If you suffer from a fear of public speaking then you know that even the thought of standing up and speaking to a room full of people is enough to give you sleepless nights. In fact it has been said that some people fear death less than they do standing up in front of others which is an extreme phobic reaction. So I have put together five tips that can help you to beat Public Speaking Anxiety and become a more confident person no matter what situations you are in.

Prepare and Practice

There is no point in just hoping that you can stand up in front of a group of people and deliver a speech without any thought or practice. It takes effort to get things right so firstly you must prepare well. If you have to deliver a talk to your work colleagues then spend some time planning exactly what you are going to say and in what order. Create a list of bulletin points that you can refer to when you speaking and make sure that you know exactly what you are going to say around those points. Check any statistics or numbers and make sure that everything adds up correctly and get a friend or colleague to look over what you are going to say.

When you have completed the preparation work now start to practice. You can start on your own at first and look at your delivery in the mirror but if you can rope in some family members or friends to listen to your speech all the better. Practice makes perfect. Remember that even famous people can suffer with nerves related to public speaking notably Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman. Never practice for perfection instead practice for competence. You do not need to be the funniest or wittiest person in the room but it would be great to deliver the talk or speech competently.

Breathe Slowly

When people feel anxious one of the first things that they do is start to breathe too quickly. This fast shallow breathing can lead to you feeling faint or dizzy and trigger adrenaline to be released. Remember to take your time and breathe calming and slowly. There are plenty of breathing techniques which can help on YouTube that can assist you. Learning self hypnosis can also help by getting both your mind and body into a totally relaxed state. This form of relaxation can assist in reducing any triggers for a public speaking phobia.

Typically our clients who need help beat public speaking anxiety report that they experience negative thoughts, anxiety, low confidence and panic when they think about talking in front of others. This is why we have created our Ultimate Stop Public Speaking Anxiety program which helps our clients to reduce their excessive worry, manage their panic and fear and build their confidence so that they can talk with ease. You can purchase our program consisting of five mp3 downloads in our online store today.

Choose Where You Place Your Focus

Typically a person with a fear of public speaking will focus their thoughts inwardly on how they feel. They will worry if they are breathing too fast, if they are hearing their heart beating too fast or if their speech seems shaky or nervous. The more they focus internally the bigger the panic becomes until they start to feel intense feelings of anxiety which can cause them to freeze or even leave the room.

This particular problem can be halted in its tracks if you choose to focus thoughts externally instead. Choose a friendly face in your audience and focus on them instead.  Or alternatively guide your focus to a spot or a point in the room and be mindful of exactly what colours, textures and shapes you can see there. If a negative voice in your mind tries to get you to focus internally just ignore it and refocus your attentian to the external person or object. You can even say the words relax and calm in your mind slowly over and over again to remind yourself to not let unhelpful internal thoughts take control.

Use Visualisation Techniques to Deliver the Speech you Want

A typical client that we see with public speaking anxiety has been practising negative visualisation possibly for years. What do I mean by this? Simply put it means that instead of seeing themselves delivering their talk well they have created visions of disasters in their mind. That means they will have seen themselves stammering and stuttering, freezing on stage, the audience laughing at any pauses or slip ups and everyone talking about how badly things went. The reality of speaking in public is far more mundane in most circumstances.

So instead of creating catastrophic disaster scenarios we ask our clients to spend a couple of weeks imagining the best possible scenarios. That means speaking freely and easily, the audience smiling and people clapping or at the very least showing their appreciation for what they have been told. When you mentally rehearse the very best possible solutions you can change the way you think.

See a Professional

Finally in some circumstances it pays to get professional help. This is because with some of our clients the negative response or their phobia for public speaking is so intense that it can only be changed by dealing with whatever is bothering the subconscious. Think of the subconscious as your bodyguard. At one point in your life something happened to scare you to embarrass you when you were in front of others and from that point on this internal bodyguard has decided to fiercely protect you in case the same thing happens again. That means at any point it sees you entering into a similar situation it gives you feelings of anxiety to warn you to run in the other direction.

Hypnosis for public speaking fears is a great way to change how the subconscious thinks. In particular if you get a Clinical Hypnotherapist who specialises in finding the root causes for a problem it may be possible to unconver the origins and change the way your mind thinks. Typically public speaking programs last for three to six sessions and can make a big difference to the way a person feels in a relatively shor time.

For more information about our help for public speaking anxiety or our confidence coaching sessions you can contact us today using the form below and we will be happy to get back to you.