Fear of Public Speaking
Some studies tell us we fear public speaking more than death, spiders, or heights. It sounds crazy, but it’s what people say.
The scientific word for this is “glossophobia.” It comes from the Greek words “glossa” (tongue) and “Phobos” (dread or fear).
When people experience this fear, symptoms while speaking resembles how their body would react to physical signs of danger:
- Shortness of breath, redness of the face or shaking
- Intense anxiety before communicating with a group
- Avoidance of events that focus the group’s attention on individuals in attendance
- Physical distress, nausea, or feelings of panic in such circumstances.
Throughout our life is nearly impossible to avoid situations where we need to speak in public, especially in the work environment.
One year and a half ago, I was experiencing for the first time the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. For the first time, I was experiencing anxiety when I needed to speak in front of a big audience (a thing I’ve never felt before!), simply because I had no control over my bowel crisis and my body.
Add to the symptoms of this syndrome, which by itself is characterized by stomach pain, cramps, nausea and diarrhoea, our brain in these situations of fear tells us that we are under attack and enters in the fight-or-flight response.
The amygdala, the part of our brain that helps us respond to danger, in these situations, does whatever is necessary to protect ourselves from the source of danger — in this case, our audience.
Fortunately, there are several things we can do to “calm down” our amygdala and disarm our organic panic button. I’ve been learning and practising some techniques that help me be calmer when presenting things or leading meetings. They are:
- Transform negative thoughts into positive ones.
“I will fail” -> “I’m happy to have several opportunities to improve my confidence and ability to speak in front of a big audience.”
“I don’t like being in the spotlight” -> “It’s good to see the number of people that will invest their time to listen to me.” - Know your audience.
Climb inside the skin of your audience and think about what they want to listen to. Think about possible questions in advance. Make the presentation to one of your colleagues, friends or familiar and ask for feedback and points of improvement. - Prepare yourself and write a guide or a script.
Write the main ideas of your speech and give it a structure. - Make sure you give all the information people need before the presentation or the meeting.
One thing that I always try to do is to send all the information people need and give the context by email. This way, people can read about the topic, formulate questions and go better prepared for the presentation. - Don’t be afraid to admit what you don’t know if something is asked.
We usually think that saying we don’t know will create an impression we’re not as smart as people thought. Of course, we dislike that, and we like to believe that we know a lot of things. However, the perfect world doesn’t exist and we don’t have all the answers— the two things I use to do when someone asks something that I don’t know is:
1) Admit I don’t know the full answer
2) See if someone in the room can help me answer the question
3) Promise I will find the answer and come back to the questioner - Make power posing before presentations
Power posing is a self-improvement technique that suggests people stand in a posture that they mentally associate with being powerful.
At the TEDGlobal 2012 conference, social psychologist Amy Cuddy gave the talk “Your body language shapes who you are”.
She explained that power poses can boost feelings of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident.
References
- Karen Kangas Dwyer & Marlina M. Davidson (2012): Is Public Speaking Really More Feared Than Death?, Communication Research Reports, 29:2, 99–107
- http://www.glossophobia.com/
- https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are
