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I once heard Jerry Seinfeld joke that, because the fear of public speaking outranks even that of death, the average person attending a funeral would rather be “the guy in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

This differs slightly from the majority of people who fear public speaking because their fear tends to revolve around going blank while speaking or feeling uncomfortable under the spotlight of their peers. The jitters or nerves of speaking in public are of course a problem for this group as well, but they are unfamiliar with that debilitating threat which is the panic attack, as they most likely have not experienced one before. Public Speaking and Panic AttacksSo how should a person with an anxiety issue tackle public speaking? Stage one is accepting that all these bizarre and quite frankly unnerving sensations are not going to go away overnight. In fact, you are not even going to concern yourself with getting rid of them for your next talk. When they arrive during a speech/meeting, you are going to approach them in a new manner. What we need to do is build your confidence back to where it used to be before any of these sensations ever occurred. This time you will approach it in a unique, empowering manner, allowing you to feel your confidence again. It is said that most of the top speakers are riddled with anxiety before speaking, but they somehow use this nervousness to enhance their speech. I am going to show you exactly how to do this, although I know that right now if you suffer from public speaking and panic attacks you may find it difficult to believe you can ever overcome it.

My first point is this and it is important. The average healthy person can experience an extreme array of anxiety and very uncomfortable sensations while giving a speech and is in no danger of ever losing control, or even appearing slightly anxious to the audience. No matter how tough it gets, you will always finish your piece, even if at the outset it feels very uncomfortable to go on. You will not become incapacitated in any way. The real breakthrough for if you suffer from public speaking and panic attacks happens when you fully believe that you are not in danger and that the sensations will pass.

“I realize you (the anxiety) hold no threat over me.” What keeps a panic attack coming again and again is the fear of the fear–the fear that the next one will really knock your socks off and you feel you were lucky to have made it past the last one unscathed. As they were so unnerving and scary, it is your confidence that has been damaged by previous anxiety episodes. Once you fully understand you are not under any threat, then you can have a new response to the anxiety as it arises while speaking. Defeating public speaking and panic attacks… There is always a turning point when a person moves from general anxiety into a panic attack, and that happens with public speaking when you think to yourself:

“I won’t be able to handle this in front of these people.” That split second of self-doubt leads to a rush of adrenaline, and the extreme anxiety arrives in a wave like format. If, however, when you feel the initial anxiety and you react with confidence that this is not a threat to you, you will move out of the anxiety rapidly. Using this new approach is a powerful ally because it means it is okay to feel scared and feel the anxiety when speaking-that is fine; you are going to feel it and move with and through the sensations in your body and out the other side. Because he or she is feeling very anxious, often before the talk has begun, that person may feel they have already let themselves down. Now, you can relax on that point. It is perfectly natural to feel the anxiety. Take for example the worst of the sensations you have ever experienced in this situation–be it general unease to loss of breath. You will have an initial automatic reaction that says: “Danger-I’m going to have an episode of anxiety here and I really can’t afford that to happen.”

Be friendly with your audience. Don’t be formal and stuffy. Begin your talk maintaining a simple conversational style. make use of humor as much as you can, but only at the right places. And please avoid stale and outworn jokes, which will merely increase boredom.

Bring your speech to a climactic end. Your ending words must be carefully crafted so that they continue to ring in the ears of your listeners even after you have ended.Urge them, exhort them to a course of action, and leave them wanting more.In other words, end with a bang. The age-old proverb “Practice makes perfect” is applicable to public speaking as well. Indeed, the more you practise, the better you become. Hence, whenever, you get an opportunity to speak, don’t shy away. You will gradually develop your self-confidence and oratorial skills if you put your mind on the spot.Surely, if you follow my public speaking tips sincerely, you will definitely become a good public speaker.

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