Public Speaking Fear — What Happens in Your Body When you Start Your Presentation

Do suffer from public speaking fear?

You’re standing in front of a group of people, ready to begin your presentation, and suddenly your brain feels empty and you can’t recollect anything that you prepared beforehand for your presentation. To make it even worse, your mouth goes dry so that you have difficulty swallowing and your voice starts shaking. And if that wasn’t enough, you start to feel sick, your legs and hands are trembling, and your heart is pounding so loudly that you worry everybody will hear.

Isn’t this exactly the moment when you need to be at your best and make a professional impression? You want the people to listen to you and recollect later what your message was. Not great when you’re a nervous wreck, is it?

Your body responds to public speaking fear with these uncomfortable behaviors that are left-overs from a time when early human beings were still in danger of attack by animals in the wilderness and other enemies. Even now, when you’re physically threatened, your body sends a distress signal out that triggers the “fight or flight” chemical in your brain, for your protection. This chemical is called adrenalin and is generated in the most primitive part of your brain called amygdala.

When you’re suffering from public speaking fear, the amygdala assumes you’re in danger and triggers the electro-chemical distress signal to get your body ready to fight the “threat” or run away from it.

As incongruent this response is to the “danger” of public speaking, your body isn’t aware of that. Here are a few ways it ensures you can either attack the “danger” or run away:

– The most primitive part of your brain, the amygdala, sends a message to your heart to increase the heart rate and to raise the blood pressure in your body in readiness for the attack. The consequence is that, when you’re anxious when you stand in front of your audience, your heart begins hammering.

– The blood in your stomach that is used for digestion in normal situations, is withdrawn because it is needed by the muscles to give them more power to either fight or run. This is why you may feel sick in the pit of your stomach that occurs with your public speaking fear. And if it’s your turn to give an after-dinner speech, you may not be very hungry. Not just because the food tastes lousy, but your body requires an empty stomach, in readiness for a quick escape.

– While the blood accumulates in the muscles it also drains from the brain. It may well be that for the amygdala it’s possibly more critical that you act when faced with a threat than to think about it. Thinking takes time. So, your mind becomes empty and you forget what you prepared to say. Have you ever been in a dangerous situation and when it was all over said that you couldn’t recollect what specifically happened?

– When you’re attacked by ferocious animal and you either need to fight it or escape, you need to have more air in your lungs. So, the amygdala signals to the lungs to boost your breathing. Now, as there’s no real physical threat when giving a presentation or a speech, the increase in inhaled air has to go somewhere and we breath out too fast. We begin hyperventilating and feeling woozy. In severe instances public speaking fear can lead to loss of consciousness.

– As your breathing is increased to give you lots of air to ward off your foe or escape, you don’t want to be suffocating on your own saliva. So, your brain stops the saliva production for this period and your mouth and throat get dry.

– This is one of the reasons your voice dries up. Another reason may well be that your brain wants to ensure that you’re as quiet as possible when wild animals are on the prowl.

These are all responses to fear that are inborn in us. They are instinctive and come from our ancestors. You don’t need to torture yourself about them.

But you CAN do something about them. You can learn some techniques that will help you get the better of your first public speaking fear. Good public speaking courses give you guidance on how to become calmer and self-assured so that you can benefit from
the adrenalin that is surging around your body.

Imagine, taking your public speaking fear and turn it into a passionate speech that moves and inspires people!