Speech Anxiety Research

If any class I’m taking requires a speech that must be presented in front of others, I immediately dread the due date for that assignment. While the student, whose turn is before mine, is reciting his or her speech, I cannot help but feel my heart race and the palms of my hands begin to sweat. No matter how many times I take a deep breath and tell myself to relax, I still feel anxious. My anxiety towards public speaking has been happening to me since as long as I can remember. I was eager to take the PRPSA questionnaire to determine where on the scale my level of anxiety towards public speaking falls. To my expectations, my results for the questionnaire, a 98, was right where I figured it would be. I found my score to be accurate because yes,

The third chapter of a Pocket Guide to Public Speaking is about anxiety in relations to

Let me start by saying I was nervous, which in itself caught me by surprise. I consider myself a fairly confident person; I’ve always experienced butterflies prior to any public presentation but this was more than that. The nervousness led to other issues such as the vocal characteristics of my presentation. For instance, I stumbled on my words during the introduction, tongue-tied as it were. I saw the words in front of me but couldn’t seem to verbalize them. I stopped, re-grouped and moved forward. I continued with a number of vocalized pauses which prove not only

A study was done that showed men have more trouble and anxiety than women do speaking to another culture. When you get nervous about public speaking, your brain tries to help you by making your hands shake, knees quiver, and stomach flutter. Which really makes you more nervous than before. Whatever the reason of your nervousness, your brain gets conflicted. You want to do great, but you're not sure if you can actually pull it off. Your breathing increases, your adrenaline starts to pump, and your blood starts rushing through your veins. Then your anxiety starts up, with rapid heartbeats and perspiration

Three (3) techniques are ideal for practicing your speech and memorizing it very effectively. The first one is called the mental crowd simulator. To explain what it is in a few lines, we can say that it can be compared to daydreaming. You know, just like when you daydream while your favorite song is playing and at the same time, you are imagining yourself singing that song in front of a huge crowd? Well, this technique works the same way, where you have already memorized your speech, and you imagine yourself giving that speech to a large audience.

I was a very shy and quiet kid compared to others growing up. Submerged among my peers and lost in the crowd, I felt more at ease and found myself mostly at home where the attention drifted far away from me. However, when teachers asked me to speak before the class or answer questions, uneasiness flooded me as though I stood before hundreds of strangers. While speaking, my different bonds of friendship to each and every person sitting in the room disappeared as apprehension controlled me and my voice shook with fright. This fear of public speaking came from my experiences during the first few years elementary school. When I attended Mission Park Elementary School, in 5th grade unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy reading. After a few months in class

Public speaking used to be a daunting task that I would try to avoid as often as possible, often I would be the last to present a project and would refrain myself from having to read outloud. When I would speak my head would fill with thoughts of how other were perceiving me and how easy it would be to mess up. With this nervous mentality my speaking was stuttered and confusing.

All my life, I have suffered from generalized anxiety disorder, which can make it difficult to do mundane tasks and educational requirements. For example, giving speeches, taking exams and quizzes, and having to communicate with other students that I do not know. I have been sheltered most of my life, which causes things that would be considered basic to other people to scare me. After analyzing my anxious tendencies, I came to the conclusion that the root of my anxiety comes from having seperation anxiety from my Mother after my Father passed away, which made me scared to talk to people, resulting in speech anxiety. My main fear with my speech anxiety is that I will receive a bad grade on my speech or not do well enough academically. I strive

Speaking with limited time can be hard, but Matt Abraham’s speech about speaking with limited preparation, provided some great tips which I’m going to share with you today. The first tip I have to give you that if you organize before your speech and know what you are gonna talk about, the stress will be much less. The second tip is if you worry too much, you will think your speech is going to be substandard and then it will be. If you go up there with confidence and believe your speech is great, it will be great. My third and final tip is if you find a way to connect your audience, either through a joke or a physical action. It gives you confidence and helps you audience feel more comfortable around you. That is, the three tips I can give

For all those deathly afraid of talking in front of unknown strangers, here are some ways to help while presenting, and feel a little less anxiety, I hope. I recently watched the Ted Talk titled “How to Spot a Liar” by Pamela Meyer. This Talk was very intriguing and made me think about myself, which is something I like after watching a speech. But as I was watching, I came over some characteristics of an effective speaker and speech.

I hope to control my anxiety while speaking in front of a group, since there might be a situation in my field that requires me to inform others of daily logs or protocols. It would be fulfilling to get others passionate about a subject that I favor and means a lot to me, as well as presentations are an expected process in future classes and need to be mastered.

I have learned to project my voice better, while maintaining a firm position. These things have help me focus more on giving the speech than worrying about myself. I still need to work on calming myself down during my speech. I will be able to do this by collecting my thoughts beforehand and remind myself that I know my topic. I am giving the speech to let people know what I know about my topic.

Taking deep breathes before your speech is one good way to build your confidence. Doing so can help you calm down if you are really nervous. No matter how much you prepare for your speech you will be nervous before you get up and present and taking a few deep breaths in and out is a good way to calm your nerves. Another way to boost your confidence and also calm your nerves a bit is to drink water. It may seem a bit odd but it is very important to be hydrated before a big speech because your nervousness causes your mouth to dry up. Anderson (2016) suggests you drink about a third of a bottle of water before you give your speech to stop your mouth from getting dry. Those are a few simple things you can do to become more confident while giving a

Another interesting experience that helped me gain confidence was my speech communications class with my professor, Mrs. Larson. I knew I didn't have any trouble with talking to a group of people. I love to tell jokes and stories to many people at one time, but I was nervous and somewhat embarrassed about preparing some boring speech and making everyone else suffer by listening to it. Mrs. Larson explained that we all have problems with this and that it can be overcome. I remember something simple she said that stuck in my mind: "The only way to get over the fear of something is to just do it." She was right. As I had to go up to give the speech, her words constantly kept running through my mind. After the speech, I realized that we were all in the same boat suffering from the same seasickness- nervousness, We all had to give speeches. No one was out to criticize anyone else and we all ended up supporting each other! I learned that I could make a "boring" speech interesting if I have fun with it and feel comfortable as the speaker of the moment.

I used the search engine Google with the search term “public speaking fear” and it brought up a great deal of interesting websites pertaining to public speaking. The first one I decided to peruse was 5 Tips to Reduce the Fear of Public Speaking on Psychology Today’s website. I learned that public speaking is the number one fear in America, while the fear of death is second in line. This means that we’re more afraid of speaking in public than we are of dying. I also learned five tips on how to reduce public speaking nervousness.