Controlling Anxiety: Coping With Panic Attacks While Public Speaking
Express yourself and your topic more forcefully and show your audience, and yourself that you can do this. By controlling anxiety in this way, you are using it to your advantage to deliver a killer speech.
You’ll look more alive, be more energetic and more in the moment. Your anxiety will inevitably drop, it always does and when you get a break, ask for more anxiety, because you want more of the feelings. You are interested in them, but not threatened by them.
Okay, so this seems like an awful lot to be thinking while you’re trying to focus on a presentation, but you’ll find that it’s really not. You would be amazed at how many different thoughts you can have while you’re speaking, none of which are related to your task at hand. This is about taking on a new attitude of confidence in yourself and getting rid of your fear of speaking.
If your main fear of speaking is caused from a feeling of being trapped, then you should work on some mental releases that you can do before the speech. Coping with panic attacks while onstage means you need to prevent panic attacks from happening in the first place.
If your speaking engagement allows you to turn attention back into the audience for feedback, etc. make sure to factor in these opportunities when planning your speech.
You don’t have to use these breaks if you don’t need them, but many people who suffer from anxiety these to be great cures for anxiety. They find that having opportunities where they can take attention from themselves for a moment is a great way of controlling their anxiety.
It seems to make their task of speaking a little less daunting. You may be able to do something like having people introduce themselves or offer some time for questions. Sometimes, these diversions aren’t possible, but anytime you can create a break, even a brief break, can lessen the trapped feeling you might be having from being in the spotlight.
PS.Read my personal story on how I cured my severe anxiety. See My Anxiety Story
Controlling Anxiety: Anxiety Tips for Public Speaking… Continued
For every person, there is always a turning point where you move from being generally anxious to having a panic attack. In the case of public speaking, this point might be when you think to yourself that you won’t be able to handle speaking in front of people.
Just one split second of self-doubt can send you spiraling into the anxiety and panic attack web. The adrenaline begins to rush and your anxiety begins to attack you like waves.
You can, however, control your anxiety, by reacting with confidence that speaking in front of a group isn’t a threat to you, you’ll be able to stop the anxiety and avoid a panic attack. Coping with panic attacks isn’t about controlling your body, it’s about harnessing the energy in your mind, and deflecting it into something more positive.
This new approach can be a powerful tool when controlling anxiety because you’re acknowledging your fear of speaking. You’ll feel nervous, and you’ll go with it and the sensations in your body, but they will go right out and won’t center themselves in a way that you cannot get free of them.
Usually, the hardest part of public speaking is the beginning, but if you can get through that, you’ll probably become much more comfortable as you continue with your talk. You have not let yourself down by feeling nervous, you’re human, it’s natural.
Think of the worst of your anxiety symptoms. It could be your general sense of unease or losing your breath.
You will have an automatic reaction that tells you that you are going to have a panic attack at first.
You might think, “not now”, I cannot have this happen now. It’s at this point that most people confirm that they are having a panic attack because of the way they are feeling.
This is how your thoughts create a cycle of anxiety that can lead to panic attacks and can cause you to blow your presentation.
Im often asked for anxiety tips with public speaking. What I tell the person is next time, you have that “not now” thought, let it pass and follow it up with a thought like, well, I was wondering when you would show up. That’s okay, because I am not scared of you at all. You can’t hurt me. I am safe and I will be safe.
By not pushing all of your energy down into your stomach, you will be able to move past it. Your body will be feeling slightly excited, which is how it should feel while you’re giving a speech, so you take that energy and put it to good use. Add it to your presentation in the form of positive emotion for the topic on which you are speaking.
Don’t push the extra energy into your stomach, put it into your presentation.
PS.Read my personal story on how I cured my severe anxiety. See My Anxiety Story
Controlling Anxiety: Self Help For Anxiety with Public Speaking- Part 2 of 4
It’s my job to show you how this can be done and it starts with this first point. The average person who does not suffer from anxiety will feel anxiety and nervousness while they are speaking and they aren’t in danger of losing control or even looking like they are nervous to any of the audience.
For them, no matter how hard it is, they will always finish their speech, even when it feels like they won’t be able to. Now, put yourself in the place of the non-anxious person and remind yourself that you are the same as them. You can do this and you will not be harmed, embarrassed or hurt in any way, you are a master at controlling anxiety.
While that’s the first step, the magic in controlling your anxiety happens when you truly believe that you are not in any danger and that the way you feel will pass. When you ask for more nervousness, you are telling the anxiety that you know it holds no threat over you and that you are going to face it.
Panic attacks keep coming over and over again when you fear them, overcoming panic attacks means stopping that fear. If you are afraid that your next panic attack will really be a doozey, then you are likely to bring on yet another panic attack.
Think of it as if you had a ghost in your home and it wanted to harass you and your family. Would you let it? Of course not. Your reaction might initially be to be scared of it and hope it never comes back because you might not survive the next time, but eventually, you are going to realize that it cannot hurt you. Sure it can make you feel funny and scared, but there is nothing it can do that will permanently damage you or your body.
You will then respond differently the next time the ghost comes around. It’s the same thing when learning self help for anxiety. By looking it in the eye, so to speak, you can have a new reaction to it while you’re speaking.
PS.Read my personal story on how I cured my severe anxiety. See My Anxiety Story
Controlling Anxiety and a Fear of Public Speaking- Part 1 of 4
It has been my observation that people’s number 1 fear is not dying, but of speaking in public. There is a joke that these people would rather lie in a casket at their own funeral than to have to give the eulogy.
Now, imagine that you have to speak in public and suffer from anxiety disorders. This can become at the very least a major source of worry for weeks, even months ahead of time.
It gets worse because for people with anxiety issues, these speaking engagements aren’t just limited to standing up in front of a group and speaking, it can include speaking at your office meeting where the person is supposed to give an opinion or verbal feedback.
It’s not the fear of speaking, but it’s the fear of having a panic attack while speaking that scares an anxious person. It’s scary to them to be unable to speak or do their job because of their anxiety and they imagine having to leave the room and make excuses later for what happened.
While the vast majority of people fear public speaking on some level, it’s a fear of messing up what they were saying and sounding like a fool. This is normal. But for an anxious person, it has more to do with the inability to act or react because of a panic attack.
While the majority of people get the jitters and nervous before they speak, they will be able to do so when the time comes; they don’t know what it feels like to be unable to do anything because of their anxiety.
The thing is that there are steps to controlling anxiety before and during the daunting task of public speaking. Your first step is to accept that all of your feelings of panic are not going to just vanish and, the truth is, even if they do, you would still be feeling very nervous and anxious before a speech.
You need some anxiety tips. This time, when you speak, you’re not going to worry about making your anxiousness go away. Instead, you are going to learn how to use these feelings to actually complete your speech and help you to feel confident again.
Even the worlds best speakers get nervous before they speak at an event, but they use that energy to make their speech better and you are going to as well.
PS.Read my personal story on how I cured my severe anxiety. See My Anxiety Story
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