Palms sweaty, heart racing, too panicked to even breathe? No, you aren’t being stalked by some monster (or Dexter): you’re about to speak in public! While some would claim public speaking is a fate “worse than death,” public speaking might actually feel worse than death: at least you won’t feel stage fright in death! If public speaking is so nerve-racking, do genetics cause social anxiety?
Stage Fright
Fight or Flight
How Do We Fight Stage Fright?
Try to gain perspective. Your fear isn’t all in your head, but rather an automatic reaction by your nervous system engineered into your makeup. Even some of your favorite celebrities who always appear calm and collected in public are nervous too! Can you imagine that John Lennon played thousands of concerts yet still threw up out of nervousness before each of his shows?
What you can do to fight your natural instincts is to practice and keep practicing in an environment similar to the one you’ll be speaking in. Steve Jobs used to practice now-famous speeches for hundreds of hours, weeks in advance! If you know what you’re saying, you can use the crowd’s energy to enhance your talk instead of being prey to a pack of predators.
So the next time you have a big speech, be prepared, and learn how to trick your brain into an aura of comfort. Take those last few moments when the anxiety is at its highest point to stretch your arms and breathe deeply to help relax. You didn’t overcome stage fright, you just adapted to handle it!
Remember: “No matter how civilized you may seem, in a part of your brain you are still a wild animal, a profound, well-spoken wild animal.”
Have you ever given a speech in front of a lot of people? How did you do?
Source: TED-Ed