Symptoms are usually physical

• sweaty palms
• increased heart beat
• shortness of breath
• nausea
• dry mouth
• increased blood pressure
• increased muscle tension

How we interpret the symptoms is most important.

Viewing the Speech as Performance

• evaluating gestures
• body language
• physical attractiveness
• etc.

Expectation of evaluation leads to anxiety in all situations.

Three Stages of Anxiety

1. Performance orientation
2. Physiological arousal

   • Usually begins a few minutes before the speech as we anticipate making it.
   • Symptoms increase sharply as we begin the speech, with heart rates going up to between 110 and 190 bpm.
   • Arousal usually subsides within 30 seconds and gradually goes down.

     Exception:

     Some people's arousal sharply increases in the middle of the speech or awhile after the speech begins.

     "I was doing just fine, then something happened and I lost it."

3. Interpretation of arousal as fear.

   It's best to realize that the arousal will be short lived. Anxiety can't be eliminated; therefore, go with the flow, accept it as normal. Audiences don't see the fear, the shaking, etc.

Ways to combat anxiety

• If you score above 38 on the Attitude Toward Speaking Scale, you may want to take Dr. Robert Ambler's special class for speech anxious students.
• Systematic Desensitization

  Systematic Desensitizations involves training in muscle relaxation, coupled with visual imagery.

• Relax while imagining giving a speech, the assumption being that psychological anxiety doesn't go with physical relaxation.
• Start by imagining an event fairly remote from the planned speech.

  Once one achieves relaxation with that image, repeat the process while imagining events closer to the speech. Finally, while relaxed, visualize giving the speech.

• Rational Emotive Therapy (RET).

  Talk it out and realize that fear is irrational.

• Shifting Speaker's Orientation Away from Performance to Communication.

  This is the method I often use. You will often hear me repeat: "Communicate ideas, not words." Although we need to be concerned with basic delivery such as eye contact, gestures, body language, etc., we should be most concerned with getting our ideas across. Students commonly make the mistake of trying to memorize speeches. Don't. Use a keyword/key-idea outline. Know what ideas you want to get across and concentrate on the ideas, not the words. If you attempt to memorize your speech, you will undoubtedly forget a word, go blank, and panic. Memorizing a speech word for word is the worst thing you can do. Reading a speech is boooorrrrrriinnnngg. Don't do it. Simply know your material (ideas) and try to get it across to the audience. Use the keyword/idea outline as a map to keep the ideas in their proper order.

• Be prepared!!

  Do your research well ahead of time. Talk about a subject that you know about or can really get into. Don't take the attitude of "The audience will think my speech is boring. If it interests you, it will be interesting to the audience. If you are an accounting major and think that accounting is boring, change majors. Life is too short to spend working long hours doing something that bores you or that you don't like.

• Get Positive Evaluation From the Audience.

  I ask students in my class to evaluate each speech. Students are gentler on each other than I am. After student evaluations, I step in and play the bad cop, often disagreeing with what the class thinks. But remember, I'm there to help you improve, not make you feel dumb. Think of the class as a workshop where you can work through your strengths and weaknesses. That's why you're in class.

• Make the audience feel they are being spoken to, not spoken at.

  The primary differences between conversation and public speaking are that public speakers take longer before their turn is up, and they need to spend more time selecting, organizing, and clarifying their thoughts before speaking. We have all rehearsed, refined, and edited what we should have said after we have finished a conversation, especially an argument. In public speaking, we get to do it before we speak. I think that's cool.

Tips

• Decide on your specific objective first.
• What points do you want to communicate?
• Put yourself in the audience's place.
• Analyze your audience and speak to them on their level.
• Don't memorize; don't read.
• Remember ideas, not words, phrases, sentences, etc.
• Us an outline to keep organized, and as a memory aid.
• Don't think about hands and facial expressions.
• Concentrate on the ideas you want to communicate, and let the hands and face take care of themselves.
• Take it slow and easy.
• Slow down and give the audience time to process your points.
• Speed is not a virtue in public speaking.
• Speak the way you talk.
• Speak the way you do in casual conversation with someone you respect.
• Expecting perfection is unrealistic and dumb.
• Ask for advice and criticism
• Solicit frank criticism about your idiosyncrasies that distract the audience.