10 Public Speaking Anxiety Tips for Professionals
Ed Darling
9 min read
What you’ll learn:
- Practical tips for lowering public speaking anxiety.
- An actor’s technique for feeling calm on stage.
- How to shift your perspective on public speaking.
Long term public speaking anxiety tips.
Throughout my 20s, I struggled with severe social anxiety and glossophobia. It turned public speaking into my worst nightmare.
The long-term solution to public speaking anxiety is facing your fears, and training your public speaking skills in a supportive environment.
But in this article, we’ll cover quick tips to reduce your public speaking anxiety in the short-term. I tried and tested all the tips we’re about to cover, and they all helped me to eventually conquer my fears.
If you have a last-minute speech, an impending presentation, or just need some quick ways to curb your public speaking nerves, the following 10 tips will help you to keep cool under pressure.
Reduce your 'audience fear' by chatting beforehand.
One of the worst things anxious speakers can do before a presentation is hide themselves away.
In the hours before a speech, you should be out there, chatting, socialising, and talking with people. If you’re speaking at an event, chat with the organisers, introduce yourself to the other speakers, and mingle with the audience.
The more people you speak with beforehand, the less daunting it will feel to address all of them together.
It’s fine to take 5-minutes to centre yourself. Sometimes we need that bit of quiet and calm. But in general, it’s far better to be socialising and staying present, than taking yourself off to some dark corner to overthink things.
Prepare by making the stage 'known territory'.
As an actor, I always made a point of walking around the stage before a performance. It allowed me to gauge the space, get a feel for the venue, and visualise the theatre filled with people.
Doing this transforms the stage from “unfamiliar and daunting” to “known territory”.
I follow the same habit whenever I’m speaking. Whether it’s an auditorium or a training room, I’ll arrive early in order to walk around the space and familiarise myself. If time allows, I’ll walk through my opening lines, or practise a few sections.
Stepping on stage can be a daunting experience. But if you’ve already walked around and got comfortable in the space, it’s that much less difficult to do it again – when your audience is seated.
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Memorise your introduction for a confident start.
The first minute of a speech is the most challenging.
Your adrenaline is at its peak, and your audience are forming their first impressions. Get it right, and you’ll naturally settle into the rest of the speech. Mess it up, and it can be hard to win back your confidence (and the audience).
One of the best public speaking anxiety tips is to guarantee a strong start by committing your introduction to memory.
This is done by writing out your opening sentences, rehearsing your delivery out loud, and repeating this process until it’s fully committed to memory.
The more you rehearse, the deeper the ‘mental groove’ you form. At a certain point, your delivery becomes so ingrained, that regardless of your anxiety levels, it becomes almost impossible to go off-track.
Quick note: if your delivery feels “wooden”, you haven’t rehearsed enough… keep going until it flows naturally & feels spontaneous.
Use audience interaction to reduce your anxiety.
For severely anxious speakers, having a room full of people stare at you can trigger a nervous reaction that doesn’t get easier with time.
Rather than easing into things, your anxiety just continues to build up. Eventually, the panic feels overwhelming, and you either freeze up completely, or have to leave the stage.
(I know, because I’ve been there!)
We need to relieve the pressure of being the constant centre of attention, and an easy way of doing this is through audience interaction.
That could be:
- Asking a specific question.
- Calling for a show of hands.
- Instructing people to discuss in groups.
- Posing a rhetorical question.
- Or pulling up an image or video.
Audience interaction is a great tool for engagement, but it also gives you a few much-needed moments to compose yourself. If your public speaking anxiety is particularly severe, I’d recommend planning some audience interaction throughout your presentation.
Even just knowing that you have a “breather” coming up, can be enough to calm your nerves and keep things under control.
Focus on speaking to give, not speaking to get.
Let’s step away from practical public speaking anxiety tips, and look at perspective.
A major source of anxiety around public speaking comes from focusing on entirely the wrong things.
Nervous speakers tend to focus on what they need from the audience: praise, approval, acceptance, buy-in.
This immediately puts them in a dis-empowered position. They need something from the audience, and view the speech as their opportunity to get it – which automatically leads to worrying about not getting it.
In contrast, the best speakers don’t step on stage with this name “needy energy”. They’re not concerned with getting praise or approval. Instead, their entire focus is on what they can give: an insight, an idea, an emotion.
This puts them in a position of power. It helps them to stay calm, present, and focused on providing value to their audience.
“Speaking to get” is one of the most powerful public speaking anxiety tips. Be clear about what you’re there for, take your ego out of the equation, and use your desire to serve people to drive through any nerves or doubt.
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The simplest public speaking anxiety tip: have water on hand!
I was once hit by the dreaded ‘dry mouth’ half-way through a speech to 200 people. Although it didn’t derail me, it definitely got in the way of me enjoying the experience.
If you’re speaking for longer than a few minutes, always have water on hand.
Avoid large glasses, hot drinks, or anything that you’re likely to spill down yourself. A standard bottle of water is best.
Place it somewhere you can reach, or even keep it in your back pocket if the stage is large.
For extra points, time your sip right after a rhetorical question or poignant point where you would naturally pause anyway.
Okay, back to our next public speaking anxiety tip…
Let your body use the adrenaline.
Most of the physical symptoms of public speaking anxiety are produced by adrenaline.
The body is flushing you with stress hormones to fight or flight yourself away from perceived danger. This energy needs to go somewhere, so harness it for your performance.
That means moving around the stage, gesturing, and projecting your voice. Rather than letting that nervous energy spill-out in the form of shaky legs or a nervous twitch, direct it more intentionally.
This is especially useful if speaking on a stage, where you have room to move. If you’re sitting down, it’s less applicable. In which case, our next public speaking anxiety tip will be a more appropriate way to calm your nerves.
Learn conscious breathing to control your nerves.
For public speaking anxiety, conscious breathing is the foundation of control.
People underestimate the power of breathing because it doesn’t work the way they think. Breathing won’t immediately eliminate your nerves, or disperse your butterflies. Rather, it works on a more subtle level.
Think of an anchor keeping a ship in place, despite the storm still raging above water. In the same way, your anxiety might feel very real on the surface, but underneath, the breathing is keeping you grounded and secure.
If you struggle with excessive nerves that feel uncontrollable, learn to practise conscious breathing and make it a habit before any speech or presentation.
Share the lime-light with impactful slides.
If you’re uncomfortable being the centre of attention, powerful slides can be helpful to both you and your audience.
We feel more relaxed when the attention is taken off us a little. An impactful slide-deck can help to do exactly that. It draws the gaze of your audience, even as they listen intently to your message.
The more captivating, the better.
You can even plan a short video, a prop, or other media for the same dual-purpose of engaging the audience, and easing your nerves.
Pause for thought, pause your anxiety.
A dead give-away for nervousness is speaking too fast.
People with this tendency often find it extremely difficult to slow down. The adrenaline makes them speak as if they’re on fast-forward mode. It means their message gets lost, and the audience gets confused.
The solution is to learn the power of pausing – and I don’t mean momentary pauses while you gasp for breath. I mean ‘Obama-level pausing’ for at least 3–5 seconds. It feels daunting to try this when you’re already nervous, but doing so will allow you to feel more calm and in control.
The best place to start is at the beginning of any speech or presentation. Pause before you speak and take a breath. Then pause again after your first line. Start off slow and steady, and you’ll be less likely to end in a sprint.
The most vital public speaking anxiety tips...
Anxiety can be a huge challenge when speaking in public, but it’s something that almost all speakers experience.
So don’t lose hope, and never feel like you’re helpless to improve the situation. My final and most important public speaking anxiety tip is this: go and find somewhere to train, practise, and improve.
If you keep voluntarily facing your fears and improving your skills, ultimately, your nerves will begin to reduce.
In the meantime, use these public speaking anxiety tips the next time you need to speak or present. I hope they make your journey to confidence more comfortable. It can take energy and commitment to overcome anxiety, but the rewards are well worth it.
If you need further help, reach out and get in touch.