Anxiety is simply a state of increased fear or arousal. Some of us tend to be more anxious about public speaking because of our particular psychological traits, life experiences, or even genetic factors.2 Researchers have identified several factors that underlie the fear of public speaking: a lack of public speaking experience, or having had a negative experience; feeling different from members of the audience; and uneasiness about being the center of attention. Each factor can precipitate public speaking anxiety (PSA)—“a situation-specific social anxiety that arises from the real or anticipated enactment of an oral presentation.”3 Fortunately, we can learn techniques to tame this anxiety and make it work for us.
Lack of Positive Experience
If you have had no exposure to public speaking or have had unpleasant experiences, anxiety about what to expect is only natural. And without positive experiences to fall back on, it’s hard to put this anxiety into perspective. It’s a bit of a vicious circle. Some people react by deciding to avoid making speeches altogether, yet gaining more experience is key to overcoming speech anxiety.
Feeling Different
The prospect of getting up in front of an audience makes many of us extra-sensitive to our personal idiosyncrasies, such as a less-than-perfect haircut, a slight lisp, or an accent. We even believe that no one could possibly be interested in anything we have to say.
As inexperienced speakers, we become anxious because we assume that being different somehow means being inferior. Actually, everyone is different from everyone else in many ways. However, nearly everyone experiences some nervousness about giving a speech.
I control my anxiety by mentally viewing myself as being 100 percent equal to my classmates.
— Lee Morris, student
Being the Center of Attention
Certain audience behaviors—such as lack of eye contact with the speaker, pointing, or chatting while the speaker is talking—can cause us as speakers to think that we must be doing something wrong; we wonder what it is and whether the entire audience has noticed it.
Left unchecked, this kind of self-consciousness can distract us from the speech itself, with all our attention now focused on “me.” We then become more sensitive to things that might be wrong—and that makes us feel even more conspicuous, which in turn increases our anxiety! Actually, an audience rarely notices anything about us that we don’t want to reveal.
It’s always scary to speak in front of others, but you just have to remember that everyone is human. . . . Nobody wants you to fail; they’re not waiting on you to mess up.
— Mary Parrish, student