Nervous before a presentation? You're not alone. Many people get nervous before speaking in public and that's ok, a bit of nervousness is to be expected, but for some people, that nervousness can be overwhelming.
There are perhaps four different aspects of presentation anxiety:
Honestly, the best thing you can do to conquer nerves is to be well-prepared and to have practised your presentation beforehand. A lot of anxiety can come from feeling that you haven't sufficiently prepared your presentation; if you know you've done a good job of preparing and have practised in front of friends, family or classmates, you shouldn't worry too much about being unprepared. If you're worried about speaking in public do a few practice runs in front of friendly faces; practice will reduce speaking anxiety. If there are any words that you're not sure how to pronounce, practice saying them.
If you're nervous or anxious, saying "just relax" is not helpful - you might as well be told "try not to breathe". There are, however, things you can try to help you relax. These can be useful if you suffer physical symptoms of presentation anxiety,
Breathing deeply before you present might help to calm your nerves. Breathe in deeply, and then breathe out slowly. Do this several times until your breathing has slowed and you feel calmer. Practising deep breathing might make it easier for you to calm down more quickly when you start feeling presentation anxiety
Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on moment-to-moment awareness of what you're thinking, sensing and feeling, without interpretation or judgment. It's good for slowing down racing thoughts and calming your mind and your body. Mindfulness is pretty easy to start as all you need to so is just... think about the moment and pay attention to what you're doing without any judgement. This will help you distract you from negative thoughts.
This is a technique to relax your muscles. It will help you to relax when you are feeling tense. It's quite simple:
Maybe you've convinced yourself that you're really really bad at public speaking or that no one will be interested in what you'll say, and you'll make a big mess of things and that you'll just die of embarrassment if you have to present. But think about it: would you say any of those things to anyone else? Of course not, so don't say them to yourself! A lot of the time we're a lot harder on ourselves than we are on other people. If a friend or family member had to make a presentation and were nervous about it, you would give them encouragement, so why not give yourself some encouragement?
You're not really really bad at public speaking, you've prepared your presentation and practised speaking, so you're not going to make a mess of things. The audience are on your side and want you to do well. It's ok to feel a little nervous but you know what you're talking about and have your notes to help you remember what you're going to say.
Five positive thought to focus on:
Power posing is still a bit controversial, but the evidence seems to suggest that it does have a positive effect. Power posing requires you to stand in a posture that you mentally associate with being powerful - think for example of Wonder Woman or Superman with hands on hips. Power posing might increase testosterone levels and decrease levels of cortisol, a stress hormone. In the original study, participants who held a power pose for two minutes had stronger feelings of power, were more likely to take risks, and felt less stressed (Carney et al 2010). This may or may not work for you, but at the very least might distract you from presentation anxiety for a while
Reference: Carney, D.R., Cuddy, A.J. and Yap, A.J., 2010. Power posing: Brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance. Psychological Science, 21(10), pp.1363-1368. Available online at https://www.bu.edu/wgs/files/2014/12/Carney-et-al.-2010-PowerPosingAffectsNeuroendocrineHormones.pdf Last accessed 24th July 2023
Image: Power pose by Amy Cuddy at PopTech 2011 Erik (HASH) Hersman from Orlando, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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