There are several potential causes of the fear of public speaking. Frequently it's about how you were treated as a child. Children are often told at home and at school to "keep quiet". This means they perceive speaking out loud as incorrect in some way; they are learning "not to speak". Hence, when we grow up and are asked to speak this provokes a conflict in your mind which is suggesting to us that speaking out loud is in some way "wrong". Hence we do not wish to do it.

Confident adult speakers are usually those who as children were encouraged to speak out loud, who were not restricted or told to keep quiet. If you are a parent, allowing your children freedom to express themselves when they are young will do them a great service for their adult life as they are less likely to be scared of public speaking.

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There are plenty of remedies for the fear of public speaking that are available right now in your home. They are simple to use, not dangerous and can have a significant impact on your public speaking confidence.

The first is fruit and vegetables that contain plenty of Vitamin B. The Vitamin B Group has been shown to help reduce anxieties, so eating bananas or potatoes is good. Fresh fruit and veg every day will help make you less stressed out when asked to speak in public.

Equally, so will plenty of water. Few people drink enough water - you need around eight glasses a day on top of any other drinks. And if you drink coffee, you'll need even more because coffee stimulates the loss of water from your body. Many people are actually mildly dehydrated and that means you could become anxious. People who drink lots of water each day tend to have less anxiety than others who do not drink so much.

Finally, eat pasta. Fresh pasta contains loads of carbohydrates which helps boost your energy but also helps change the chemical balance in your body producing more brain hormones that make you feel relaxed. Regular doses of carbohydrate can reduce your anxieties and therefore help you feel more able to speak in public without fear.

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Positive thinking really can change the way you deal with your fear of public speaking. Often public speakers are nervous because they have had so much negative thought going round their head.

For instance they think it will go wrong, the are sure they will forget their words and they are certain that no-one will laugh when they are supposed to. Such negative thinking means that it is inevitable that the speech will fail.

Positive thinking, however, ensures success. For instance, if you spend your time in the run up to the speech thinking that you will forget your words, you are making it likely that will happen. But what if you turn around your thinking and say to yourself that in the even you forget your words no-one will know because they have no idea what you were going to say anyway. This is dealing with the same issue in a positive way.

For all the negative thoughts you have that are leading you to have some public speaking fear, try to work out the positive alternative. The more positive thoughts you generate, the less nervous you will be about speaking in public.

Labels: confidence

Glossophobia is the technical term given to a severe fear of public speaking. People who suffer from glossophobia tend to freeze in front of any audience, even a couple of people. They find their mouth dries up, their voice is weak and their body starts shaking. They may even sweat, go red and feel their heart thumping rapidly.

If you suffer from glossophobia you shy away from any opportunity to speak in public. Your symptoms are usually so severe you get terribly embarrassed and fearful of any public speaking.

However, people with glossophobia can be cured. The first step is in understanding what your condition is caused by. Then a program of light physical exercise is next to help combat the hormonal causes of this phobia. After that, a simple management system is all you need to keep the condition at bay.

Labels: fear

Many people experience a fear of failure in public speaking. They are not fearful of public speaking itself; instead they are scared of looking foolish or appearing to fail in some way. It is this that prevents them from speaking in public.

The fear of failure is an anxiety brought on often by the way the person was treated as a child. They may have been chastised for failing to achieve certain results at school, for instance. Or they may have been told they do not live up to parental expectations. Whenever such individuals are placed in any kind of situation where they feel they are being "tested" these memories of the past trigger the anxiety.

If you suffer from a fear of failure in public speaking you need to address any issues from your past which could be affecting your performance and making you more anxious than necessary. Therapists can help you resolve issues of parental or school expectations which may be limiting what you can achieve. Alternatively, self hypnosis can assist you as well. But whatever you do, make sure you deal with the underlying cause of the fear of failure, otherwise you will never be able to confidently speak in public.

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The fear of public speaking can be brought on by trying to be too clever. Only recently I was at a meeting where someone had to speak for 20 minutes. He had clearly prepared his material to try and "make a speech". He had several props that he thought connected his message to his audience. The problem was that these props were difficult to manage easily, plus the speaker spent a great deal of time organising them, fussing with them throughout the talk and trying to get the audience to pay attention to them.

The speaker clearly thought his props were a great idea. His audience, however, had different ideas and thought his fumbling efforts were rather weak. Indeed, talking to people afterwards I discovered that the analogy the chap was trying to make with his props was seen as rather weak and "childish".

No doubt the speaker prepared well; no doubt he thought his ideas were excellent. The problem was the audience disagreed. Trying to hard to be different or original can take your "eye off the ball" for your talk. What the audience wants is to be able to listen to you and understand you. That means simply chatting to them.

If you try to inject "cleverness" of any kind into your talk you will end up being more nervous as you attempt to manage the props, the jokes and the other devices you have used to connect everything together. By being straightforward you will avoid such nonsense and will be more confident as a result.

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People who have a fear of public speaking often find it difficult to get started. They tend to "warm up" and take time to get going because they are nervous. Only after a while, when they have realised the audience is not going to attack them do they settle in to what they are saying and relax a bit.

However, you can cope with this kind of public speaking fear by ensuring you have a strong opening. What you need is an attention-grabbing start which you have practised several times so that you could do it without thinking about it.

Once you have that organised you start your talk with it. This will immediately grab your audience and you will see their keen interest in you, boosting your confidence and making you have less fear.

Labels: fear