Speech Anxiety Strategies

According to Rochester Community and Technical College's speech department, one in five people suffer from speech anxiety and public speaking consistently ranks high on people's top fears, often ranking higher than death itself. If you suffer from speech anxiety, it can cause problems in your academic and professional life, potentially limiting your career opportunities by making it difficult to secure promotions or even new jobs. Learn and practice a variety of strategies to keep your speech anxiety under control.

Symptoms and Causes

• Visible symptoms of speech anxiety include trembling, sweating, extremely fast talking and stuttering. You will probably feel extreme nervousness and may not be able to really keep track of and process what you’re saying. Often you’ll want to get the speech over with as quickly as possible to remove yourself from the situation.

  You likely suffer from speech anxiety due to the fear of messing up, which in turn causes you to fear embarrassment or ridicule from your audience.

Frame of Mind

• Convince yourself not to worry as much. Most audiences actually will ignore errors or awkwardness in speech as long as they find the material interesting. Think of your audience not as judges, but as your peers. They are there to listen to you, hear what you have to say and gather information—not to ridicule you and look for mistakes. Think of the speech more as a conversation. Unlike conversations, you have the benefit of being able to rehearse prior to a speech.

Preparedness

• Prepare your speech well in advance to give yourself adequate time to practice and reduce speech anxiety. Start by practicing in front of a mirror. When you feel more comfortable, practice giving the speech to your friends, family, roommates or any other people you aren’t as likely to feel nervous with.

  When practicing, do not focus on memorizing the speech. Instead memorize the important concepts and ideas behind your speech. Practice working from keywords and key ideas. Avoid memorizing and repeating the exact same sentence structure to make your speech feel fresh and original when the time comes to deliver it for real.

Psychological and Physical Techniques

• Use rational-emotive therapy to talk yourself logically through why your fear is irrational. Relax at home, and imagine yourself giving the speech to associate the feeling of relaxation with speech giving.

  Avoid consuming dairy or chocolate, as either can cause mucus to form. Avoid caffeine, as it can cause you to feel jittery. Dress as comfortably as the situation allows. Exercise before your speech. Go for a walk right before you speak, or engage in more vigorous activity earlier in the day.