topic Bad Anxiety With Public Speaking in Anxiety

Bad Anxiety With Public Speaking

CathyMay — Mon, 15 Sep 2014 01:39:45 GMT

Hey Everyone,

I have really bad anxiety with Public Speaking.

I get hot, sweaty, dizzy and almost to the point where I need to be sick.

Does anyone have any tips that can help me through this?

Bad Anxiety With Public Speaking

white knight — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 14:09:22 GMT

Hi Cathymay,

Humour!! Find an easy quick joke and start off with it. Get them laughing and when you hear that you will relax more.

I was 17yo when I joined the RAAF in 1973 and I was required to address officers much older than I about film projectors. (old eh!!) I was petrified. I was given that advice and it worked.

Then throw in another joke at half time.

And dont eat curry before you start.....

Bad Anxiety With Public Speaking

CathyMay — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 00:54:02 GMT

Hey White Knight,

Thank you for replying.

I did a presentation the other night, was nervous but I got it done. I am so proud of myself. No doubt I will have to do another one I will remember your tips. 🙂

Bad Anxiety With Public Speaking

Neil_1 — Wed, 17 Sep 2014 00:55:44 GMT

Hi Cathy May

Welcome to Beyond Blue and thanx for providing your post.

Don’t know if you’re a fan of “Seinfeld”, but in one of Jerry’s stand up bits he comments about the fear of public speaking. He mentioned that people’s biggest fear in life is public speaking. Ahead of death!! So from that he said it’d be better to be the person in the coffin, as opposed to the one delivering the eulogy. Just a bit of comedic banter to pass on there.

White Knight’s policy of telling a joke to commence things IS a great piece of advice. I’ve also done this in the past and it not only gets the audience laughing, but it has a major impact on you – it relaxes you a lot also.

The other piece of advice I can give is to “know your topic”. Whatever you’re delivering on, it’s imperative that you know what you’re to be talking about – but having said that, “know your topic” can also come under the banner of you having “prompt cards” as well; just little tackers that fit in the palm of your hand and so if you do happen to get stuck somewhere, you’ve got your back up system just at an arm’s length away.

Thanx for this post again – I think an awful lot of people can definitely relate to your thoughts on public speaking.

I hope that our couple of responses have provided some benefit to you .

Kind regards

Neil

Bad Anxiety With Public Speaking

rain_cloud — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 15:10:23 GMT

Hello!

I used to be terrified of public speaking, was a painfully shy child, but then I went to uni finally and had to do them.

My face would twitch, shake, sweaty, quivering voice, all that. I finally realised instead of instantly letting dread be my overwhelming response ( because of the reactions) when I heard I had to talk until I had to talk, this could be weeks that what I was doing and had to do was giving a talk, not get anxious. I was certainly doing that too, but that was a side effect, not actually my purpose, my purpose was to give the talk. So if i got nervous and shook etc, okay that was happening but just like you still are breathing or standing or pumping blood while talking those things are not my focus or aim. My aim or purpose is to deliver the talk, and get it done and not give so much attention to the symptoms, whether they happen or not, does't really matter. Sure would be great if they didn't but guess what, when I stopped making them so big and bad and fighting them yet making them the main focus of all my attention, they started to go away. When I realised I have a job to do thats not being nervous, thats just a reaction on the side and I'm not a freak, most people got nervous, many were just as terrified. But once I just shifted my aim of focus and just let the side effects happened if they needed to and thats okay but not ALL I'm doing, I just got better and better and they didn't happen so much or often and I didn't mind if they did. Helped a lot! A huge lot!

Can deliver a talk no probs now, still get a few symptoms sometimes but they just do their thing and its no biggie. And the more you do one, and feel yay I did it, and good on you for getting it done!! you realise you can do it! You get more confident!

so your well on your way now, so don't worry if you get nervous, even people you think don't often do! They just do it anyway, and so are you!!