When fear surfaces
You never know when stage fright will strike. It’s not just actors who feel it—we can all suffer from various degrees of anxiety when asked to speak in public.
The body’s response can be overwhelming—a pounding heart, dizziness, nausea, sweaty hands, and an acute awareness of every sound and movement. It may be the case that only some situations cause anxiety and other stages makes you feel right at home.
However, with 85% of people admitting to pre-speech anxiety (and the other 15% possibly hiding it), having a few strategies in your back pocket is a great idea. There are many anxiety-management techniques that can transform fear into a steady calm, helping speakers reclaim control as they step on the stage with unwavering confidence. This is one benefit of working with a speaker coach. They can help. In the meantime, you can also help yourself by adding these five tips to your presenter toolkit!
Make fear your friend
Matt Abrahams from the Stanford Graduate School of Business says the goal is not to eliminate anxiety but to manage it so it doesn’t spiral out of control. He recommends greeting your anxiety and recognising it for what it is, “Hey, this is me, feeling nervous because I am about to do something that matters.”
This works in every situation and acceptance is the first step to letting go of fear.
Use your superpower
When we feel stressed, our body pumps out adrenaline and cortisol. Luckily, we have a superpower to help offset our fight, flight, freeze response. It’s the Vagus nervous system, and here’s how to stimulate it.
- Slow, deep belly breathing. Breathe in through your nose for a count of six and out through your mouth for a count of eight.
- Hum, sing, or gargle with water.
- Immerse your forehead, eyes and at least ⅔ of both cheeks into cold water.
Boosts healing and improves our stress response over the long term.
Strike a pose
Dr. Amy Cuddy’s TedTalk on power posing is the second-most watched video on TED. She claims that by holding a power pose for two or more minutes, our bodies produce increased levels of testosterone (confidence) and this lowers cortisol levels (fear).
The two easiest poses are the Superwoman (stand tall, feet hip-width apart, hands on hips) and the Winner (stand tall, arms up in a V shape, fingers open wide).
Easy to do in the bathroom (don’t laugh) and both poses make you larger than life.
Step up and slow down
When we’re afraid, we step back and we speed up. So do the opposite. Step up to the front of the stage and close the distance between “you” and “them”. Slow down how you present. For example, in Amsterdam I started with “Hello. Good morning.” Then, I counted silently to five before continuing, “My name is Mishe Schemmann, and today we are going to…”.
I could take a few deep breaths and get my bearings, and my audience had time to settle and focus.
Embracing silence and giving your audience time to digest a key message is a win/win. Confident speakers don’t rush.
Reframe the situation
Presentations can feel like performances. And anyone who has ever performed music or theatre knows you must hit the right note or say the right line at the right time. Or it’s a mistake. Thankfully, that’s rarely the case in presentations. So relax and try to reframe the situation.
Dr. Alison Wood Brooks from the Harvard Business School researched how reframing anxiety as excitement has long-term positive effects that compound over time. Stand in front of a mirror and remind yourself how excited you are to have this great opportunity. This reframes your body signals from anxiety to excitement.
You can’t quickly change how you feel. You can change how you interpret those feelings.
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