15 Tips to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking

Only 5% of humanity has never experienced fear of public speaking. Others are afraid to speak in front of an audience, and the level of stress can vary from mild anxiety to panic attacks and fainting. Man is a social animal, and the prospect of failure in front of people whose opinions are important to him causes great anxiety.

Fear of the public affects everyone, regardless of gender, age, social status. This phobia is second only to the fear of death in popularity, but American studies have shown that in the United States the majority would prefer to die than to perform in front of a large audience.

It is curious that world stars of the first magnitude are susceptible to fear of public speaking; for some artists, the phobia really interferes with their lives. The brilliant Barbra Streisand did not appear on stage for 27 years after she forgot the words to a song at a concert in New York in front of a crowd of 135,000 fans. Only long-term work with psychotherapists helped her overcome the horror of a new failure. Gorgeous Adele does not go on world tours because she suffers from panic attacks on stage. It happened that she ran away from her own concerts. Benedict Cumberbatch, Jim Carrey, Robbie Williams, even the great orator Winston Churchill experienced fear of public speaking and looked for ways to overcome it.

Stages of glossophobia

Fear of public speaking, like most phobias, has a scientific term: glossophobia, or logophobia - this is the name of one of the most common anxiety disorders. Translated from ancient Greek, glossophobia is the fear of language. The term combines different manifestations: fear of talking to people, speaking in front of a large audience, starting to stutter, even pronouncing individual words.

Anxiety before public speaking is a normal reaction, but it can become a serious problem if it develops into panic. Self-presentation is important for social success, but glossophobia turns a person into a social phobic and adversely affects the scenario of life in society, up to the development of addictions and severe mental disorders. When faced with a fear of public speaking, you need to correctly assess the extent of the problem and look for ways to overcome the fear.

The degree of increase in anxiety can be determined on a 10-point scale, where 0 is absolute calm, 10 is uncontrollable panic. In the range from 1 to 5, mild anxiety develops into real fear, which a person can handle on his own. Glossophobia above 5 points requires the help of specialists.

It is important to adequately assess your condition and not lead to panic, which paralyzes the will and leads to devastating consequences.

Fighting methods

To overcome your fear you need to become more confident in yourself. Changing your image will help with this. Be sure to rehearse before your performance

To make it easier for a person to cope with upcoming performances, especially if, due to work or study, he has to speak in front of people more than once, it is necessary to choose a method that will help cope with panic and pull himself together.

Meditation. The person should relax with maximum force, take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Before the actual performance, it is recommended to carry out such breathing exercises for about five minutes.
Autotraining or self-hypnosis. A person can convince himself with his own thoughts that he can cope with the upcoming performance. And if he makes a mistake, then there will be nothing terrible about it.
To avoid insane fear, the speaker must know the topic of his speech perfectly. A person who has a good command of his material is difficult to confuse with a sidelong glance or an unexpected question.
Self-discipline. Before an upcoming performance, don't even think about drinking alcohol or caffeinated drinks. Also, do not eat heavy food the day before.
Creating the right image helps increase your self-esteem. A person will believe in the correctness of his words and actions
Elimination of stress. Before a performance, you need to rest, get enough sleep, gain strength, and stock up on energy.
The day before, it is important to surround yourself only with positive emotions and not think about anything bad, to believe that everything will go like clockwork.
If serious difficulties arise, you need to seek help from a psychologist.

I, like many of you, always felt extremely nervous when I had to perform in front of an audience. My throat became dry, my hands and sometimes my knees began to tremble, my heart beat faster, and my breath caught in my throat. Once before going out I had to take a sedative to get myself under control. However, it caused drowsiness and lethargy. Scientific presentations were especially difficult for me; I was always worried that a question would be asked to which I did not know the answer. Therefore, I studied all aspects of the upcoming report very carefully. This helped me. Today I don’t have a phobia as such, but I do have the usual human anxiety before an important performance.

The nature of public speaking phobia

To know how to overcome the fear of public speaking, you need to understand the mechanism of its occurrence and the true, subconscious causes of the phobia.

From a physiological point of view, fear is the oldest biochemical reaction of the brain to danger; as a result, a dose of adrenaline is released into the blood. The ancient part of the brain, the hypothalamus, is responsible for the reaction, which helped animals at the dawn of civilization to quickly concentrate and repel an attack from the outside.

When there is a real threat to life, the “fight or flight” reaction is understandable. Why does the hypothalamus trigger adrenaline when you just need to speak in front of an audience? The source of the problem is subconscious reasons associated with the fear of being rejected by society. They are the ones who trigger the biochemical reaction. The root causes of fear of public speaking depend on the person’s personality and background:

childhood traumas - humiliation in class, constant criticism from parents;
traumatic performance experience in the past;
low self-esteem - for example, the thought “who am I that others should listen to me”;
fear of being ridiculed, booed, misunderstood;
excitement imposed by “well-wishers” from the outside - if the speakers next to you are shaking, then they will probably shake you too;
states of depression, consequences of traumatic brain injuries, exacerbation of chronic diseases;
fears indirectly related to the fear of performing, for example, singer Katy Perry is afraid that the crowd will break through the cordon and enter the stage.

Learn from the best

This is the very case when copying someone is possible and even necessary.
To improve your oratory skills, watch lectures by famous people who often speak in front of the public. Pay attention to their gestures and facial expressions, the construction of phrases, and the techniques they use to communicate with listeners. If you are especially taken by a certain gesture, try to screw it in as well when the opportunity arises. You may notice that experienced speakers do not stand still, but move around the room from time to time. This makes it possible not to tire the audience and to rest a little yourself - anything is better than awkwardly shifting from foot to foot. In addition, they do not forget to smile slightly to win over the audience.

The best way to learn public speaking is through real-life examples—for example, attending professional conferences. There you can listen to cool speakers, expand your horizons, and immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the event.

Image: Anastasia Zagardinova

For example, you can plan a trip to the “404 Festival” - it will take place from September 25 to 26 in Samara. This year, representatives of Ecwid, Yandex, Raiffeisenbank, MTS Cloud, Tinkoff and other large companies will speak at 404. They will talk about mobile applications, front-end and back-end, product and project management, UX, management, marketing and content - in general, about everything that is interesting to those who have already entered IT or are just planning to do so. And the first day of lectures will end with a powerful afterparty with host Denis Kolesnikov, the creator of the Courage-Bambey project.

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Triggers for fear of public speaking

Anything can be a trigger for panic: it depends on a person’s past experience and his blockages. Triggers unconsciously trigger an anxious reaction, they are difficult to track, but then how to cope with the fear of public speaking? We need to get to the bottom of this.

3 main factors trigger a phobia:

Unknown . When a situation is new to us, we cannot control it because we do not know what to expect. The unknown triggers panic due to lack of control.
Risk . The higher the cost of failing a public speaking, the stronger the fear: at an important presentation, defense of a diploma, we are afraid of getting lost, forgetting the name of a complex concept, not answering tricky questions. The risk of losing authority and failing the results of complex work triggers fear even among experienced speakers.
External circumstances . In a state of excitement, we react sharply to external stimuli that we would not even notice in a comfortable situation. A cell phone ringing, someone's laugh, a cough, a sharp noise outside the window, a change of conference room, a delay in the start of a speech - any little thing can become a trigger for an anxious reaction.

Make sure you don't look nervous

Speakers who watch videos of their speeches almost always say, “Wow, I don’t look nervous, even though I felt that way.” “Remember, the public doesn’t see how you feel. They just see how you look and act,” Price says. When, as a speaker, you speak calmly and confidently (or at least pretend that you feel that way), you earn yourself a lot of points: they believe you, the public likes you. “When you are able to control your nerves, take the microphone and create a connection with the audience, you increase your career opportunities many times over,” Price concludes.

When fear becomes a problem

Not being afraid of public speaking at all is bad, since excitement and adrenaline rush are indispensable companions of an interested, inspired speaker. Adrenaline “ignites” the speaker, helps to catch the right wave, and infects the audience with interest in the speech. No emotions - no fire. Strong emotions make us move forward. Excitement is a great motivation to prepare and give 100% in front of the audience.

Adrenaline is a stimulant for a speaker, but in too large doses it paralyzes a person and deprives him of his will. The degeneration of excitement into panic becomes a real problem that can ruin your career and damage your reputation, which is why it is so important to take control of the situation.

Film yourself

Before you give a presentation to an audience, rehearse at home. The best option is to record your performance on video. This will allow you to highlight the strengths of the presentation and correct problem areas. It is not necessary to record the entire speech - you can break the speech into fragments of 5-10 minutes. While watching, try to evaluate whether you present the material clearly and whether you are using filler words and long pauses.

You can ask someone you trust to listen to your speech and share their impressions. Imagine that your interlocutor knows nothing about the topic of the speech, and your task is to explain the material to him in accessible words. If you can do this with one listener, then you can probably handle speaking in front of a large group of people.

How does fear of public speaking manifest itself?

The release of adrenaline into the blood is accompanied by a whole bunch of physiological reactions. The severity of symptoms depends on the level of stress:

high pulse and blood pressure;
severe fever or chills;
increased sweating;
tremor;
“cotton” legs and arms;
suffocation;
nausea, upset stomach, bear sickness;
voice problems up to complete disappearance;
muscle spasms, unnatural gestures, facial expressions;
"burning" or pale face;
fits of laughter;
fainting.

Create a strong beginning and ending

The start sets the tone for the entire performance. You'll only have a few seconds to grab everyone's attention: if you don't captivate viewers right away, they'll be glued to their mobile phones. Try starting with an interesting statistic or a powerful quote. You can ask a rhetorical question or tell a compelling story related to the topic of the speech. It is advisable that this be a real incident that happened to you or someone you know, but if nothing comes to mind, feel free to fantasize - after all, absurd stories can be quite captivating.

The ending also needs to be well thought out: towards the end of the lecture, the audience’s attention will again reach its maximum. You can summarize your speech by repeating the main points, or save a surprising fact for closing. Another option is a mystery ending. Ask a question or show a photo at the beginning of your speech, and explain what you mean at the end.

How to overcome your fear of public speaking

Having determined the nature of anxiety, we can work with it. Overcoming the fear of public speaking consists of 3 stages, each of which has its own effective methods and exercises that reduce stress levels.

Before the performance starts

Change your perception of the situation . If a performance is an ordinary formality that does not play an important role in life, there is simply no point in panicking. Think of it as just another not-so-pleasant work task. If performance is an important part of self-presentation, and a career, recognition, or future is at stake, then you will have to shift the focus to something less grandiose in order to reduce the degree of tension.
Shift your focus . Thought is material, so focusing on possible failure triggers an alarming reaction, and panic grows like a snowball. Just don’t let destructive thoughts enter your head, redirect them in a positive direction every time. Remember the bright speakers who made a great impression on you. Teachers, coaches, artists - what a thrill they get from interacting with the audience, what energy comes from them. Shift your focus from the terrible failure to the great pleasure of sharing energy with people. Having the opportunity to convey your ideas to the public is a great success.
Panic begins where there is no confidence in one's competence . When a speaker is deeply involved in a topic, then it is interesting for him to talk about it, and there is no fear of embarrassing himself in front of the audience. If you feel that you lack expertise, immerse yourself in studying the materials. It is important to be well-read and knowledgeable on the topic. Look for interesting stories, facts, research, look at your speech from the audience’s perspective: what might interest them, what questions might they have.
An outline will save the situation if you lose track or get confused due to unexpected outside interference. If the topic and situation allow, prepare a presentation - slides greatly enliven the speech, hold the attention of the public, and set the direction of the speech.
Practicing in front of a mirror or friends , recording yourself on a voice recorder or, even better, on video, gives a good effect Evaluate how you behave during speech, where you need to work on facial expressions and gestures, what speech defects and filler words should be removed.
If possible, conduct a rehearsal in the room where the performance will take place. You will get comfortable and reduce your fear of the unknown.
Don't torture yourself with perfectionism . Best the enemy of the good. How can you stop being afraid of public speaking if you are always trying to achieve an ideal where it cannot exist?! Any good performance is a live process, where you are not the only participant. Be flexible, see your presentation not as a rigid script with no room for error, but as a happy chance to share your knowledge and ideas.
Fear arises due to the release of adrenaline, which urgently prepares us to carry out the “fight or flight” command of the hypothalamus. To reduce the level of the hormone, you don’t need to run, much less hit anyone, but physical exercise about 15 minutes before going on stage will reduce tension.
Before going out to the public, do exercises to restore your breathing . Slowly inhale air through your nose for 3 counts and exhale through your mouth for 4 counts.

Overcoming fear while speaking

Criticism and alternative opinions are signs of a deep, multifaceted topic. Don't expect absolute agreement with your point of view. Be prepared to take your audience's criticisms in stride. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, but you are here to express your position. The emotions and criticism of the public indicate that you managed to touch a chord with them.
The famous Indian politician Mahatma Gandhi figured out how to get rid of his paralyzing fear of public speaking. He learned to express meaning in short but meaningful statements. Speak meaningfully, keep your speech rate low, take pauses - this will allow you to maintain calm breathing and hold the attention of the audience. When you are verbose, speak in a hurry, your breathing becomes difficult, your self-confidence disappears, the audience ceases to perceive information and loses interest.
Fear of performing has a lot in common with fear of heights. The rule of high-altitude climbers not to look down can be rephrased for speakers: do not look into the eyes of the audience. Direct your gaze just above the tops of the listeners' heads and periodically turn your head.
If panic sets in, find the most loyal listeners among the audience and focus on them. Showing friendliness nonverbally will help you cope with anxiety.

After the performance

After finishing your speech, mentally praise yourself for your courage. Concentrate on positive impressions, come up with a reward for yourself.
Once the emotions have subsided, conduct a constructive analysis of your speech. Note the successful moments when you felt a lively response from the audience. Disassemble failures without unnecessary emotions: what did not work out, and, most importantly, why. What was the mistake and how to fix it next time. For an objective analysis, arrange in advance with someone you know or the organizers to make a video recording. This is the only way you can correctly assess your speech, tempo, facial expressions, and gestures.
Sign up for any classes related to stage speaking. A theater studio, a journalism club, even a music school - everywhere they teach you how to behave in front of a large audience. Overcoming the fear of public speaking is a mandatory area of any public speaking course. Classes in a group of like-minded people are very effective: here you purposefully learn to manage your fear. American billionaire Warren Buffett panicked just at the thought of having to speak in front of people. This interfered with his studies and work on the stock exchange. He tried several times to enroll in a public speaking course, but ran away at the last moment. At age 21, Buffett realized that unless he controlled his fear, he would not be able to move forward, so he enrolled in Dale Carnegie's public speaking classes. The billionaire later told how he was helped by the realization that 30 course participants had the same problem and, like no one else, understood his feelings.

How we are afraid: about the signs and manifestations of phobia

“Long pauses add weight to speech.
“Then I am the most powerful king.”
Quote from the movie "The King's Speech", 2010

Fear appears a few days before the performance. A person can go over in his head the options why the public will not like the speech, think about what kind of criticism it will be subject to. In some ways, this feeling has an obvious benefit - it motivates you to better prepare and plan the details of your speech. But sometimes fear becomes very strong and manifests itself in unpleasant mental and physical symptoms. [1]

Physiological signs	Psychological manifestations
Voice clips (timbre, tone, volume of the voice changes, the voice trembles), sometimes stuttering and loss of the ability to speak	Excessive self-criticism
Muscle tension, tremors	Increased anxiety
Dry mouth	Panic attacks
Cardiopalmus	Forgetfulness
Blood pressure surges	Mood swings
Sweating	Suspiciousness
Dizziness, headache	Negativism
Nausea	Procrastination
Pressing pain in the heart area
Involuntary urination

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