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3 Matt Managing Anxiety - Tagged
3 Matt Managing Anxiety - Tagged
1. It allows you to feel more confident because you know the answers to your
questions — you no longer need to worry you might not know what to say.
2. You will be more conversational, since you are simply answering your
audience’s unasked questions, and conversational delivery is often better
remembered by audiences.
Too often, presenters deliver numbers devoid of context, which makes it hard
for the audience to see their relevance, much less remember them. For
example,
Having a structure helps you remember what you plan to say, because even if
you forget the specifics, you can use the general framework to stay on track.
For example, when using the Problem-Solution-Benefit structure, you first lay
out a specific problem (or opportunity), then you detail a solution to address
the problem, and finally you define the benefits to your solution. If you are in
the middle of the Solution portion of your talk and you blank out, then by
simply thinking back to your structure, you know that the Benefit portion
comes next.
By varying your voice and evidence, you will make the words you speak more
memorable. But what your audience sees is also critical. Just as a
monotonous speaker can cause mental shutdown in an audience, repetitive
body movements, and slides jammed with words can fatigue and distract an
audience. People are very poor multitaskers. When distracted by spurious
gestures or a wall of bullet points, audience members have fewer cognitive
resources available to remember the content of what you’re saying. To
increase the variety of your nonverbal delivery (e.g., gestures and movement),
audio record yourself delivering your presentation, then play the recording
while you move and practice your gestures. Since you do not have to think
about what to say, you can play with adding variation to your body movement
without the distraction of speaking.
To address the issue of slides that are “eye charts” full of details in small
fonts, challenge yourself to think visually. Is there an image that could
represent your point in a more meaningful way? Could you create a diagram
or flow chart to help get your point across to your audience? A useful tool to
get your creative visual juices flowing is Google Images. Type in the concept
you are trying to convey and see what comes up in the search results. The
images you find might have copyright issues, so I don’t recommend using
everything you find, but you’ll get an idea of the type of visual variety that is
possible.
The Right Way to Practice
Practice is clearly important for delivering an effective presentation; however,
many presenters don’t practice properly. They simply mentally rehearse or flip
through a slide deck, passive approaches that don’t really simulate the
conditions of a presentation. To practice effectively, you also need to stand
and deliver — even if you are presenting virtually, you need to physically
stand up to project effectively. Rather than only thinking through a
presentation, standing up and practicing your speech helps you remember it.
Specifically, hearing your own voice and using relevant, appropriate gestures
improve later recall. You remember more because your mental imagery and
physical practice use overlapping neural networks in your brain, improving
what’s known as memory consolidation, or the process by which a thought
becomes cemented into your long-term memory.
One very useful technique, called focused practice, involves taking one aspect
of your presentation — say, the introduction — and delivering it repeatedly
until you become highly familiar and comfortable with it. (You should not
memorize your presentation, because memorizing invites blanking out.) Next,
you move on to another aspect of your presentation, such as transitioning
between two specific visual aids. Focused practice allows you to feel less
anxious because you do not have to spend valuable mental effort thinking
about all the particular aspects of your presentation at once.
The location where you practice your presentation should be in the place
where you’ll be presenting, or at least in a similar place. For example, if you
are going to give a speech in a large room with big windows where people are
quiet and attentive, you should practice giving the speech in a large room with
windows. The context in which you learn helps you remember and will boost
your confidence, since the surroundings will feel comfortable. This advice also
works for presenting via the Web or teleconference. Practice in the room with
the technology that you will be using. In fact, practicing with the technology in
advance is always a good idea.
Managing Anxiety
Presentation Hygiene: The Good Habits of Effective Speakers
Your parents were right! By eating healthfully, keeping fit, and sleeping well,
you can improve your well-being — plus help alleviate your presentation
anxiety and improve your memory, increasing the chance that you’ll
remember all your points in a presentation. Like a long-distance runner carbo-
loading for a marathon, you will find it helpful to eat certain foods — in this
case, to facilitate memory formation and retention — ahead of your
presentation. Complex carbohydrates, nuts, oils, foods rich in omega-3 fatty
acids, and foods that contain flavanols (such as grapes, berries, apples, and
cocoa) are good choices. Avoid simple sugars and sweets because they
provide a quick energy boost that is often followed by sluggishness and
mental haziness. And plan your caffeine consumption wisely: Caffeine
facilitates creativity and productivity, but it also invites jitters, dry mouth, and
flighty memory. It may make some sense to go for the triple mocha latte when
you’re preparing a speech, but it’s not a good idea the day of. (Remember, the
effects of caffeine linger in the body for a number of hours.) Finally, it may be
tempting to use alcohol to calm your nerves, but evidence suggests it causes
forgetfulness and “loosens the tongue,” which could lead to regret.
A healthy diet, proper rest, and exercise can help alleviate your
public speaking anxiety.
Exercise plays an important role in both memory and anxiety resilience. Fit
presenters respond better to both the mental and physical aspects of stress.
Additionally, physical activity increases lung capacity and bolsters mental
focus, two very important aspects of speech delivery. Finally, exercise
provides an avenue for releasing pent-up anxiety and stress. Try to go for a
quick swim, jog, or walk prior to writing or practicing a speech. The resulting
calming effect comes not just from getting outside and distancing yourself
from the stressor, but also from your body’s natural endorphins, which are
often released when you exercise. Memory research clearly shows that the
less stressed you are, the more information you will retain. Exercising after
practicing a presentation can help, too: Short, intense bursts of exercise that
follow new learning have been shown to increase memory retention.
Sleep is also critical. Good-quality, deep sleep prepares your brain for
learning and consolidates newly learned memories so that you can recall
them more easily. When you are preparing a speech, pulling an all-nighter is
the worst thing you can do.
Body Language
The Art of the Graceful Recovery
Drawing a blank when you’re standing before an audience can have dramatic
and traumatic implications. Consider politicians and how memory gaffes can
damage their credibility. So what can you do if you forget parts of your
presentation?
First, try not to be too hard on yourself. Often, speakers blurt out comments
that reduce their credibility: “Sheesh, how could I forget?” “I’m so nervous” or
“I can’t believe how stupid I am!” If you must overtly acknowledge your
forgetfulness, simply apologize and collect your thoughts.
The following techniques can help you get past a memory block:
These two situations can make even the most confident and calm speaker
nervous. One powerful way to navigate your way through these two tricky
communication situations is to rely on paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is a
listening and reflecting tool where you restate what others say in your own
words. The most effective paraphrases concisely capture the essence of what
another speaker says.
Manage Over-contributors
Someone who over-shares or dominates a meeting with his or her opinions
can be very disruptive and disrespectful. If it is your meeting, then the other
participants will expect you to manage the situation. If you don’t, you will lose
control and potentially credibility.
Hedges
Hedges are soft word choices such as “I think,” “sort of,” or “kind of” that litter
many a presentation. In some interpersonal conversation situations, phrases
such as these can actually help by allowing you to appear less dogmatic and
more open to collaboration. But in presentations, hedges have the effect of
softening your position, reducing your authority, and making you seem wishy-
washy and unsure of what you are saying.
The best way to address hedging? Substitution. Find stronger, more powerful
words to replace these less assertive ones. For example, “I think” becomes “I
believe” or “I know.” “Kind of” and “sort of” can be replaced with “one way.”
Finding more assertive substitutions affords you a way to make your point
more clearly and definitively.
Tag Questions
These occur when you add a question to the end of a phrase, such as “This is
a good hamburger, isn’t it?” Again, in interpersonal situations tag questions
can work in your favor, in this case by inviting participation from your
interlocutor.
Up-talking
This habit centers not on the words you choose but rather on how you speak
your words — specifically at the end of your sentences. If you are an up-
talker, then the ending of your sentences rises in pitch, essentially making
your declarative sentences sound like questions. Nothing can be more
confusing (and annoying) to an audience as when a speaker makes an
important point like “our profits are expanding,” yet it sounds like “our profits
are expanding?” Your goal as a speaker is to use your voice — its volume,
cadence, and tone — to help your audience understand your message, not to
confuse them.
The best way to correct up-talking is to focus on your breathing. If you are an
up-talker, then you likely take a quick inhalation prior to the end of your
sentences because feel you are running out of air to support the remainder of
your spoken thought. This inhalation is often followed by a rise in pitch. To
address this, you need to practice what I term “landing” your sentences and
phrases. Rather than inhale close to the end of your sentences, focus on
exhaling completely as you finish your thought. (This does not mean lower
your voice volume, but instead empty out your breath while maintaining your
volume.)
A useful way to practice this is to read out loud while placing a hand on your
belly. When you up-talk, your belly will contract inward as you end your
sentence (this results from your inhalation). If you land your phrase, your belly
will extend with your exhalation at the end of your sentence.