14.2 Managing Anxiety

Where do you fit on this scale?

1. You feel no physiological reactions at all to giving a speech; you are so relaxed that giving a speech is the same as watching television.
2. You feel some anxiety, but it’s low enough that the audience doesn’t notice.
3. Your anxiety is noticeable to the audience, but doesn’t interfere with the speech, and perhaps produces a little sympathy in the audience.
4. Your anxiety is so bad that it ruins the speech and makes the audience annoyed.
5. Your anxiety is so bad that you feel like you’re going to die at the podium, and you pass out mid-speech.
6. You actually die at the podium.

I don’t think Level 6 actually exists; if anyone has actually died while giving a classroom speech, I haven’t heard about it. I’m also doubtful that Level 1 exists: it’s likely that you’ll have at least some physiological reaction to giving a speech. So what looks like a 6-point scale might really be a 4-point scale, and if you’re at Level 2 or 3, that’s not a significant problem. If you’re at Level 5, the advice in this chapter will probably not be enough for you, and it may be time for some intensive coaching and/or medication. This section, then, is about Level 4, and how to get it down to 3 or 2.

Who is at Level 5? Even the words James Earl Jones used to describe his mute days weren’t that dramatic (he just said that his stutter made speaking more trouble than it was worth). King George VI of England, whose plight was depicted in the semi-fictionalized 2010 movie The King’s Speech (mentioned in Chapter 5), was definitely at Level 4 early in his time as monarch, but with work he reached Level 3. (If you don’t want to rely on the movie depiction, you can hear the real king speaking here).

If you take out the audience reaction component and the risk of fainting, and only look at the fear, who suffers from severe stage fright? That list includes Adele, Rihanna, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, Laurence Olivier, Peter O’Toole, and even the greatest orator in Ancient Rome, Cicero (who wrote: “I turn pale at the outset of a speech and quake in limb and in all my soul”). The important thing about all of these people is that they kept performing anyway.

How did they do it? Along with individual techniques, they must all have one thing in common: the desire to communicate their message overrides their fears. So that’s the first thing for you to keep in mind if you “quake in limb” when you get up to speak: focus on what you have to say, instead of on yourself. Stage fright can lead to a vicious cycle of increasing self-focus, obsessing over how you think you look or sound instead of focusing on your message. To me, the most anxiety-reducing thing I can tell myself is, “I have something valuable to say.” If I’ve prepared my message well, I know it’s true.

Imagine ordering a pizza one night, and in 20 minutes the delivery person is there with your nice warm supper. Do you care if her hands are shaking, her forehead is sweating, and she fumbles her words a little? Not if she brings the pizza you wanted, right? If the customer gets the food intact, nothing else matters. Think of the pizza as your speech; if it’s full of content that your audience finds nourishing and satisfying, they’ll be forgiving.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the symptoms of nervousness are probably not as obvious as you think they are. A sweaty forehead and shaking hands might be visible to an audience, but what about the fact that your stomach is doing flips? Can they see your heart pounding? Even anxiety symptoms that are detectable to the audience are probably not that detectable; people have to be pretty close to see your hands shaking. (How did Cicero know he turned pale, anyway?) In a public speaking course with 25 students, many of them think they are the most nervous speaker in the whole class, which tells you that they can’t tell how nervous their classmates are; from their perspective, everyone else looks calm at the podium.^[1]

Knowing your own unique anxiety symptoms is an important starting point. First, it can help you figure out what to prepare for: Does your mouth dry out? Don’t go to the podium without a full bottle of water. Do you sweat profusely? Have a handkerchief at the ready. Does your stomach get upset? Don’t eat before a speech. (This is one of my symptoms, and made me pass up a hot meal before my speech at my son’s wedding; I’d rather eat cold food afterward than have my stomach distract me during the speech). If you know your hands get sweaty and trembly, don’t count on holding things; find a music stand to rest your notes or phone on, and maybe skip the props you thought would make good visual aids if there’s a high risk of you dropping them.

Speech anxiety is an evolutionary anomaly. Your body evolved numerous mechanisms to help you in stressful situations, and many of them belong to the “fight-or-flight” category. Long ago, if you came across a saber-toothed tiger, it was good that your body pumped you full of adrenaline to help you either run faster than you’d ever run before or fight that tiger head on. Responding to a speech situation in the same way, however, isn’t much help; you shouldn’t get in a fight with your audience, nor should you sprint out of the room. Just when you need your mouth to work at its best, that’s when all the saliva dries up and your throat closes? Thanks, body! Will you have to stand for ten minutes to give your speech? Having all the blood in your body leave your brain and pool in your feet (known as vasovagal syncope, in case you thought it was just you) won’t be helpful. Even the thought that your body is going to turn traitor on you at the worst time can make your anxiety worse than it already is.

So what helps? First, think of that nervousness as a form of energy. The specific symptoms may be counterproductive, but the underlying idea — that your body wants to give you energy to prepare for something important — is a good one that you can use to your advantage. Can you take that energy and channel it differently? If you can’t sleep the night before a speech, is that a chance to do more preparation? Will that energy make you more animated and engaged at the podium? If it’s more energy than you need, figuring out how to burn off some of it in advance — in the form of a brisk walk, or pushups — can help, as long as you time it right (don’t show up breathless at the podium).^[2]

In other words, instead of framing the problem as symptoms you need to suppress, frame it as controlling and capitalizing on the gift of energy your body is giving you. Also remember that, while you can’t slow your heart rate down or make the adrenaline stop pumping, you can always control your breathing, and long deep breaths can work wonders.

Beside for compensating for your own unique set of symptoms, what else can you try?