopamine, of course, is a molecule that is most commonly associated with the sensation of reward and it is released when we achieve something that we want to achieve, but the other very interesting function of dopamine is to increase the probability that we will move toward similar types of goals in the future. So dopamine is not just the molecule reward, it’s the molecule of motivation and drive. And so Lindsay’s results have a number of different implications, but I think if people can just conceptualize that the anxiety or stress response is the same as the excitement response, they feel different because of some top down perception or verbiage that we introduced to it, but they’re actually identical physiologically. And that forward movement, provided it’s adaptive toward a goal, triggers the activation of chemicals in the brain and body that will make the subsequent pursuit of those same or similar goals more likely and more pleasurable.

Matt Abrahams: So once again, we learn that reframing how we see speaking anxiety can really change how we feel and act.

Additionally, forward movement like stepping toward your audience when you start an in-person presentation or leaning in slightly when in a virtual meeting can help us feel better and appear more confident.

Reframing is one key element to managing our anxiety about speaking. Let’s explore other ways. We will again hear from Professor Alia Crum followed by Stanford GSB Professor Baba Shiv.

Matt Abrahams: So let me put you on the spot. Let’s say I am somebody who has a big upcoming presentation or a meeting contribution and I’m getting nervous. What could I do in terms of my mindset to help me feel a little less nervous and perhaps even more excited about the opportunity?

Alia Crum: The steps to change your mindsets, at least as we teach, are as follows. The first is to acknowledge that you’re stressed, right? So, you have an upcoming meeting or a presentation that you’re given. It’s important, just acknowledge that you’re stressed, I’m stressed about this.

Matt Abrahams: Right?

Alia Crum: And also become … oh sorry go ahead.

Matt Abrahams: I was going to say that it’s normal to be stressed about it, most people would be.

Alia Crum: Exactly, notice that it’s normal. So acknowledging means yeah acknowledging without judgment, right? Knowing, just noticing what you’re feeling, right? How do you respond to stress? Is it hype getting hyperactive and sweaty palms or is it for me sometimes it’s like I have a big presentation or talk and I just get all of a sudden I’m exhausted.

Matt Abrahams: All right I perspire and blush. That’s my big thing. I start dripping with sweat.

Alia Crum: Yeah, so noticing the physiological reactions, noticing your emotional reactions, noticing your behavioral responses without judgment. That’s the first step. The second step is to welcome your stress. So why the heck would we welcome our stress? Well, it goes back to what I just talked about. We only stress about things that we care about. And so inherently underneath the stress is a true value, a true care, a true purpose. And we wouldn’t be in this situation if it wasn’t for something that mattered. And we wouldn’t be stressed about it if it wasn’t for something that mattered. So that step involves basically just asking yourself or completing the sentence, right? I’m stressed about x this upcoming presentation because I care about y and what is the y?

Matt Abrahams: Right, so it’s the goal that you’re trying to achieve or the change you’re trying to affect. That’s the y.

Alia Crum: Exactly. I care about it because I really feel like I have something important to say that could improve the lives of the people I’m communicating to or could change the way we’re doing things at this company or could alter fundamentally the relationship that I have with this loved one, right? These are the why’s, right? And you know, you got to go deeper in asking the why we call it sort of the downward arrows of why’s. Sometimes people are like, well, I’m stressed about this presentation because like, I don’t wanna screw it up.

Matt Abrahams: Right.

Alia Crum: Well, why don’t you wanna screw it up? Well I don’t wanna screw it up because I don’t wanna get fired, it’s well why don’t you wanna get fired?

Alia Crum: I don’t wanna get fired because I feel like I have a contribution to make here because there’s something in here that I feel that I really have to offer. You go until it becomes a, it resonates at that positive level for you. That’s the second step. So, first acknowledge you’re stressed, second welcome your stress as being linked with something you care about, reconnect with what you care about. And the third is to use or utilize your stress in ways that help address the purpose, address that y rather than spending all your time, money, effort energy trying to avoid or get rid of the stress, right?

So you start to realize, you could go back to those behavioral or emotional responses you identified in step one, like you get flushed or you start getting jittery. I start kind of getting tired. It’s like, okay, well sometimes physiological responses you can’t change. But oftentimes the behavioral responses you can, right? So maybe you start snapping at your spouse or your kids or you start getting anxious and talking really fast and you realize, well, okay, well that’s not serving my purpose of the underlying value. Which is to really communicate this important thing that I have to share. So the third step is really utilizing your stress to address the core value or purpose, underline stress. So those are three steps that we share with people to help them to get into this mindset that stress can be enhancing. That the experience of stress can help us rise to a higher level of communication, and performance, and existence.

Matt Abrahams: That is really powerful and very specific and thank you and it avoids the checking out in the freaking out and allows you to harness the stress to support the goal that you’re trying to achieve. I think that’s fantastic.

Baba Shiv: First and foremost, in my opinion, the tactic is go for any practice that will de-stress you. And this can range from, in some case, just taking some deep breaths. It could be visualizing the audience and visualizing the other person being very receptive. It could be laughter. You don’t need real laughter. Even fake laughter will de-stress you. The reason that is important is because if you don’t do that, if you’re not in the right state, and what I mean by right state if you’re stressed then, your brain tends to adopt frames that are much more risk-adverse. And it doesn’t allow you to experiment because you’re coming out of fear. So, the main tactic I’ll say is just feel comfortable in your own skin. Are you comfortable out there or are you still stressed? Because sometimes, you don’t know that.

So, that’s where practices like meditation is so very crucial. Not just for health reasons, but also, for communication reasons. To be a good communicator your brain needs to be a lot more resilient to stress. Matt, you have done this talking to an audience, and what will happen is that when you want to crack a joke, and this has been part of what you plan to do, and you get in to a stressful situation the joke will fall flat.

Matt Abrahams: Oh, yeah.

Baba Shiv: Right?

Baba Shiv: So, some of the things I’ll do is that I’ll do the [unintelligible]. “Oh, I’m going to tell you a joke.” I laugh myself before I tell the joke and then, people will start giggling because it’s a natural human tendency if someone is laughing you get to laugh yourself. And then, I’ll crack the joke so, there are these kind of techniques, but the most important thing I believe is that of course, you need to know your audience.

Matt Abrahams: Yes.

Baba Shiv: That is the first thing you’ve got to know, and you probably have been mentioning this time and time again.

Matt Abrahams: We have.

Baba Shiv: But I’m a big believer that the most critical factor here is you are in a state of comfort.

Matt Abrahams: Right, and we’ve talked about this. Interestingly, we’ve had a couple guests, Christian being one of them who you teach with and Dan Klein, who I know you know. When it comes to this improvisational mindset and really, the logic is the same. We get in our own way through our anxiety and the pressure we put on ourselves. And if we can actually learn to relax that allows us to achieve our goal much more readily and be much more present-oriented, too.

Baba Shiv: That’s right, and you’ve got to understand that the way the brain is working is all these instinctual brain systems are shaping. And if you are stressed then, what happens is that it will completely shape the frame that you’re adopting about the audience, about your content, et cetera. And your body language is also going to tell.

A lot of our ability to persuade, as we all know, is not just dependent upon what we are saying, but how we are saying it. And so, if you’re not in that state it is going to show. It is going to show.

Matt Abrahams: Right, the tells that we’ve revealed, for sure. I have enjoyed so much getting some of your tips. I’m wondering, do you have any other tips that we haven’t discussed that you think might help us be more effective communicators?

Baba Shiv: Absolutely. So, if it is going to be a very important piece of a thing, you’re giving a talk to an audience, a large audience out there I would just say go to bed early, as you often do. Get a good night’s rest. Don’t sacrifice on sleep. I know people are doing this, that. They will keep on practicing the talk, and all through the night, and they get about three hours of sleep before they’ve got to talk.

If you’ve not had a good night’s rest guess what? Your brain chemicals are going to be such that you are going to be risk-adverse. You’ll then adopt a frame of mind where your brain is already thinking about failure, and that’s the wrong state to be in. I would always advise ‒ and if you didn’t get a good night’s rest that could happen.

And in your traveling Matt, you do this, and I have done this. You’ve traveled across time zones, and you can get in to jet lag and stuff like that. So, one of the things I very quickly do if I’m doing that is first and foremost, what I do is I’ll order food that is comfort food for me.

Matt Abrahams: Huh, okay.

Baba Shiv: Right? So, for me, it is growing up in India, and you talk to most Indians it is yogurt rice. So, I will just go order some plain rice, get some yogurt, plain yogurt, mix it up and have it because you need to have that comfort, right?

Baba Shiv: And food brings a lot of comfort. And then, if I’m not able to get to sleep that night I will go for a run in the morning because running also within about 15 minutes of a run serotonin levels, some of the chemicals in the brain will increase and then, you get in to the right kind of a state when you’re giving the talk.

Matt Abrahams: Great. I love that. Any excuse to eat my comfort foods I’ll take so, I’m now going to tell everybody, “Baba told me to.”

Baba Shiv: Even if it is unhealthy a little bit of it won’t hurt.

Matt Abrahams: We now have some very specific techniques we can employ to manage our communication apprehension: We can change how we view our anxiety through reframing, to exploring the value our communication brings to us and others to sleeping well and eating right.

Each of us has the ability to become a more confident, calm communicator…It can take a lot of repetition, reflection, and feedback, but it is possible. I see it all the time in my students and the people I coach and I have seen it in my own communication journey. So regardless of if you’re presenting at a wedding or a meeting, protesting or pitching. I hope that you confidently share your stories, give your input, and spread your ideas. We all stand to benefit from your speaking up without freaking out.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

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November 20, 2020 Feelings First: How Emotion Shapes Our Communication, Decisions, and Experiences In this episode, we discuss how recognizing your audience’s emotional needs can help you achieve your communication goals.

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Don’t Let Anxiety Sabotage Your Next Presentation

• Riaz Meghji

Stop focusing on yourself and start focusing on your audience.

If you want to beat speaking anxiety, you need to stop focusing on yourself and point your focus outward. This shift isn’t something that can happen instantaneously. It takes time, patience, and practice. Here’s how to get started.

• Be a giver, not a taker. Takers tend to have more anxiety. They want and need validation from their listeners.
• Givers, on the other hand, are all about service. They do work beforehand to connect with stakeholders and use the information they receive to address the needs of their audience. As a result, their presentation becomes less about them and more about helping the other people in the room.
• If you want to turn your presentation into an act of service, you need to talk to the people in the room — well before your presentation begins.
• Choose about three to five influential leaders, and meet with them before to learn their concerns and goals surrounding the topic you’re presenting on.
• Then, incorporate your findings into you presentation. This will help you shift your focus outwards, from yourself to the audience, and as a result, ease some of your nerves.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

How many times have you had an important message to share, only to be sabotaged by anxiety right before you speak?

• RM Riaz Meghji is a human connection keynote speaker, author of Every Conversation Counts: The 5 Habits of Human Connection That Build Extraordinary Relationships and creator of The Magnetic Presenter speaker coaching program. He is also an accomplished broadcaster with 17 years of television hosting experience. Riaz has hosted for Citytv’s Breakfast Television, MTV Canada, TEDxVancouver, CTV News, and the Toronto International Film Festival.  

Partner Center

27 Public Speaking Anxiety Tips [+ Bonus: Online Courses]

Many of us struggle with the signs of nervousness while standing on the stage—sweatiness, stammer, sickness… Some can’t even pronounce a word!

All these symptoms are super uncomfortable and, what is more significant, can ruin your presentation at work or university.

From this detailed guide, you’ll learn what public speaking tips help to overcome speech anxiety.

• Preparations
• Social Skills
• Rhetoric Skills

Bonus: The Pick of Public Speaking Courses

Mind that you need to master every category to eliminate the fear of public speaking. And if you try hard and practice a lot, you’ll soon speak without any anxiety symptoms!

Also, we prepared a wonderful bonus for you, you’ll find it at the end of the article.

I. Preparations

The fear of public speaking is often connected with improvisation. If you’re worried about your rhetoric skills, acceptance by the audience, or your tone, improvisation can be impossible, and this way, you can even ruin your presentation.

To avoid this depressive possibility, we have a list of actions to take before going on stage.

The best point:

Many steps should be done at home!

1. Pick the subject you’re passionate about

To make a wow-effect, you should follow one simple rule—talk only on those topics that are significant to you.

Speaking anxiety is often weak when you have the goal to stand on the stage and provide your arguments. Just concentrate on your subject and put your all your energy into the presentation.

The best topics are those that:

• Cover the field of knowledge you’re experienced in
• Affect many people and social classes
• Include new information—studies, research, and proofs

2. Research your facts

A good orator must befriend the information they present.

If you’re not sure in the facts you include in the speech, it makes you nervous when you’re giving this knowledge to other people.

Here, you’ll find the list of safe and reliable search engines for your research. In addition to the resources listed below, you may also check students’ works in a free essay database for facts confirmation. A quick check by these trusted sources helps to get over the fear of public speaking:

• Google Scholar
• Science.gov
• WorldWideScience.org
• Directory of Open Access Journals
• Microsoft Academic

3. Learn how to make great presentations

Presentations are significant for every public speech. You see them at university, office, and even in online lectures.

But here’s the paradox:

The majority of people don’t know how to use them right.

Yes. Mastering visual skills when you’re afraid to speak doesn’t seem logical. But if you have an excellent presentation, then you have the map to lead you through all the worries.

Here’s an expert tip:

Don’t use PowerPoint if you don’t like to.

Many people are stuck with slides’ creation because of PowerPoint. It’s definitely a nice tool, but you can always switch to one of the free online services like Canva or Piktochart .

Firstly, most of them are user-friendly. That means, it’s extremely comfortable to change images and fonts, customize sizes, input text, save and download the presentation, and so on.

Secondly, they contain great databases of helpful elements, including photos, vector images, patterns, charts, and frames.

And, at last, they’re perfect not only for presentation, but also infographics, posters, business cards, flyers, and more.

4. Make cue cards

Often lose the idea or stammer when standing in front of the audience?

Here’s one tip to lead you to success:

Instead of notes, prepare brief and vivid cue cards. They should include only one idea per card written in a large bold font.

It’s better to color-code your cards to classify them by type or importance. For example, if you’re going to give a quote, write it down and give it a colorful label to know it’s a citation. Make the same for statistics, arguments, literature for further reading, and even your jokes and personal stories.

Make sure to write only on one side, number cards’ order, and leave a lot of negative space.

5. Practice makes perfect

Many people who struggle to improve public speaking skills, forget about this rule, that may be the most significant one:

The revision of your speech.

When you write a speech on your own, you may know everything about it. But it doesn’t mean, you know the text by heart.

The best part:

You don’t need to.

But what’s essential—you should practice the event you’re going to speak on several times. Give your speech at home to your friends, relatives, or cat. Just make sure, you practice a lot to learn every plot twist and argument.

6. Guess possible questions

Whether you give an informative, scandalous, or motivational speech, the audience can strike you with questions.

And that’s often the primary reason why people are afraid of public speaking.

How not to be nervous?

Take 15 minutes to list the possible questions your audience can ask. Classify them into groups and give short but satisfying answers.

Moreover, the questions’ part is a great opportunity to show your preparedness—include the most possible questions into your presentation to show the slides if they’re necessary instead of forcing yourself to speak.

7. Teamwork

When you have a friend by your side, you feel more confident, and the signs of anxiety can leave forever.

But how to include your friend into the work only one has to get done?

Firstly, you can ask them to change slides. This way, you won’t be worrying about this additional task of providing visuals. Give your friends an order of images or make signs to switch one to another.

Secondly, if you’re still nervous about the point #6 (questions from the audience), make your friend ask a prepared question to minimize the communication with strangers. Notice, that this trick is okay for students, but possibly wouldn’t work at the office.

Finally, you may just ask friends to present in the auditory. This way, you’ll pretend like speaking to them and not to the others. Having a friend in the crowd is a helpful benefit to beat your anxiety.

8. Fashion choice

The art of choosing right clothes is the last thing you worry about during public speaking.

But, therefore, this is a part you must deal with.

And our advice is…

Get the most casual look you can.

For example:

If there’s no dress-code on the event, wear the most comfortable things you’re used to. Jeans + T-shirt are the best.

• Wear layers to adapt to the temperature in the building.
• Don’t put too tight or small clothes. When you’re nervous, these feelings can become even worse.
• Make sure you’re satisfied with your look. If you feel uncomfortable wearing a dress, don’t make yourself to. Just put on a classic suit.
• Check, if your clothes allow keeping a microphone on them.

II. Psychology

This part includes tips on how to trick your brain and stop being scared.

You’ll find a collection of proved techniques to give an effective speech without trembling knees and weak voice.

Starting with the boost of confidence and belief in yourself, you can enter the club of good orators.

9. Don’t put your fear on the pedestal

It’s actually not a speaking lesson.

This is the basics everyone should know.

When you leave your comfort zone, you feel afraid, and that’s okay. But don’t focus on your anxiety and don’t let it consume you.

Imagine, this is a risky adventure that you take to become a better speaker. Use the adrenaline you get a positive energy boost. Put it into interesting your audience and racking mind and memory.

10. Come earlier to get used to being on stage

Anxiety symptoms often appear in unusual places. If you repeat certain actions over and over again, dealing with them in the front of the crowd becomes much easier.

In case of public speaking, coming earlier and practicing your presentation may reduce nervousness and even help to avoid a panic attack.

Show your mind that there’s nothing to be afraid of. Get used to the stage, light, tools, noises outside the window, the volume of microphone’s sound. Eliminate all the small issues that may cause you troubles.

You can even make a repetition of your speech. (Just make sure not to spoil the end if someone overhears it!)

11. Choose a person in a crowd

If the alliance of mindfulness and confidence doesn’t help you, paying attention to every person in the audience can make your anxiety even worse.

What measures to take, then?

Concentrate on one person when giving your speech. It’s not great advice for your presentation, because people love to get attention from the orator, but it’s a nice method to soothe your mind and calm down.

According to this life hack, you should find the person you trust in the audience like your teacher, friend, or mom, and give the whole speech to them instead of looking at strangers’ faces.

Don’t turn this trick into your habit. As soon as you can handle your anxiety, you should train eye contact during the presentation.

12. Breath in, breath out

During anxiety, you may experience troubles with breathing. In the majority of cases, it happens due to consuming too much air and over-breathing.

To help yourself handle this unpleasant symptom, learn basic breathing techniques .

For example, try this one:

• Inhale, count to 5.
• Hold your breath, count to 7.
• Exhale, count to 9.

13. Dim the lights

Handling the fear of public speaking can be easier if you can’t see the faces in the crowd clearly. Try to turn off the light and cover windows.

It will help if you’re one of those people who’re nervous when too many people are looking at them.

The darker the place, the more confident you get. Shadow room will aid you to feel calm and not worry about the audience’s response.

14. Don’t compare yourself to professionals

Have you ever watched TED performances?

I bet you did. And if not, you should do it, because every speech given on TED is unique and super-professional.

In these performances, everything is perfect: topics, speaker’s skills, visuals, timing, and speech itself.

And here’s the point:

Try to be like these orators, but don’t criticize yourself too much.

Demanding too much from yourself is one of the public speaking anxiety causes. Know your limits and don’t push too hard. Everyone needs tons of experience to become a specialist.

15. Get experience

It seems pretty obvious, but still, not everyone follows this tip:

Get your own experience through work and practice.

As soon as you make several public presentations, you’ll learn how to give a confident and informative speech without any nervousness signs.

If you know you’d have to give a speech on a significant event, you have to plan some small speeches as a preparation. For example, sign up for public speaking classes for college students or make a presentation on less important events to train your skills.

III. Social Skills

To know how to communicate with your audience, you must apply specific social skills.

There’s a great chance that your anxiety is connected with the lack of communication skills that include verbal and non-verbal information, rhetoric strategies, empathy, and more.

Here are some tips for introverts and extroverts, leaders and team players, beginners and amateurs, native and ESL students.

16. Who is your audience?

Before giving a speech to your audience, you must know who are they, what do they like and dislike, what you have in common, and what can appeal to their feelings.

If you have an opportunity to interview a person who will attend your speech, use it without hesitation. Otherwise, make research to know more about their age, social class, lifestyle, education, working fields, and interests.

The more you know about them, the more confident you feel. Find proofs that your audience consists of people like you, and they are not a reason to be afraid.

17. Find friends among your audience

Remember the quick tip about coming earlier?

One reason why to make this:

You can meet first people who come and make friends with them. Introduce yourself, start small talk, ask them questions about the event, and so on.

It’s easier to make a presentation in front of your friends not a group of strangers.

18. Don’t focus on the audience when you speak

Once you’ve analyzed your audience and started to talk—focus on your material. The information you present should be the #1 priority.

Observe what you speak and how you do it, not the reaction you get from the public.

It may be difficult at the beginning, but the more you think about the importance of your topic and conclusions people should make after your speech, the freer you feel to stand on the stage and follow your goal.

Until you learn some hypnosis tactics, don’t try to guess what your audience thinks.

To reduce your public speaking anxiety, let somebody else tell you how people reacted when you finish the speech. Until then, you have plenty other things to do.

19. Speak about your feelings, not about your fears

There’s one thing every beginning speaker should understand:

In the majority of cases, your fear is real for nobody else but you. That’s why you shouldn’t tell them that you’re afraid. The only thing you will gain with this step is drawing attention to your anxiety symptoms.

Instead, tell them about your feelings—how excited you are to give them a speech, how is significant your topic to you, and how is important the experience you gain.

20. Watch your gestures

When you’re nervous, your gestures may betray you and tell everyone what you really feel. These signs of insecurity and stress include the following:

• Lips biting
• Hands rubbing
• Touching your face and hair
• Yawning a lot
• Crossing your arms

How to relieve anxiety?

Make yourself use non-verbal signs of confidence to trick your mind and become calmer. For example, statistics show that a couple of minute in a posture when you lean back with hands behind your head raises the level of testosterone. And high testosterone leads to a boost of confidence that you need when giving a significant speech.

21. Use humor to get more comfortable

Prepare a couple of jokes or funny stories to include in your speech. Humor will help you to feel like the audience is your friend and it supports you.

It also is a nice chance to release stress and think positively.

22. Show and draw

You may feel uncomfortable because everyone is looking at you.

Try to focus the audience’s attention on something else. For example, draw a scheme or show a slide. Also, there’s an excellent tactic to bring handouts with you.

IV. Rhetoric Skills

Do you experience a shaky voice, dry mouth or stuttering?

Then, you may want to improve your rhetoric skills. Start with these quick tips to fix your flaws and use your strong sides.

23. Follow the layout

This is the number one reason why every professional speech sounds so logical and constructive.

Build a strong layout with an impressive intro, newly researched facts as arguments, and the conclusion to make everyone think on the topic.

Then, follow this outline until the end.

24. Enhance pronunciation

Pronunciation is an important skill everyone needs to improve public speaking. Make sure your voice isn’t shaking, and you pronounce every word clearly.

Try not to mumble and open your mouth wide when you speak. Control the tone and timbre of the voice.

Download a tongue twisters list to warm up before the speech.

25. Watch your tone

Intonation is significant when you make a performance.

Vary the tone depending on emotions and situation—ask questions, make ironical jokes, provoke the audience with a rapid and serious speech, and so on.

Make a record of your speech to ensure you don’t sound robotic.

26. Change the speed

The adrenaline and nerves can make your speech speed too fast for comprehending or, otherwise, too slow with big pauses.

Every speed has its own meaning. Speak slowly during the most powerful parts of the speech and fasten up to talk about the things that make you angry.

27. Make pauses

Speaking slowly isn’t enough. You should also know where to stop.

Leave enough time for the audience to take your point, look at the screen, or react emotionally.

Also, you should make pauses to emphasize certain parts of the script.

These were tips on how to speak in public without getting a panic attack. We hope many of them will be useful!

And now it’s the time for the bonus we promised to attach:

• Dynamic Public Speaking by Coursera

A free specialization containing four helpful courses to become better in public speaking. It starts with the basics, explains how to present ideas and create dynamic slides, and also covers the choice of appropriate language.

• The Complete Presentation and Public Speaking/Speech Course by Udemy

16-hours videos covering 12 significant parts of public speaking including audience identification, finding the goal, getting confident, thorough preparations, resources choice, etc.

• Acumen Presents: Chris Anderson on Public Speaking by Udemy

A course for those who search for professionals’ help. Chris Anderson is a TED speaker, author, and entrepreneur. He listened to hundreds of speeches on TED and shares his experience in these videos.

• Public Speaking by EdX

Another free course that takes around 20 hours to take. You’ll learn specific tools and methods to apply on the stage, how to use critical thinking during the speech, and how to control your speaking anxiety.

• Public Speaking by GoSkills

Learn how to deliver your PowerPoint presentation and your speech super-informative and memorable. Listen to expert’s tips on how to sound clear, draw attention, and choose exciting stories to tell.

That was a list of tips for public speaking anxiety, performance, and communicating. We hope this guide will help you to improve your skills and avoid panic when you’re on the stage.

Have fun and remember the most important thing: The more you try, the far you get!

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Appointments at Mayo Clinic

Fear of public speaking: how can i overcome it, how can i overcome my fear of public speaking.

Fear of public speaking is a common form of anxiety. It can range from slight nervousness to paralyzing fear and panic. Many people with this fear avoid public speaking situations altogether, or they suffer through them with shaking hands and a quavering voice. But with preparation and persistence, you can overcome your fear.

These steps may help:

• Know your topic. The better you understand what you're talking about — and the more you care about the topic — the less likely you'll make a mistake or get off track. And if you do get lost, you'll be able to recover quickly. Take some time to consider what questions the audience may ask and have your responses ready.
• Get organized. Ahead of time, carefully plan out the information you want to present, including any props, audio or visual aids. The more organized you are, the less nervous you'll be. Use an outline on a small card to stay on track. If possible, visit the place where you'll be speaking and review available equipment before your presentation.
• Practice, and then practice some more. Practice your complete presentation several times. Do it for some people you're comfortable with and ask for feedback. It may also be helpful to practice with a few people with whom you're less familiar. Consider making a video of your presentation so you can watch it and see opportunities for improvement.
• Challenge specific worries. When you're afraid of something, you may overestimate the likelihood of bad things happening. List your specific worries. Then directly challenge them by identifying probable and alternative outcomes and any objective evidence that supports each worry or the likelihood that your feared outcomes will happen.
• Visualize your success. Imagine that your presentation will go well. Positive thoughts can help decrease some of your negativity about your social performance and relieve some anxiety.
• Do some deep breathing. This can be very calming. Take two or more deep, slow breaths before you get up to the podium and during your speech.
• Focus on your material, not on your audience. People mainly pay attention to new information — not how it's presented. They may not notice your nervousness. If audience members do notice that you're nervous, they may root for you and want your presentation to be a success.
• Don't fear a moment of silence. If you lose track of what you're saying or start to feel nervous and your mind goes blank, it may seem like you've been silent for an eternity. In reality, it's probably only a few seconds. Even if it's longer, it's likely your audience won't mind a pause to consider what you've been saying. Just take a few slow, deep breaths.
• Recognize your success. After your speech or presentation, give yourself a pat on the back. It may not have been perfect, but chances are you're far more critical of yourself than your audience is. See if any of your specific worries actually occurred. Everyone makes mistakes. Look at any mistakes you made as an opportunity to improve your skills.
• Get support. Join a group that offers support for people who have difficulty with public speaking. One effective resource is Toastmasters, a nonprofit organization with local chapters that focuses on training people in speaking and leadership skills.

If you can't overcome your fear with practice alone, consider seeking professional help. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a skills-based approach that can be a successful treatment for reducing fear of public speaking.

As another option, your doctor may prescribe a calming medication that you take before public speaking. If your doctor prescribes a medication, try it before your speaking engagement to see how it affects you.

Nervousness or anxiety in certain situations is normal, and public speaking is no exception. Known as performance anxiety, other examples include stage fright, test anxiety and writer's block. But people with severe performance anxiety that includes significant anxiety in other social situations may have social anxiety disorder (also called social phobia). Social anxiety disorder may require cognitive behavioral therapy, medications or a combination of the two.

Craig N. Sawchuk, Ph.D., L.P.

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• Social anxiety disorder (social phobia). In: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-5. 5th ed. Arlington, Va.: American Psychiatric Association, 2013. http://dsm.psychiatryonline.org. Accessed April 18, 2017.
• 90 tips from Toastmasters. Toastmasters International. https://www.toastmasters.org/About/90th-Anniversary/90-Tips. Accessed April 18, 2017.
• Stein MB, et al. Approach to treating social anxiety disorder in adults. http://www.uptodate.com/home. Accessed April 18, 2017.
• How to keep fear of public speaking at bay. American Psychological Association. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/02/tips-sidebar.aspx. Accessed April 18, 2017.
• Jackson B, et al. Re-thinking anxiety: Using inoculation messages to reduce and reinterpret public speaking fears. PLOS One. 2017;12:e0169972.
• Sawchuk CN (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. April 24, 2017.

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How To Deal With Speaking Anxiety (& Ace Your Next Speech!)

If the thought of giving a speech stresses you out, don’t worry. You’re not alone. These tips can help you overcome fear if your nerves are holding you back.

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Researchers estimate that 15-30% of people experience public speaking anxiety, and roughly 10% of those with it report that it interferes with their daily lives. 

While it may not be possible to completely eradicate the nerves you feel in front of a crowd, there are some things you can do to help yourself feel more confident—both while preparing as well as once you’re center stage.

Watch our video below to learn how to deal with stage anxiety:

What is Speaking Anxiety? (Definition)

Speaking anxiety is an intense nervousness that comes whenever you have to speak in front of others. 

Here are a few physical symptoms that can accompany public speaking: 

• Redness of face
• Rapid heartbeat
• Shaky voice
• Being out of breath
• Perspiration
• Increased blood pressure

If you struggle with a more extreme case of public speaking anxiety, you may find yourself making changes in your life to avoid speaking in public. 

Speaking anxiety may cause you to: 

• Switch career paths because the one you are currently on may require too much public speaking
• Avoid networking events or parties where you may have to speak in a large group context
• Turn down a promotion based on public speaking requirements
• Decline the opportunity to give a toast at a meaningful moment in a loved one’s life
• Unenroll from a class to avoid speaking in front of classmates 

If you can resonate with any of those feelings, know that you’re not alone. Many people make significant life changes to avoid speaking in front of an audience. And your symptoms might be different than these! Speaking anxiety can look different for different people. There are many possible symptoms and ways it can affect people’s lives, including shaking and perspiration.

What Causes Anxiety During a Speaking Event?

Anxiety during a speaking event is evidence of our brains’ survival mechanism. Historically, humans felt that being watched was a threat . This made the amygdala, the part of the brain wired to help humans survive, kick into gear. This is also sometimes called the fight or flight response. 

Although you may know that standing in front of a room full of peers and giving a presentation is not dangerous, your brain still registers all those watching eyes as a threat. 

This is why many of the physical reactions you have when experiencing public speaking anxiety are similar to how your body would react to danger—shortness of breath, shaking, racing heart, your stomach in knots, sweating, or nervousness, to name a few. 

Can You Get Over Public Speaking Anxiety? 

Unfortunately, you may not be able to get over your nerves about public speaking completely. But, it may be possible to ease some of the symptoms you feel.

In the past, exposure therapy was one of the primary ways to help people overcome a fear of public speaking. This is where you expose yourself to your fear—in this case, public speaking—until it becomes more familiar and your nerves subside.

In recent years, researchers have studied the benefits of using virtual reality (VR) in an exposure therapy approach to help people overcome their fear of public speaking. 

In one study , students gave 20-minute presentations to a virtual class of their peers twice per week. Every 4 minutes, the study participants could change factors such as audience size, responsiveness, and the number of speech prompts. Meanwhile, the researchers monitored their heart rates, and the participants self-reported their anxiety levels. 

The results showed a decrease in public speaking anxiety both in the short and long term. 

The benefit of using VR for exposure therapy is that participants can shorten the time between public speaking opportunities, achieving the benefits and results quicker.

We have more tips for conquering your anxiety below…

Ease Your Public Speaking Anxiety Using These 8 Science-Backed Tips

You may never be able to completely get rid of your nerves while speaking in front of people. However, there are some steps you can take to help ease your stress. 

#1 Anticipate questions and curve balls

Speaking anxiety can be caused by a fear of the unknown. The more prepared you are, the less anxiety you will feel. Try going through these prompts before any kind of public speaking:

• What question makes me the most nervous? → And then prep for these answers.
• Are there any possible negative or positive surprises that could happen? → And then prep for these possible scenarios.
• What’s realistically the worst that could happen? → And then prepare for this outcome.

You also want to be ready to NOT know something. Being a great public speaker is only sometimes knowing the answer. It is being able to reply to any answer respectfully… and this could be that you do not know something!

If someone asks a question you’re unsure how to answer, here are a few phrases you can use to acknowledge them while moving the conversation on graciously: 

• “That’s a great question! I haven’t thought about it much personally, so I’ll think about it and get back to you. For now, I’m enjoying hearing your perspectives on the topic.” 
• “Thanks for asking me. I need to do more research and learn more about this topic before I have a solid answer.”
• “That is a great question. I don’t know the most recent data on that topic. Can I email you in the next couple of days once I’ve done some research?” 

If you’re preparing for a speech, ask friends and family if you can practice giving it to them. If you include a Q&A time in your presentation, ask your faux audience to ask you questions at the end of your practice presentation. 

This can help you get accustomed to hearing a question, processing it on the spot, and responding well. 

#2 More specific generosity = less anxiety 

While preparing your speech, think about your audience and prioritize helping them through what you’re saying. Research shows that shifting perspective away from yourself and towards assisting others can decrease anxiety. 

Researchers studied the difference between “targeted” and “untargeted” generosity in this study. Targeted generosity means helping someone you know tangibly. This could be giving advice to a younger sibling or a warm meal to someone in need. Untargeted giving has to do with general acts of kindness that don’t target any specific person, such as donating to charity. 

Both giving types resulted in increased activity in the septal area and the ventral striatum—the parts of the brain linked to altruism. These same parts of the brain show activity when parents care for their children. The ventral striatum is a key component of the brain’s “reward system,” often associated with achieving and learning. 

What the researchers did not anticipate was the decreased activity in the amygdala when study participants were targeted in their generosity. The amygdala is the epicenter of the fight-or-flight mechanism and other charged emotions. 

So, how can you use this when giving a presentation? 

In the preparation stage, think of the individual people that your speech benefits by taking your attention away from you. In what way is your material educating them? Find one or two main takeaways that you would like for them to learn. 

If you’re not sure how your presentation can benefit your audience, take some time to learn as much as you can about who you’re speaking to. If you’ve been invited to speak at an event, you can ask the event organizers to give you some general information about the attendees.

Then, construct an “audience member profile.” This can be based on what you know to be true of those in the audience, with a few additional details thrown in to make them feel more like well-rounded people you know. 

Action Step : If you don’t know members of your audience personally, you can help yourself feel like you know them by creating one or two “audience member profiles.” 

Base these on what you know about the audience, then flesh it out until they feel like real people. For example, if you’re speaking at a non-profit fundraising event, ask the event organizer who their typical attendees are and consider what type of person will likely attend an event like this. 

Here’s what an example audience member profile could look like: 

Brianna Maddox 

• Works at a tech startup
• Looking for places to give end-of-year charitable donations
• Wants to have some idea of how her donation will be used and would enjoy a bit of followup 
• How I can help: Give her guidance to make an impact.

Derrick Bryant

• Works in project management at a large firm
• Father to 2 young kids
• Received a bonus at work and wants to give back to others 
• Doesn’t want to be overly involved, just give a donation and trust that it will be used well
• How I can help: Honor his generosity and give him ideas for his donation.

Even though Brianna and Derrick are not real people, these audience member profiles can help give you a “person” you’re helping as you tailor your presentation.

#3 Learn the Art of Stage Presence

Did you know that public speaking is actually a skill? Many people struggle with stage anxiety because they feel they ‘missed the memo’ on public speaking or they are lacking because they do not have a natural stage presence. Not true!

Stage presence and public speaking are skills you need to be taught—very few people have them naturally. 

Watch our video below to learn 7 steps to overcome stage fright and beat performance anxiety:

Here are all the aspects of public speaking you can master.

• How to make a first impression on an audience
• How to have a stage presence
• Powerful body language
• How to speak with a commanding voice
• What to do with your hands while speaking

For every speaking skill you add to your toolbox, the less speaking anxiety you will feel.

If you want help diving into your social skills, sign up for our course…

#4 Imagine yourself rocking it

When you feel yourself getting anxious about public speaking, try to replace those thoughts with how you would feel if everything went well. 

Research shows that visualization and positive self-talk can reduce anxiety. One study challenged individuals diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) to replace their worry with positive self-talk. 

Interestingly, they found that the positivity didn’t have to be about what the person was worried about. Replacing worry with positive visualizations about other scenarios helped reduce study participants’ anxiety. 

Decreasing your anxiety can help increase your ability to focus and do well in your presentation or speech! 

Action Step : The thoughts you think make a difference! If public speaking is too overwhelming and you need help imagining yourself succeeding at it, start with something else. 

Think back to a time you accomplished something you were proud of. Maybe you landed a big client at work or crossed the finish line of a race you trained hard for. 

The next time you’re feeling anxious about an upcoming speaking event, try to remember how you felt when you succeeded.  

#5 Use tech to tighten up your presentation

When you’re getting ready for a presentation, practice your technique. This can help you feel more confident in your capability to speak well and can help remove some of the uncertainty from the event. 

Thankfully, some apps can help you with many different aspects of public speaking! 

Here are a few: 

• Plan using voice notes and dictation : If you’re a verbal processor, try speaking your speech to figure out what you want to say. 
• Check your pace with Metronome Beats : It’s easy to speak too fast when nervous. Counteract that by practicing with the app Metronome Beats (available for Android and iOS ) to help you recognize when you’re speaking too quickly. 
• Eliminate filler words with Ummo : Ummo analyzes your speech and helps you recognize how many “um’s” and other filler words you use. 
• Sharpen your pronunciation with Orai : Orai is aimed towards helping users who have accents or speech impairments practice and perfect their words. 
• Keep within the allotted time using Toastmaster Timer : You may not always have a clock in the room you’re presenting in. In these cases, Toastmaster Timer (available for Android or iOS ) can help prevent you from lingering for too long on any section of your presentation. 

If you’re looking for a little bit of help improving in these areas, check out our article 6 Public Speaking Apps to Try Before Your Next Presentation to help you practice your technique. 

#6 Find your eye anchors

When you’re speaking in front of a room full of people, using eye contact can help you create a connection and draw people in. However, if you experience anxiety when speaking in front of a crowd, it might be hard to look people in the eye and stay calm. 

Try finding a few anchor points in the room. If possible, establish one in each “section” of the room. For example, if there is a center, left, right, and balcony, find a spot in each of those you consistently look to. 

One nice aspect of speaking to a room full of people is that you don’t have to make direct eye contact with any individuals. The crowd won’t necessarily know if you’re making eye contact with someone else or no one! 

Here are some places you can choose as anchors: 

• Right over the top of people’s heads
• An empty chair (in a large crowd)
• Someone who is giving you encouraging nonverbals like a head nod or a smile
• A friend in the crowd who is supporting you

As you become more comfortable with public speaking, try to ease up and look around more. But if your nerves are bad, this can be a helpful way to warm up while still looking like you’re making eye contact. 

#7 Have a game-day routine

If you find yourself often needing to talk in front of people, try to find a routine that helps ease your anxiety as you step into familiar motions. Researchers have found that this can be a helpful tool for people. 

Many professional athletes have rituals that help them feel ready for game day. Here are a few examples: 

• Mike Bibby, Basketball —Clipped his fingernails every time he went to the bench for timeouts. 
• Turk Wendell, Baseball —Chewed 4 pieces of black licorice while pitching. He would spit them out and brush his teeth each time he returned to the dugout. 
• Jason Terry, Basketball —Wore 5 pairs of socks during basketball games. He claimed that it made playing more comfortable. 

As you can see, your ritual doesn’t have to be directly related to your presentation! The goal is to find something that can either help you feel better prepared or help ease your anxiety. 

A ritual you could incorporate to help you feel prepared could be doing a few vocal warmups to ensure your voice is strong and ready to go. You might also glance through your notes in the morning or check in with the technicians to confirm that the PowerPoint is working correctly.

Other routines that are less directly related to public speaking but could still help you feel prepared are things like having a specific type of tea in the morning, getting a workout in before you go, or wearing a special piece of jewelry every time you speak. 

#8 Practice, practice, practice 

If you’re giving a speech or presentation, plan what you will say and then practice it over and over ( and over ) again. Doing this helps build familiarity with your material and can help you feel more confident if you start to feel the nerves settling in. 

Don’t settle for practicing your speech once or twice. Instead, aim for dozens of times—at least. 

Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor delivered one of the most popular TED Talks, “My Stroke of Insight,” with close to 30 million views. Can you guess how many times she practiced delivering her speech? 

200 times! 

Despite being a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, Dr. Bolte-Taylor spent at least 3,600 minutes practicing the delivery of her 18-minute speech. That’s 60 hours—a full work-week-and-a-half. 

And that’s only delivery , not the time she spent writing and rewriting her speech. 

Even the best speakers—the ones you may look at with jealousy at how easily they seem to navigate the stage and how confidently they present themselves—spend time practicing their delivery and making sure they are saying everything just how they want to. 

If you want to check out Dr. Bolte-Taylor’s fantastic speech, you can watch it here: 

My stroke of insight | Jill Bolte Taylor

Pro Tip : It can take more work to plan and practice for conversations. If chatting with another person is often a source of anxiety for you, try preparing a few fun questions to use in case there’s a lull in the conversation! 

Here are some options to get you started: 

• Do you have any nicknames? 
• What is your biggest pet peeve? 
• What is something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t tried yet? 
• What do you look forward to every day? 
• If you could start a charity, what would it be? 
• What’s your favorite family recipe? 
• What personality traits are you the proudest of? 
• Do you ever lower the music volume when trying to figure out directions while driving? 
• What’s the strangest purchase you’ve ever made? 

If none of these feels like the right fit, choose another question from this list of 450 Fun Questions to Ask People in ANY Situation (That Work!) . 

Try experimenting with a few ideas until you find a combination that works for you! 

Stage Fright is Normal, But You Can Try to Minimize It

The fear of public speaking is among the most common fears in the world—so know that you’re not alone in getting extra nervous when speaking to a group of people! 

That being said, nerves can vary in severity. If you feel as though your anxiety limits you, you may want to meet with a therapist to receive more personalized advice.

Use these tips and tricks to help you ace your next presentation: 

• Practice makes progress . You may never “get rid” of your nerves, but making sure you know your material can help decrease your stress around public speaking. Practice delivering your speech over and over to help you feel prepared. 
• Expect the unexpected . Prepare for any questions or objections your audience may have to the material you’re speaking on. You can ask various loved ones to help you by listening to your presentation and asking some hard-hitting questions.
• Imagine your success . Envision yourself as a successful orator! What you think about matters. This can help ease your anxiety and build your confidence. 
• Be generous to specific audience members—even if you don’t know them. When you’re tempted to think of your audience as an intimidating sea of faces, try to remind yourself that it is a group of individual people. Ask yourself how your knowledge and expertise can help them and make their life better. 
• Download some apps . There are so many helpful pieces of technology available. Try out a few specifically for public speaking to help you tighten your speech. 
• Make eye contact with places rather than people . Looking into the crowd can help people feel more engaged with what you’re saying. However, if it feels too stressful to look directly at people in the crowd, try finding places you can look. Try to find at least one eye anchor for each section of the room, and then look back to those throughout your presentation. 
• Have a routine . Routines can help you feel calm and confident before stepping on stage. Whether it’s wearing 5 pairs of socks or flipping through your note cards, try to find little things you can do to help yourself as calm and collected as possible. 

Crack The Code on Facial Expressions

The human face is constantly sending signals, and we use it to understand the person’s intentions when we speak to them. In Decode, we dive deep into these microexpressions to teach you how to instantly pick up on them and understand the meaning behind what is said to you. Don’t spend another day living in the dark.

Want a better handle on performing on the stage? We got you covered: Stage Fright: How to Overcome It in 7 Easy Steps .

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Understanding And Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety

Most of us might experience what is commonly known as stage fright or speaking anxiety, nervousness and stress experienced around speaking situations in front of audience members. Even for experienced speakers, this can be a normal response to pressurized situations in which we are the focus of attention—such as we might encounter in front of an audience. For some people, though, the fear of public speaking and nervous energy can be much more severe, and can be a sign of an anxiety disorder. 

Speaking anxiety is considered by many to be a common but challenging form of social anxiety disorder that can produce serious symptoms, and can possibly impact an individual’s social life, career, and emotional and physical well-being. 

In this article, we’ll explore what speaking anxiety is, common symptoms of it, and outline several tips for managing it.

Identifying public speaking anxiety: Definition, causes, and symptoms

According to the American Psychological Association,  public speaking anxiety  is the “fear of giving a speech or presentation in public because of the expectation of being negatively evaluated or humiliated by others”. 

Often associated with a lack of self-confidence, the disorder is generally marked by severe worry and nervousness, in addition to several physical symptoms. The fear can be felt by many, whether they are in the middle of a speech or whether they are planning to speak at a future point. They may also generally fear contact with others in informal settings.

Public speaking anxiety can be a common condition, with an with an  estimated prevalence of 15-30%  among the general population.

Public speaking anxiety is considered by many to be a form of social anxiety disorder (SAD). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM-V) includes a  performance specifier that allows a SAD diagnosis to relate specifically to anxiety surrounding public speaking or performing. For some extreme forms of this mental health condition, a medical professional may prescribe medication that can help overcome severe symptoms—although for most people this won’t be necessary.

The symptoms of performance-type social anxiety can include:

• Worry or fear surrounding public speaking opportunities or performing, even in front of friendly faces
• Avoiding situations in which public speaking or performing may be necessary
• Shaky voice, especially when one has to speak in public
• Stomach pain or gastrointestinal discomfort
• Rapid breathing

There are several strategies for addressing the symptoms of this and feeling more confident with your oratory skills, whether you need to use them at work, in formal social settings or simply in front of friends. 

The following are several strategies you can employ to address the fear of public speaking and manage your fear when it arises.

While the primary concern for those who experience speaking anxiety might typically be the fear of judgment or embarrassment when speaking publicly, there can be other causes contributing to distress. To figure out how to address this, it can help to understand potential contributing factors—as well as how others may be dealing with it on their own. 

First, it can be helpful to determine where the fear came from in the first place. Here are some  common sources of public speaking anxiety :

• Negative past experiences with public speaking
• Lack of preparedness
• Low self-esteem (this possible cause can cause feelings of overwhelm if one has to give a speech) 
• Inexperience with public speaking 
• Unfamiliar subject matter
• Newness of environment
• Fear of rejection (such as from an audience) 

Practice deep breathing

Public speaking anxiety might often be accompanied by feelings of stress, and also often affects physical factors such as increased speed of heart rate, tension, and rapid breathing. If you’re dealing with speaking anxiety and want to calm your nerves before a public speaking event, it can be helpful to practice deep breathing exercises. Deep breathing is considered by many to be a widely utilized technique  that can help bring your nervous system out of fight-or-flight mode, relax your body, and quiet your mind. Many find it to be one of the most convenient ways to manage symptoms, as many can do it anywhere as needed. 

To practice deep breathing prior to speaking, consider using a method called box breathing: breathe in for a four count, hold for a four-count, breathe out for a four count and hold again for a four count. You can repeat this process three to four times, possibly incorporating it with other relaxation techniques. It can also help to be mindful of your breathing as you’re presenting, which can help you steady your voice and calm your nerves.  

Practice visualization

When we experience nervousness, we can sometimes focus on negative thoughts and worst-case scenarios, despite the reality of the situation. You can work to avoid this by practicing positive visualization—such as imagining friendly faces in the crowd or you acing the main content of your speech. Positive thinking can be an effective technique for managing performance anxiety. 

Visualization is generally regarded as a research-backed method of addressing speaking anxiety that involves imagining the way a successful scenario will progress in detail. 

Having a clear idea of how your presentation will go, even in your mind’s eye, can help you gain confidence and make you feel more comfortable with the task at hand.

Understand your subject matter 

The fear of speaking in front of others can be related to potential embarrassment that may occur if we make a mistake. To reduce the risk of this possibility, it can help to develop a solid understanding of the material you’ll be presenting or performing and visualize success. For example, if you’re presenting your department’s sales numbers at work, familiarizing yourself with the important points and going over them multiple times can help you better retain the information and feel more comfortable as you give the presentation. 

Set yourself up for success

Doing small things to prepare for a speech or performance can make a big difference in helping to alleviate public speaking anxiety. If possible, you may want to familiarize yourself with the location in which you’ll be speaking. It can also help to ensure any technology or other media you’ll be setting up is functional. For example, if you’re using visual aids or a PowerPoint deck, you might make sure it is being projected properly, the computer is charged and that you can easily navigate the slides as you present.

You might even conduct run-throughs of the presentation for your speaking experience. You can practice walking the exact route you’ll take to the podium, setting up any necessary materials, and then presenting the information within the time limit. Knowing how you’ll arrive, what the environment looks like and where exactly you’ll be speaking can set you up for success and help you feel more comfortable in the moment.

Practicing your presentation or performance is thought to be a key factor in reducing your fear of public speaking. You can use your  practice time  to recognize areas in which you may need improvement and those in which you excel as a speaker. 

For example, you might realize that you start rushing through your points instead of taking your time so that your audience can take in the information you’re presenting. Allowing yourself the chance to practice can help you get rid of any filler words that may come out during a presentation and make sure all your points are clear to keep the audience’s interest. Additionally, a practice run can help you to know when it is okay to pause for effect, take some deep breaths, or work effective body language such as points of eye contact into your presentation. 

It may also be helpful to practice speaking in smaller social situations, in front of someone you trust, or even a group of several familiar people. Research suggests that practicing in front of an audience of supportive, friendly faces can improve your performance—and that the larger the mock audience is, the better the potential results may be. 

To do this, you can go through the process exactly like you would if they were real audience. Once you’re done, you can ask them for feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of your presentation. They may have insights you hadn’t considered and tips you can implement prior to presenting, as well as make you feel confident and relaxed about your material. 

Self-care leading up to the moment you’re speaking in public can go a long way in helping you reduce nervousness. Regular physical activity is generally considered to be one proven strategy for reducing social anxiety symptoms . Exercise can help to release stress and boost your mood. If you’re giving a big presentation or speech, it may be helpful to go for a walk or do some mild cardio in the morning. 

Additionally, eating a healthy diet and drinking enough water can also help promote a sense of well-being and calm. You may choose to be mindful of your consumption of caffeinated beverages, as caffeine may worsen anxiety. 

How online therapy can help

If you experience anxiety when you need to speak in front of other people and want additional support for your communication apprehension, it can help to talk to a licensed mental health professional. According to the American Psychiatric Association, a therapist can work with you to find effective ways to manage public speaking anxiety and feel more confident performing in front of others.

Is Online Therapy Effective?

Studies suggest that online therapy can help individuals who experience anxiety related to presenting or performing in public. In a study of 127 participants with social anxiety disorder, researchers found that online cognitive behavioral therapy was effective in treating the fear of public speaking , with positive outcomes that were sustained for a year post-treatment. The study also noted the increased convenience that can often be experienced by those who use online therapy platforms. 

Online therapy is regarded by many as a flexible and comfortable way of connecting with a licensed therapist to work through symptoms of social anxiety disorder or related mental disorders. With online therapy through  BetterHelp , you can participate in therapy remotely, which can be helpful if speaking anxiety makes connecting in person less desirable. 

BetterHelp works with thousands of mental health professionals—who have a variety of specialties—so you may be able to work with someone who can address your specific concerns about social anxiety.

Therapist reviews

“I had the pleasure of working with Ann for a few months, and she helped me so much with managing my social anxiety. She was always so positive and encouraging and helped me see all the good things about myself, which helped my self-confidence so much. I've been using all the tools and wisdom she gave me and have been able to manage my anxiety better now than ever before. Thank you Ann for helping me feel better!”

Brian has helped me immensely in the 5 months since I joined BetterHelp. I have noticed a change in my attitude, confidence, and communication skills as a result of our sessions. I feel like he is constantly giving me the tools I need to improve my overall well-being and personal contentment.”

If you are experiencing performance-type social anxiety disorder or feel nervous about public speaking, you may consider trying some of the tips detailed above—such as practicing with someone you trust, incorporating deep breathing techniques and visualizing positive thoughts and outcomes. 

If you’re considering seeking additional support with social anxiety disorder, online therapy can help. With the right support, you can work through anxiety symptoms, further develop your oratory skills and feel more confidence speaking in a variety of forums.  

Studies suggest that online therapy can help individuals who experience nervousness related to presenting or speaking in public. In a study of 127 participants with social anxiety disorder, researchers found that online cognitive behavioral therapy was effective in treating the fear of public speaking , with positive outcomes that were sustained for a year post-treatment. The study also noted the increased convenience that can often be experienced by those who use online therapy platforms.

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10 Causes of Speech Anxiety that Create Fear of Public Speaking

Do you suffer from fear of public speaking? Here are 10 causes of speech anxiety and powerful tips about how to speak with confidence!

Want an attention-grabber the next time you give a speech? How about this: speech anxiety ranks higher than death as the fear people mention most often!

How's that for a widespread form of social anxiety?

Speech anxiety limiting your career? Learn how to command the stage with my book Fearless Speaking , named One of 100 Best Confidence Books Of All Time.  On  Amazon .

The Prevalence of Fear of Public Speaking

To be fair:  heights, insects, and deep water  also   rank above death in the survey that's still cited above any other. It's from  The Book of Lists,   which in 1977 reproduced a 1973 survey by Bruskin Associates.* Here's the full ranking of the "14 worst human fears": 1. Speaking before a group 2. Heights 3. Insects and Bugs 4. Financial Problems 5. Deep Water. 6. Sickness 7. Death 8. Flying 9.Loneliness 10. Dogs 11. Driving in a Car 12. Darkness 13. Elevators. 14. Escalators.

To bring that up to date to our 21 st century, a recent post from a “knowledge, awareness, and self-improvement” site finds fear of public speaking occupying the #3 slot. In this list, a dread of loneliness and death edge out our social phobia. But fear of speaking reliably remains as one of our great waking nightmares. [1]  

So if you fear speaking in public more than riding an escalator, you're certainly not alone. Speech jitters still ranks high the world over on lists of things people would rather not do. But what specifically causes this type of social anxiety?

Need to relax before speaking? Discover how in my  essential  cheat sheet for speakers ,  "How to Calm Your Nerves before Speaking. " It works in only 5 minutes!

How to Overcome Stage Fright and Speech Anxiety

As the founder and president of   The Genard Method   in Boston, I've spent the past 18 years helping professionals eliminate their stage fright through our Fearless Speaking Program . In the video below, I explain this powerful coaching course for overcoming fear of speaking: 

Looking for ways to conquer stage fright? You'll find 50 of them in my book  Fearless Speaking . Eliminate your fear in as little as 12 days! Download a free chapter here .  

The Top 10 Reasons You Have Stage Fright

Here's what you need to know to start your journey to greater confidence and enjoyment of public speaking. These are the ten biggest reasons you have this fear, and my tips on how you can overcome it . . . and basically get your life back!

• Self-consciousness in front of large groups.  This is the most frequently named reason for performance anxiety. Speech coaches often hear: "I'm fine talking to small groups, but when it's a large audience I get really anxious." Two strategies will help: (1) Remember that the people in a big audience are the same ones you talk to individually, and (2) Concentrate on just talking to them, not "presenting". You'll be at your best.
• Fear of appearing nervous . Do you fear that you'll look  fearful? Many speakers do. It's easy, then, to believe that if the audience sees those nerves, they'll think you don't know your topic. But of course the two aren't linked. When you see that a speaker is nervous, don't you sympathize, rather than making a judgment on that person's professionalism? If anything, your audience will extend you sympathy not resistance.
• Concern that others are judging you.  The tough-love message here is that people really don't care about you. They're in the audience to get something out of your lecture, presentation, or speech. They want their time to be well spent. Watching a speaker fail is embarrassing for everyone. So the audience is actually pulling for you!
•   Past failures.   Public speaking anxiety is often learned behavior. That is, at some point in the past you failed, and the seed of self-doubt was planted. But if you know your stuff and are prepared  this time , there's no reason for things to go south like they did in the long ago. Not unless you insist that will happen, and believe it. Plan to succeed instead.
•   Poor or insufficient preparation.   See #4 above. If you haven't done your homework (including knowing your audience), there's no reason you should succeed. Blame nobody but yourself. Nothing undermines public speaking confidence like being unprepared. But nothing gives you as much confidence as being   ready. Your choice.

Do you know how to hook your audience's attention? Get the guide to great openings! Grab listeners as soon as you start speaking with my e-book   "How to Start a Speech."  

•   Narcissism.   This is the toughest love message I give to clients with stage fright. Indulging in extreme self-consciousness while speaking is narcissistic. How can you influence others if you're totally wrapped up in yourself? You can't. So turn that bright spotlight around and "illuminate" your listeners. You don't matter. They do.
•   Dissatisfaction with your abilities.   Okay, this is a legitimate concern. But it's also one of the easiest of my Top 10 causes to remedy. You   should   feel dissatisfied if your speaking skills are below par. But dissatisfaction can be an excellent spur. Get the speech training you've been thinking about. Just knowing you have first-rate skills can provide you with a truckload of confidence. It's also much more likely to make you eager to speak.
•   Discomfort with your own body.  Why is it that we're all at ease physically with friends, but self-conscious and awkward in front of an audience? If that's you, read  the tip above about having a conversation with listeners. That should help you relax into your body. Also, pay attention to how you stand, sit, gesture, and move when you're in a comfortable environment. Then recreate that natural movement with larger audiences. Here are   5 secrets of powerful body language for effective public speaking . 
•   Poor breathing habits.   Unless you've been trained as an actor or singer, you're probably  unaware of how to breathe for speech. Public speaking requires more air than "vegetative breathing." Also, you need to control your exhalation to sustain sound through the end of your idea. Diaphragmatic breathing is the way to do all of this. It's also great for calming your galloping heart. 
•   Comparing yourself to others.   Don't do it! Your job is never to be an "excellent" speaker. It's to be interesting when you discuss your topic or passion. That's it. The really good news is that no one in the entire universe can do that as well as you, because you're the person to tell us about it. Truly, you're the one we came to hear. 

Do you read mysteries or supernatural suspense ? If you do, you'll love Dr. William Scarlet, Scotland Yard police surgeon and psychic. Read Book #1 in the thriller series, Red Season !

You should follow me on Twitter   here .

Tags: public speaking anxiety , stage fright , conquer your fear of public speaking , fear of public speaking , overcoming fear of public speaking , how to give a speech , eliminate stage fright , top 10 causes of speech anxiety , conquer stage fright , The Genard Method , Dr. Gary Genard , fearless speaking , fearless presentations , how to overcome fear of public speaking , how to banish speech anxiety , eliminate fear of public speaking , overcoming nervousness , overcome stage fright , how to conquer public speaking fear , eliminating fear of public speaking , speak for leadership

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Overcome Public Speaking Anxiety

Fact checked.

Micah Abraham, BSc

Last updated October 10, 2020

Fear of public speaking is incredibly common, and not just in those with anxiety. While anxiety tends to fuel public speaking fears, nearly anyone can suffer from this type of phobia. Public speaking anxiety is one of the most common fears shared among the general population, and unfortunately these days few people have the tools necessary to overcome this fear.

What Causes Fear of Public Speaking?

Fear of public speaking - also known as Glossophobia - has its roots in social phobia. It comes from the fear of being judged, which stems from all the attention that people place on you when you're speaking. Ideally, you need to be able to deliver a loud, effective speech. Yet doubts over our own ability combined with the knowledge that others are forced to pay attention to the words we share can create a feeling of fear that is tough to shake.

Public speaking fears are also frequently reinforced. No one gives a perfect speech. If you go up there and do a great job but make a few mistakes, your mind tends to focus on the mistakes, and your fear is then confirmed.

In addition, there is reason to believe that the modern day lifestyle makes glossophobia more common than it had been in the past. Consider the following:

• More and more people spend their free time in less public situations, like online, which not only reduces public social interactions but also allows for complete anonymity. Those that spend a lot of time online become less used to the idea of talking in public and being judged.
• Increasingly, people have work-related communication that requires fewer public speaking engagements. Now you can send emails, talk on the phone, or use online workrooms. No longer do you need to worry as much about others looking at you and judging you, which is a problem for future public speakers because it means less experience speaking in public.

It doesn't matter if you're younger or more experienced - the modern day lifestyle has less interaction with other people, which can only increase the ease to which people develop public speaking anxiety.

How to Reduce Public Speaking Anxiety

A little bit of anxiety as you prepare for a big speech or presentation is common. Even the best speakers in the world get a small amount of anxiety before they get on stage or speak in front of a large group. You should never expect yourself to be completely anxiety free. What you need is for that anxiety to fuel you into giving a great speech, not hold you back from speaking.

When your fear of public speaking overwhelms you, you need help. The problem is that we have a tendency to focus on the mistakes, so it's not always easy to overcome that anxiety right away. One mistake (and yes, everyone makes mistakes), and you may accidentally convince yourself that your fears were justified.

In order to cure your public speaking anxiety, you need to make smart decisions before, during, and after you speak. Some people get public speaking anxiety just by talking in front of their friends when their friends are in large groups.

In this case, we're talking about learning to speak in front of a group. It may be planned (such as a presentation at work) or unplanned (such as talking at a meeting when you have a good idea), but you still need to make the right choices and deal with your anxiety directly.

Below are strategies that will help you overcome your public speaking anxiety.

Before Your Speech or Talk

Practice thoroughly.

Obviously practice is step one, and the step that you need to complete beyond adequately. You practice for several reasons. You practice to remember your speech or your lines. You practice because it turns the act of speaking into more of an instinct. You practice because you become more familiar with what giving your speech and speaking up is like, so that if you do lose your way and your speech is derailed you have an easier time making your way back.

But you need to over-prepare. Don't just stop because you think you know it. Stop when you're annoyed that you have to keep doing it. Then do it three more times. The point isn't just to know your speech. The point is to know it so well that you don't even want to give it anymore. That's when you're ready to go.

Visualization and Relaxation

Your next step is to try to get used to the fears you're going to have. Do this only after you've practiced thoroughly. Then, imagine a huge crowd of people judging you. Imagine upset faces and anger. Imagine the things that will cause you anxiety.

Once you've done that, you should start to experience a bit of anxiety. Your heart rate should increase a little and your fear should start to take over. Once that happen, take some deep breaths. Try to relax. Imagine those frowning faces mean something better. Imagine that they really love your speech, and they're glaring at you because they can't handle it. Try to calm yourself down until you feel better, then keep going.

Once it no longer brings you anxiety, give the speech and imagine you're giving it in front of a hostile audience. See if you can calm yourself down while giving the talk without any distractions. That'll help you get used to it.

Get Used to Embarrassment

You can also try a strategy that some people use to get over their social phobia. You can try to get used to the idea of embarrassment. If you no longer fear embarrassment, your ability to overcome some of your public speaking fears will be cured with it.

How to do this is up to you. One of the easiest ways is to dress up in some ridiculous outfit and simply sit outside somewhere public. People will look at you, and people will think you look funny, and you'll feel embarrassed. But if you stay out there for a long time, eventually that embarrassment won't bother you anymore.

You can also do something a bit more active. You can try yelling in a bar ("who here loves baseball?!") or try to say "hi" to everyone you walk past. It's not that important what you do, but it is important that you do a lot of it. You do it until you it bores you, and you stop worrying about whether people are judging you.

This isn't a cure for public speaking anxiety on its own, but every little but helps.

What to Do on the Day of the Speech

On the day the speech arrives, you need to make sure you do all of the little things that help your body and mind control anxiety. You need to make sure that you're fully rested, with a good night's sleep. You need to make sure you're properly hydrated and that you've had full and healthy meals. You need to go jogging, or do something to relieve some of your muscle tension.

You should also prepare everything you need in advance, so that you don't have any worries about whether or not you have everything ready. You can try practicing the presentation one more time and do the visualization techniques again - or you can integrate many relaxation strategies to make sure you're calm for the day, such as:

• Progressive Muscle Relaxation

The less anxiety you experience that day, the easier a time you'll have on the speech. The buildup can be one of the worst parts, and avoiding the buildup will decrease the way that anxiety affects you.

Finally, remind yourself that it doesn't matter what people think. Don't go in there worrying about everyone else. Go in there reminding yourself that you've done what you can, and that no matter how well it goes you'll continue to get better.

There are strategies you can integrate when you start speaking to reduce anxiety as well. These include:

• Starting Strong Don't try to ease into it. Start as loud as you can't. Don't even worry if you're a bit too loud. Many people think they'll start slow and ease into it, but the best thing you can do is start strong.
• Look at No One Don't worry about looking at people. Look around the room as though you're talking to everyone. You may find yourself getting more nervous if you can't help but look at one or two people and they're not giving you the "face" you want. Look around the room to ease some of the tension you have about someone specific judging you.
• Don't Worry About Stumbles It's easier said than done, but you should never expect it to go perfect. Perfection takes years of practice, and none of the most world renowned speakers were as skilled right away. You can look back at old YouTube videos of well-known speakers and see the way that they stumble. If you lose your place or something happens, just figure out where you were and keep going.

Once you're into the speech there isn't as much you can do. But there are ways to improve the likelihood of a positive outcome. As soon as it's over, pretend you did a great job. Worry about any mistakes you may have made later.

After the Speech is Over

One thing that many people don't realize is that what you do after a speech can also affect how well you are able to handle the next time you speak. If you sit in the corner and think about all of the things that went wrong, then you'll worry about the next speech more. If you allow yourself to feel too "relieved" as well, you'll reinforce the idea that what you did was scary, and increase the likelihood of fear next time. Consider the following:

• Write Down 10 Positives The mind has a tendency to focus only on the negative, but the truth is that ample positive things occurred during the speech. Make sure that you acknowledge them for yourself. Even if you had a terrible presentation and stumbled over every word and cried on stage, there are things that you can write out that were positive. For example, remembering some important lines, some degree of eye contact, speed of talking - don't worry about the negatives and write out the positive things so that you're not letting your mind increase your anxiety.
• Don't Party There's a tendency after big speeches to party hard. After a college graduation, for example, many people go out and celebrate. Some celebration is okay, but keep it moderated. You don't want to see the speech as something tremendous you overcame, and partying too hard can actually cause more anxiety. If you must go out, keep it as low key as you can, and don't try to numb your high emotions.
• Give the Speech Again Finally, if you did have a truly bad presentation, or you simply can't stop focusing on the negatives, give the speech one more time in the comfort of your own home, either to your family or to your dog or to nobody at all. One of the problems is that your last memory of giving the presentation is up on stage when you were anxious. Replace it, by having your last memory be of you sitting in your pajamas talking to a wall with a poster of a cat hanging from a tree branch.

How You Can Overcome Public Speaking and Anxiety

The reality is that you can recover from your fear of public speaking. Using the above tips can be a big help. If you're also someone that suffers from anxiety regularly, you'll also benefit greatly from controlling your overall anxiety. Anxiety tends to be cumulative, and those with anxiety are far more likely to develop public speaking fears.

Questions? Comments?

Do you have a specific question that this article didn’t answered? Send us a message and we’ll answer it for you!

Where can I go to learn more about Jacobson’s relaxation technique and other similar methods? – Anonymous patient

You can ask your doctor for a referral to a psychologist or other mental health professional who uses relaxation techniques to help patients. Not all psychologists or other mental health professionals are knowledgeable about these techniques, though. Therapists often add their own “twist” to the technqiues. Training varies by the type of technique that they use. Some people also buy CDs and DVDs on progressive muscle relaxation and allow the audio to guide them through the process. – Timothy J. Legg, PhD, CRNP

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