If you get fearful while speaking or even being in a public setting, that means you are suffering from social anxiety. Social anxiety makes heartbeat oddly fast, body trembles, sweat, nauseous, and freezes them up. It is hard to communicate or even say hello. This disorder stops the patient from achieving the day-to-day task in a public setting because they are too scared that people will laugh or find them crazy.
A person suffering from social anxiety and stress must not ignore it. It should get treated, or else it will haunt you for the rest of your life. Medical help should get received. If anyone in your life makes you anxious and lowers your self-esteem, that person should get eliminated from your life because they are not the best for you.
Ways To Manage Anxiety
Here are some ways that you can prepare yourself for public speaking.
1. Choose Your Favorite Topic
If you can choose your topic, pick the one that interests you. Talking about the topic we love makes us want to speak more about it. We are naturally confident talking about it. You do not need to choose an informative topic or the subject that makes you sound intelligent. We tend to know about our favorite things in depth. So talking about it with so many facts will make you sound knowledgeable.
2. Research About Your Topic
Having complete knowledge about your topic makes you more confident talking about it. Your research should not end when you have the information, but you should also do extensive research. Extra facts connected to the topic make your presentation impressive. There are many ways to conduct research, the easiest and the first method that comes to everyone’s mind, the internet. Search about every single part of your presentation. You can also take a traditional route by reading a book, magazine, or newspaper.
Narrow down and make your research specific. If you become fortunate enough to have a specialist on your topic, contact them. You can also have a group of your friends to research for you. More brains result in creative ways to study and present it.
3. Practice Often
Anything in this world can achieve perfection if you practice well. Especially people with anxiety need to practice their presentation multiple times. If you are not the best speaker, start practicing weeks ahead of your big speech. You can practice it in front of a mirror. This method is the best because you can observe your body language, and it increases confidence when you practice by looking into your own eyes. It is the focused sights on you that make you anxious.
To reduce anxiety, repeat your phrases in front of a mirror. Penning down your words helps you memorize. By memorizing, you will not feel the need to look at your cards or glancing here and there because you forgot the following sentence. A focused look towards the audience makes you look knowledgeable and confident.
By writing, you are also able to create different sections of the speech. This way makes it easier to remember each part and more convenient to practice.
4. Get Friendly Advice
Grab a friend or a group of your family members as a practice audience. You will feel more comfortable speaking in front of the people you know. Ask for their patience to listen to your speech multiple times. Also, ask them to criticize you on your body language, sound, way of delivering words, and confidence. Talk about their advice seriously and work on your flaws. You will get an idea of how well you feel in front of your actual audience. Your friends also help you eliminate your weak points.
5. Sleep Well
It is expected of everyone to be at least a bit nervous the night before their presentation. Being anxious because you do not know how you will feel in front of a crowd waiting to listen to what you have to say can make anyone uneasy. This discomfort steals the good sleep that we should be getting before the big presentation. However, it is crucial to rest well. You should not feel super tired. Wanting to doze off can bring massive mistakes in your presentation. You can forget your words and look lazy instead of fresh and confident. A well-rested mind brings you confidence.
If you can not sleep at night, try to meditate, watch a funny show, have comfort food, or perform aromatherapy to calm your nerves.
6. Foods To Consume
Avoid alcoholic beverages at all costs to calm your nerves. Alcohol will mess up you and your speech. Do not even take it the night before to lose the risk of a hangover.
Consume a good stomach filling meal the night before and a light energetic breakfast the morning of the presentation. You should take foods that will make you feel energetic and reduce anxiety. Consume proteins and especially carbohydrates. Avoid caffeine or oily foods.
7. Dress Appropriately
You can not wear anything to a presentation. Your appearance should consist of neutral colors instead of bold colors that might throw the audience off. Your outfit should have sharp cuts and not be outlandish. Have formal wear on or business casual.
If you are wearing makeup or jewelry, your makeup should be natural and, you should have on simple statement pieces as jewelry. Importantly, anything you wear should make you feel at ease. Dressing for success will make you confident. The perfect outfit or look boosts up your confidence way more than you can imagine.
8. Fake Your Confidence
We sometimes give it our all to attain a specific goal. However, despite our numerous attempts, we always fail.
Try pretending as if nothing is wrong if you are going through something similar.
When you start doing something like you are used to it, even if you are faking it, your brain will begin to adopt it as it is common for you. Fake the confidence in front of people.
You do not have to act like it. If you can fake it, you will make it. Pretending like you have confidence will make your brain think that you do have it and, one day, you will have the confidence you need.
9. Collect Supportive Material
Preparing supportive material like a PowerPoint presentation, a videotape, cards, or a physical project helps you in your presentation to remember the material. These materials also make your presentation impressive and more fun to see. You can also prepare cards to hand out to the audience. These handouts should include main points that are the objectives and which define your presentation as a whole.
10. Engage With the Audience
The extensive research and helping material gets used at this stage. Engaging with your audience by asking questions, asking for their opinion, or making jokes, makes your audience alive. Interacting with them will prevent your listeners from getting bored. It will make them interested and excited to be a part of your conversation.
Many presenters usually ask questions or answer their questions at the end of their presentations. This way, their speech does not get interpreted.
Talking with your audience presents you as being confident and interested. If you are still too anxious or afraid to get verbal with the audience, the least you can do is to make eye contact with the friendly faces, point at them, and if you are making a joke, smile while looking at them.
11. Consider Getting Therapy
If you are suffering from consecutive social anxiety attacks, seek medical help. Contact a therapist and get to the root of the problem to get a permanent solution instead of finding short-term ways. The disorder causes hindrance in many paths of life. So getting it treated is a must to move forward. If you get prescribed anti-anxiety medication, take it before you face the people.
Work on self-control. Make meditation, yoga, or exercises that calm you, your routine. Practice them daily before you go out so you can find your inner peace and achieve a balance between your emotions.
Bottom Line
Social anxiety is a constant, overwhelming feeling of being observed and judged by others. This dread might have an impact on your employment, school, and other daily activities. Following these steps will help you to eliminate or at least calm down your anxiety. However, you should still seek out professional help instead of just relying on these steps.
The article makes sure to provide you with enough information to deal with Social anxiety.
We also recommend checking out unusual ways to reduce stress.