How to overcome the fear of speaking in public

People are afraid of speaking for various reasons: some have been taught to speak quietly and not make noise in public places from childhood, others deliberately avoid a wide audience, afraid to look ridiculous. Statistics show that such a phobia is in second place after the fear of death in the world classification.

Stage number 1. Full-scale training

1. Write a speech and carefully rehearse, memorize every word. Practice at the mirror so you can see your face and control facial expressions. The fear of the unknown is closely connected with the fear of speeches, so it is important to know in advance in which place the meeting will take place.
2. Explore the audience, take an interest in the hobby and lifestyle of the audience. Find out what listeners expect from the performance. Similarly, you can adjust the speech to their interests, forcing yourself to listen. Information is power, be strong! Eliminate the unknown, it absorbs 9 out of 10 speakers.
3. Rated audience? Well, now you need to build a speech, observing a certain style. Do not put it in an abstruse scientific language if the listeners are ordinary people. Such a lecture is extremely boring, you want to sleep from it. Express yourself in simple words that will be understood by those present. Do not use complex terms, if you are not going to give them explanations, avoid slang words and complex logical chains. Completely exclude words whose meaning you do not understand, so as not to blunder.
4. Build on your own fear - the stronger it is, the more thorough the preparation should be. Be sure to go through the text and make an approximate list of questions that students can ask. Prepare preliminary answers. In cases with graphs and tables, check the text for compliance with the numbers drawn on paper, eliminate the discrepancies.
5. When everything is ready, take a comfortable pose and close your eyes. Scroll through difficult situations in your head in which you feel confident. Remember this condition and try to transfer it to public speaking. Stand up straight, take a deep breath and exhale, deliver a speech in a distinct voice.
6. Invite a relative or acquaintance as a listener, you can call several people. Choose people who are versed in topics so that they can objectively evaluate your oratory and speech in general. Friends will point out the shortcomings, ask relevant questions.
7. Examine the premises of the future performance, go to the podium, walk around the stage and determine the place where the audience is clearly visible. Find out about the presence of a projector aimed at you; in its absence, the faces of the audience will be clearly visible. Having been in the audience for even 10 minutes, you will ease your task, you will be able to think in advance about the position of the body and the specific location on the stage.

Stage number 2. Meditation

1. Focus on your own breath for 15 minutes. Take a deep breath, feel the air enter the lungs, hold your breath for 7 seconds. Exhale slowly and freeze again. Such exercises are used by the guru of oratory, they help to relax and calm the raging nerves.
2. Exercise is excellent in relieving stress. Sitting on the couch, tighten the upper thigh muscle of the right leg, focus on it, linger at the end point for 5 seconds, do the same with the left leg. You can also go for a run, push yourself off the floor or shake the press.

Important!
Do not resort to tranquilizers and stimulants. With an increased dosage, the drugs will begin to act aggressively on the brain, leading you into a inhibited state.

Stage number 3. Comprehensive support

Arrange with friends or relatives to provide all kinds of support. Patches on the shoulder, words of reassurance or a strong hug are suitable. Ask them to buy tickets to different points of the hall, so that wherever you look, there will be a familiar face everywhere.

Do not start talking until you find friends through the eyes, otherwise you risk getting even more nervous. In cases where relatives cannot attend the speech, look with the look of the most interested listener with a kind face.

Stage 4. Nonverbal component of the performance

The non-verbal part includes facial expressions, gestures, intonation and timbre of the speaker’s voice, his manner of speaking, syllable and distance from the speaker to the listener. Your audience will draw information from all these components, so prepare a wardrobe in advance. Do not dress too fanciful or expensive if it is designed for average citizens.

Since you have already studied the audience, try to choose clothes like ordinary people. Let them know in you "your man", to which they listen, value, respect. As for facial expressions, gestures and intonation, they should be worked out to the smallest detail.

Stage number 5. Being on stage

You can calm down before the performance, study the audience and memorize the speech, but you need to be able to behave on stage. It is important to identify the growing panic and suppress it in time. A number of recommendations will help you with this.

1. Scroll the encouraging phrases in your head: “I always dreamed of speaking in public, cheers, it happened!” or "I like to speak in front of a large crowd of people." I’ll also come up with standard expressions: “I will succeed”, “I can speak at the highest level.”
2. Accept fear, you have the right to excitement. Do not overdo it so that an oppressed state does not occur that will cloud the mind. Let the public know that you are worried. In this way, you will take responsibility off if the situation does not go according to plan. It is impossible to abuse the trust of listeners too often, the method is effective only in the initial performance, when other methods have been ineffective.
3. Give up improvisation, do not embarrass yourself. Answer tricky questions as banal as possible in order to merge with the general background. Until you yourself want to talk to people, do not get into difficult situations. Everything comes with experience, now you do not need to answer an endless stream of questions.
4. When the room is full of businessmen who are well versed in the topic, tension can go through the roof. Do not look into the eyes, focus your eyes on the interbrow zone. Imagine seated men and women with white rabbits or fairy-tale characters. Think about positive things, do not pay attention to serious faces, if you are sure that the performance is excellent.

The event is just around the corner, but are you still experiencing fear? Calm down, resort to meditation, increase physical activity. Carefully study the audience, visit the venue, and go on stage. Rehearse your speech in front of the mirror in advance, invite your friends to preview it. Refuse from impromptu, do not get into tricky situations.

Video: methods for overcoming excitement during a performance