How to overcome nervousness in public speaking

Jul 19, 2022

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Psychological tension is a very common physiological reaction. Everyone will be more or less nervous when they experience a performance on stage, host a meeting, speak in front of many people, or participate in important international competitions. Even a well-trained and skilled person can't escape the harm.

When people are nervous, they often stutter, tie their tongues, speak incoherently, feel dizzy and sweat cold, their legs tremble, their minds go blank, and the lines they prepared before have long been forgotten. Especially when I heard the restless "hush" sound from the audience, I felt even more uneasy, and I really wanted to find a crack in the ground to get in.

If you have the experience of being bombarded by the audience under the stage, then life is better than death, and you will forever be branded with a psychological trauma like a nightmare, which just proves that "once bitten by a snake, you are afraid of the rope for ten years". The thought of giving speeches on stage and speaking in public has long been afraid of running away.

Tension has its pros and cons, and a little tension can make us pay more attention and even perform better. But the vast majority of tensions do more harm than good, often making us misplay and miss out on great prospects.

And for people with poor mental quality, the tension can cause them to faint, which happens repeatedly in the driver's license test. Since tension has so many hazards, how can we better avoid tension?

I used to be a very stage fright person, afraid to speak on stage, afraid to speak in front of people. Later, after groping for the correct method, I was no longer afraid of taking the stage. I also hosted meetings of hundreds of people, and achieved good results.

Before overcoming tension, we might as well understand the causes of tension, which will help us better overcome tension.

How to overcome nervousness in public speaking

Four reasons for nervousness

①Inexperienced

One of the most common reasons for nervousness is inexperience, or no previous experience on stage at all. It's like crossing a river by feeling the stones, and you don't know what will happen next.

Not being able to grasp the rhythm, not knowing how to interact with the audience, not being familiar with the basic procedures of the meeting, and not being able to deal with emergencies calmly, this further exacerbated our nervousness.

②Unfamiliar with the content of the speech

We often lack confidence when confronted with unfamiliar territory and speech content.

For example, when we recite a text in school, if you recite it well, you can recite it fluently;

However, if you are not familiar with it, you will start to get nervous, and you will always bump into one sentence but not the next one.

When there is an audience in the audience, if you are unfamiliar with or have no confidence in the content of the speech, you will immediately get nervous.

③Afraid of making mistakes

People who have had the experience of speaking on stage usually have a common psychology - the fear of making mistakes.

People who are afraid of making mistakes are often troubled by Murphy's Law in psychology, and thus have no good fruit to eat.

Murphyslaw

It is saying that if there is a chance that things will go bad, no matter how small the possibility, it will always happen and cause the greatest possible loss.

The more afraid you are of making mistakes, the more likely you are to make mistakes. This is what we often say the more afraid of what, the more what.

It's like the more urgent things are, the more you can't get a car, and every car is loaded with people. When it's all right, several cars come with a wave.

How to overcome nervousness in public speaking

Frequent thoughts and thoughts, causing severe nervousness.

① Autosuggestion and hypnosis

Autosuggestion refers to giving oneself psychological suggestion or stimulation through five sense elements (vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch).

Autosuggestion is further divided into positive autosuggestion and negative autosuggestion. Negative autosuggestions include don't be nervous, don't make mistakes, don't forget words, etc., and are easily affected by Murphy's law and make mistakes, nervousness, and forget words.

So we use positive autosuggestions such as calmness, calmness, self-confidence, ability to do well, etc.

②Four assistants

Take a deep breath

Taking deep breaths and exhaling slowly can help us overcome nervousness.

sweating

The movement that can be released before going on stage helps us to relieve tension.

blood backflow

In the same way, before going on stage, please familiarize yourself with the venue, observe every corner, and constantly simulate on the stage. These methods will make you more familiar with the environment and reduce tension.

There is someone in your heart, and no one in your heart. This is the highest strategy of speech. Look down on everyone and ignore the people in front of you, but you must understand in your heart that you want to tell them, the podium belongs to you, you are the protagonist, and you can do whatever you want. This one can make you less nervous.
Preparation beforehand. Carnegie, Lincoln and other people who can talk, also need to make some preparations in advance. It's very simple, think about what you want to say, how to say it, and which examples to use. You probably know it, you don’t need to draft or memorize it. When no one speaks, you are endorsing.
Speeches are almost always improvised. Think about it first before you speak. You have to think through your brain before speaking. Use your mind to speak.
The speech should be organized, preferably with strong logic, so that people feel that it is reasonable and convincing. You must first be convinced by yourself.
Try to be as specific as possible and talk about what you are best at and most familiar with, so that you don’t feel like you have nothing to say, just make sense.
Seize the opportunity to exercise, whether in school or in the company, there are still many opportunities to exercise in public speaking. You have to seize these opportunities and don't make excuses for yourself.

How to overcome nervousness in public speaking

How to overcome tension in work and life?

Smile. When you're particularly nervous, put a smile on your face. To do this, relax your jaw, lift your cheeks, open your lips, lift the corners of your mouth upward, and say to yourself, "something interesting" in a light and cheerful rhythm, and it will make you realize The connection between face, heart and brain, the value of this connection is that the happiness in your heart and brain is reflected on your face, showing the happy expression you expect: relaxed, awake, alert, looking comfortable, and Gives a feeling of empowerment, as if you are truly relaxed and content. Studies have shown that when people smile, the message received in the brain is usually positive and can put the body in a state of relaxation and satisfaction; when people are in anxiety and fear, smiling can also have the same effect. Whether or not you realize the role smiling plays on self-control tensions, this "artificial" effort shows that the inner brain responds positively and effectively to external information without doubting its authenticity.
Send a positive message to yourself. Then, along with a smile, you need to capitalize on a positive message. It can be a positive statement, for example, "This situation is nothing but a reminder of my ability to turn tension into energy".
Use your imagination. Now, use your imagination. Picture a glade in your mind. On one side of the clearing is a cliff with a cave at the bottom. There's a backpack on your back that holds those tensions of yours. Put the backpack at the entrance of the cave and enter the cave. As you walk step by step, you notice that the cave is warm and cozy and very bright. Up ahead, you hear the sound of running water. Walking along the sound of water, you saw a golden goblet full of a crystal-clear liquid. This liquid is the energy you want to bring into your life. It flowed out of this goblet and poured out on the ground. You drink it with a toast. As you drink, you feel these energies filling your body. Incredibly, as you drink, the goblet fills automatically and keeps overflowing. The cup is never empty. What you desire is abundant, and that abundance will always be there for you. When you're full, put the glass back, thinking that you can come back anytime. Get out of the cave, get back into the sun, and slowly wake yourself up from the imaginary state.
Connect with how your body feels. Connecting to the sensations in your body means that you feel more relaxed than when you have identified the tension point and you have escaped the tension and turned it into productive energy. People often find themselves taking a deep breath at times like these. Right now, you might want to do that. But, whether you take a deep breath or not, imagine that your body is starting to relax and feel quite satisfied and comfortable while the things that are causing you tension are moving away from you.
Imagine the tension is going away. Take some time to imagine that you are moving away from the stressful situation, until you see in your mind that it is quite far away from you.
Return to the current activity. Finally, be ready to go back to the present. In this way, you have basically turned tension into energy. Nervousness is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as you know how to use it and transform it effectively, it can also become one of the energies that pushes you forward.

How to overcome nervousness in public speaking

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