Cure Presentation Anxiety
Click Here to Cure Presentation Anxiety
DO YOU…
- have an immediate surge of fear and anxiety when you learn you need to do any public speaking or performing?
- attempt to avoid giving presentations or performances if you can get out of doing them?
- suffer from a lot of anticipatory anxiety thinking about your presentation or performance ahead of time?
- experience stage fright and feel very uncomfortable being “in the spotlight” when speaking or performing?
- worry about embarrassing yourself in front of others, fearful that people will see how anxious you are, or fearful you will mess up and look like a fool?
- feel a lot of inner turmoil or have you missed opportunities because of your fear of public speaking or performing?
If you do, you suffer from Performance Anxiety, also known as stage fright, or presentation anxiety. You are not alone!
Presentation anxiety is a response to fear. The feelings are so unpleasant that we want to avoid presentations altogether. We all experience presentation anxiety to some degree. You may recognize it as butterflies in your stomach, excessive sweating, dry mouth, short breathing, faster heartbeat. Everyone responds differently.
Some of us use the experience to energize ourselves and add spark to our presentation or performance. For others it’s much more serious, and can become debilitating. It does not even have to be “on stage” or “in public.”
Stage fright is very treatable. However, many people just suffer with it, and all the restrictions and negative emotions it imposes. They either don’t realize help is available; they fear they can’t be helped; or they think it will be too hard. Depression is a common result.
Click Here For A Natural Cure for Anxiety, including Presentation Anxiety
Some Causes of Presentation Anxiety
Anxiety is the anticipation of disaster, failure or fear.
Presentation anxiety is the product of a particular way of thinking about the performance situation, and a particular way of trying to handle it as well.
When it comes to presentations or other public performances, you may have an overwhelming sense of others watching and judging, and anxiety that “they think I’m stupid”. It is easy for these feelings to spiral into negative thoughts such as “I’m a total failure” . Suddenly our sense of self esteem gets confused with our performance.
Our unconscious, primitive brain thinks of the performance situation as a threat, rather than a challenge. Thinking of it as a threat sets off the “fight or flight” response which would ordinarily help you fight off a predator, such as a rush of adrenaline, diversion of blood to your major muscles, faster heartbeat, and so on.
Sometimes we can overwhelm ourselves by having unreasonably high expectations of how our performance or presentation should go. This perfectionist view can be very harmful and ultimately will lead to disappointment, since as human beings we are bound to make mistakes.
Avoidance makes things worse because we never have the opportunity to practice and learn. Giving the presentation and seeing that we can survive intact will help us build up our self-assurance for next time.
Prior negative experiences can lead to presentation anxiety, and can influence how we might think and feel about a similar experience even though it is in a new context. Being in a situation where others are watching, judging or criticizing can trigger feelings of anxiety or rejection associated with similar past experiences. As a result we may be over critical of our performance, focusing on everything that went wrong, until we feel we are “no good at it”. This sets up a vicious spiral: next time our anxiety levels are even higher and we are less likely to do well.
Lack of self confidence can affect thinking, feelings, behavior and body language. Labeling oneself unconfident means failing to appreciate the things we do well. Confidence comes from doing things and having a go, learning from our mistakes.
Tips for Managing Presentation Anxiety
Mental Rehearsal
Many people benefit from imagining themselves successfully engaging in the feared behavior, reducing their anxieties noticeably before they actually set foot on stage. To make this approach work you must first relax. Close your eyes and breath deeply. When you are aware of feeling relaxed, imagine as clearly as you can playing your part. Imagine what you see, what you hear, what the pick feels like in your hand. Remind yourself to breath deeply as you picture yourself performing while feeling comfortable on stage.
Repeat this imagination practice daily and you’ll likely experience less anxiety when the performance comes along in real life. You may have heard that this technique is now common practice among top athletes who learn to practice complex routines in their minds as a performance aid. It is equally helpful for all performance-oriented activities.
Accepting Uncomfortable Feelings
Expect, and accept, that you will feel anxious, especially at first. That’s normal. Allow yourself to have the anxiety! If you resist the anxiety, you’ll just make it worse.
Have an External Focus
If you are giving a talk, your focus should be your material and the audience reaction to it, because your task is to inform or persuade them. You therefore want to be aware of how they are responding, so that you can connect with them in various ways.
If you are giving a performance, your focus will be different. You are performing to entertain your audience. In this case, you can ignore the audience, and turn your focus to your music, or your character, and leave the audience to enjoy your performance on their own.
Where you don’t want your focus to be is on yourself and your anxiety. This is why it’s so useful to develop an accepting attitude toward the anxiety, to take a few steps to calm yourself a little, and then shift your focus to the task at hand.
Establish Rapport With Your Audience
If it’s appropriate, use eye contact and talk to them. Ask questions to involve them in your talk (i.e., How many of you here have ever had this experience…?) While your natural instinct will probably be to avoid the audience as much as possible, you will actually feel LESS anxiety once you get the audience involved with you.
Practice
The more you do the more you’ll feel like doing and the better you are likely to be.
Summary
Performance anxiety is normal and natural. Everyone who speaks or performs in front of others has some sense of heightened anticipation or nervousness prior to performing or speaking. By taking steps beforehand to manage your thinking, and practicing so that you have confidence in your ability to deliver the material, you can give better and better presentations.
This website cannot, and should not, stand alone as the sole medical or psychological intervention for any disorder. Any individual with a medical or psychological problem should first consult a qualified health care provider for diagnosis and professional advice. This website is intended only to provide general information and is not intended as an exhaustive source of information for the topics discussed. This website and these articles do not replace your relationship with any health care professional you are consulting with or consult with in the future.
