Page 70 - PUBLIC SPEAKING_Neat

The quote by Mark Twain indicates that there are two types of speakers. The first
is the nervous speaker filled with fear during the speech and the second is the speaker
who can handle their nervousness.
According to national surveys and research results, “fear of public speaking (or
‘glossophobia’) ranks among the top dreads, surpassing the fear of heights, fear of
spiders, and even fear of death itself (Nikitina, 2011:14). That fact shows that some
people suffer from anxiety to speak in front of many other people.
Nikitina (2011) states that the anxiety and fright before the speech may not be
caused of the fear of public speaking itself but rather the fear of the audience’s reactions
towards the performance. It means that if that mindset cannot be handled, it can
interfere the speaker’s ability to perform the speech and end up with a failure in
delivering the speech. Here are some tips that can be used to reduce nervousness.
1. Deep breathing
Anxiety feeling can trigger such
physical reactions like our muscles
tighten, our heart rate increases, our
blood pressure goes up and our
breathing becomes shallow. Since,
our breathing is directly connected to
our emotional reaction, the fastest
and easiest way to control our
emotions and regain our confidence
is through deep breathing. Breathe
deeply before and during the speech.

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2. Shifting focus outwards
Paul L. Witt, PhD, assistant professor
of communication studies at Texas
Christian University states that people’s
worse performance is because people
focus too much on their physical
symptoms (e.g. butterflies, shaky hands,
sweaty palms). This can be solved by
shifting focus from how we feel or look to
the message we want to share with our
audience.

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64 | Public Speaking