Do suffer from public speaking fear?
You’re at the front of the room, ready to start your presentation, and all of a sudden your brain feels empty and you can’t remember a word from your carefully prepared speech. To make it even worse, your mouth goes dry so that you have difficulty swallowing and your voice sounds hoarse. And if that wasn’t enough, you start to feel sick, your knees start wobbling and your hands shaking, and your heart is pounding so loudly that you worry everybody will hear.
And this is precisely the time when you want to make a good first impression. You want the people to listen to you and remember what you’ve said. Not great when you’re a nervous wreck, is it?
Your body reacts to public speaking fear with these uncomfortable behaviors that reach back to when early human beings were still prone to be attacked by wild animals. Even today, when you’re physically threatened, your body sends a distress signal out that triggers the “fight or flight” chemical in your brain, in order to protect you. This chemical is called adrenalin and is generated in the most primitive part of your brain called amygdala.
When you have trouble with public speaking fear, the amygdala assumes you’re under attack and sends out the electro-chemical panic alarm so that your body is ready to either flee or attack the “treat”.
As out of proportion this response may be to the “danger” of public speaking, your body doesn’t know that. Here are a few methods it has so you can either fight the “threat” or escape:
– The oldest part of your brain, the amygdala, sends a message to your heart to to beat faster and to raise the blood pressure in your body in preparation for the assault. This means that, when you’re tense when you stand in front of your audience, your heart starts hammering.
– The blood in your stomach that is used for digestion in normal situations, is withdrawn because it is needed by the muscles to give them more power to either fight orescape. This is why you may feel sick in the pit of your stomach that comes with your public speaking fear. And if you have to give a speech after dinner, you may not want to eat a lot. Not just because the food won’t taste very good, but your body requires an empty stomach, in readiness for a quick escape.
– While the blood builds up in the muscles it is also withdrawn from the brain. It may well be that for the amygdala it’s possibly more critical that you act when faced with a threat than to think about it. Thinking is time consuming. So, your mind becomes empty and you can’t remember what you prepared to say. Have you ever been in danger and when it was all over said that you didn’t recollect what actually happened?
– When a wild animal attacks you and you either want to fight it or escape, you have to have more air in your lungs. So, the amygdala sends a signal to the lungs to boost your breathing. Now, as we’re not in real physical threat when giving a presentation or a speech, the increased amount of air in your lungs has to go somewhere and we exhale too quickly. We begin hyperventilating and feeling woozy. In severe instances public speaking fear can result in fainting.
– As your breathing is increased to give you lots of air to ward off your attacker or run away, you don’t want to be choking on your own saliva. So, your brain stops the saliva production for this period and your mouth and throat get dry.
– this is why your voice gets croaky. Another reason may well be that your brain wants to make sure that you’re as quiet as possible when when wild animals are a threat.
These are all reactions to fear that are ingrained in us. They are instinctive and come from our ancestors. You don’t need to beat yourself up about them.
But it’s possible to do something about them. You can learn some techniques that will help you overcome your initial public speaking fear. Great public speaking courses help you to get calmer and self-assured so that you can take advantage of
the adrenalin that is running around your body.
Imagine, taking your public speaking fear and turn it into a passionate speech that moves and inspires people!
No related posts.