We’ve covered 8 of our 10 tips for reducing anxiety about public speaking, and hopefully, you’ve had a chance to practice a few. Here are two more for your toolkit, and they both have do with breathing.
9. Control Your Breathing.
When we feel nervous before we speak, our body reacts with shallow breathing. This makes us sound breathless, and when we hear ourselves sound this way, we think that everyone knows we’re nervous. That, of course, makes us feel more nervous!
To interrupt the shallow breathing cycle, try controlled breathing.
Put your shoulders back and inhale deeply. Try to inhale down into your abdomen. You’ll know you’re doing this if you place your hand lightly on your abdomen and it rises slightly as you inhale.
Exhale for a few seconds longer than you inhale. This empties your lungs so you can draw a deep satisfying breath the next time. When we can fill our lungs and inhale deeply, we start to feel more relaxed.
Do this three times before you speak to break the anxiety cycle.
10. Plan your breathing.
Sometimes we start well, but forget to breathe regularly during the speech. When that happens we run out of breath in the middle of a sentence, or push to the end and sound breathless.
Try this: look over a copy of your remarks, and plan when to breathe. Read your script and insert slash marks where it feel natural to breathe.
If you don’t have a script, then look over your notes or PowerPoint, and enter frequent reminders to breathe on your personal copy. If you give yourself permission to pause and breathe, you will break the shallow breathing cycle and look and feel more confident.
That’s completes the stategies for becoming more confident about public speaking. Our next topic is getting more focused when you speak, and our first post on that topic is a Focus Formula that you can use immediately in any speaking situation!
]]>Strategy 7: Reduce your caffeine intake
If you are sensitive to caffeine—and many people are—this is very important. Caffeine makes your heart beat faster. So does feeling nervous. The end result is that a big dose of caffeine can make you feel more nervous than you really are.
A good guideline is to reduce your caffeine by 50 percent in the four to six hours before you speak. You can either have fewer cups of coffee, tea or cola, or you can cut your regular coffee with decaf or alternate regular and caffeine-free cola.
Another effect of high caffeine levels is shaky hands. If you feel your hands—-or your knees— shake–you will probably be convinced that everyone else can see it too, which is probably not the case. But your body will respond to your belief, and you will become more nervous.Because caffeine is a stimulant, it also revs us up to talk faster. This makes you sound like you’re racing through your remarks because you’re uncomfortable.
Use caffeine in moderation and aim for the middle ground—a speaker in a state of pleasant alertness and positive energy, not a jittery, heart- pounding, speed-talking presenter.
Strategy 8: Practice Frequently!
The reason athletes and musicians practice frequently is that it improves their performance. It’s no different with speaking. You can revise the old saying that “Practice makes perfect” to say “Practice makes improvement” because we’re not striving for perfection, but we are aiming for improvement!
A formula suggested by some speaking experts is to apply the 7:1 ratio. After your material is completely prepared, practice at least seven times for one delivery. You can practice once a day during the week before your presentation.
If you are speaking at a team meeting and your remarks are brief, speak them seven times in the few days before the meeting. If that sounds like a lot, remember what we said earlier: many experts believe that anxiety about speaking can be reduced as much as 70 percent with thorough preparation!
As you grow more confident, you will need less practice except for entirely new material.
That’s it for now. Next time we’ll wrap up the list of ways to reduce anxiety with two final strategies. In the meantime, pick one of the first 8 and start to put it into practice!
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5. Memorize three parts of your speech.If you know exactly how you will start, how you will end, and how to get from one chunk of your presentation to the next, your anxiety will go down. So if your speaking is scheduled in advance, you will want to memorize your opening, closing, and transitions. This provides a built-in comfort level for the critical points in your remarks.
You;ll want to memorize several sentences at the beginning and again at the end. And memorize smooth ways to transition from one segment of your presentation to the next. Remember: you don’t want to memorize all your remarks. It will only increase your anxiety, and won’t sound natural
6. Practice smart. Always practice out loud. You don’t want the first time you hear the remarks coming out of your mouth to be the time it counts. You do want the sound of your voice speaking your remarks to sound familiar. If you’ve practiced out loud, you’ll have that feeling of, “I know this.”
Another important reason to practice out loud is timing. It takes at least 25 percent more time to speak your remarks than it does to say them in your head. Practicing out loud avoids the uncomfortable position of running out of time before you reach your conclusion. If you work with a public speaking coach, you can expect to do a timed practice.
There are many more ways to reduce anxiety, but these two additional strategies should get you well on your way to being more confident about public speaking.
Next time: Tips 7 and 8 for reducing anxiety about speaking—and one of them is so easy to implement you can start immediately!
For more information about presentaton skills training and coaching, visit www.maureenmurrayassociates.com
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In our last post, we talked about two ways to reduce anxiety about public speaking. Here are two more strategies. Remember, different strategies work for different people. Our goal is to equip you with an entire toolkit!
3. Look at your “allies.”
Your allies are people who communicate through body language that they care about your message. They lean forward, look interested, nod, take notes, and ask thoughtful questions. Look right at them because their positive energy is highly contagious, and it will increase your confidence.Avoid spending time looking at people who are non-allies—-people who look disinterested, don’t maintain eye contact, check messages, or look at you in an intimidating manner. Simply don’t make eye contact. Trying to befriend non-allies drains your energy. You can develop allies by arriving early and greeting people. Casual conversation can translate into friendly faces.
4. Use positive self-talk.Anxiety about your presentation skills gets worse if you think you’re going to make a mistake or look nervous in front of the group. Self-defeating thoughts also drain the energy you need to connect with your audience. If negative thoughts enter your mind, replace them immediately with positive thoughts. Don’t linger on energy drainers for even a minute. Tell yourself, “My presentation will go smoothly and be well received.” Your mind accepts what it hears often. If people tell you you’re good at something, you’ll start to believe it and develop confidence. The reverse is also true. If you frequently tell yourself that you a poor presenter, you will definitely start to beleive it, and you will feed your own anxiety. Prime yourself for success with affirmative statements—it works.
In our next posting we’ll talk about two more ways to reduce anxiety before public speaking and increase your confidence about your presentation skills.
For more information about presentation skills training and working with a public speaking coach to improve your presence and poise, visit www.maureenmurrayassociates.com
]]>If you feel anxiety before a public speaking event, you have a lot of company. Presentation skills trainers say that more than 80 percent of us sometimes have serious bouts of “nerves” before we speak in public —-whether it’s to an audience, workplace team, or one-to-one with a client or prospect. Feeling anxious is a natural reaction to being the center of attention and to thinking that you are expected to “perform.”
We’re not born with great presentation skills. Becoming a confident speaker is a gradual process just like learning to play a sport or an instrument. It’s important to remember that there are many ways to reduce the fear of public speaking.
Our first five posts will tackle this concern by providing two strategies in each entry. In a short time, you’ll have a total of 10 tools to help you become a more confident public speaker. So let’s get started!
1. Think “inform”—-not “perform.” It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking we’re “on stage” when we speak. That just feeds our nervousness. Switch mental gears and tell yourself that your goal is to provide information—to inform—rather than to deliver a perfect presentation.
This takes the focus off you and puts it on your message. Instead of worrying about your performance, you’ll spend time on your content so your message stands out. You’ll be thinking of the best way to explain something so your listeners understand your meaning. Thinking about your message first and your delivery second will help you start to relax about public speaking.
2. Consider speaking as service.
A closely related way to manage anxiety is to consider how your message serves others. Does it make their jobs or their lives easier, reduce their stress, or support career development? When you know how your remarks help others, you automatically reduce the pressure on yourself because you’re busy thinking of your listeners. If you’re really focused on helping, there’s not as much time to worry about yourself.
People who genuinely want to serve others—people in “helping mode”—come across as very authentic speakers. The more “real” you are, the better your sudience will respond to you. People can sense when you sincerely want to help them in some way, and they appreciate it. Shifting into this mindset is another way to redirct your focus from yourself to the audience. In most cases, you will automatically start to feel less anxious.
Next time: Two more strategies to reduce fear of public speaking.
For more information about presentation skills training and coaching, visit www.maureenmurrayassociates.com.
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