Public Speaking: Calm Your Nerves

Standing up to speak in front of a crowd can feel terrifying, yet it really doesn't have to. Most people can walk through a speaking engagement with poise once they learn how to settle their nerves, both in the hours leading up to the talk and while they're actually on stage. Some of what follows you can begin working on today.

Preparation does more to quiet nerves than anything else. The moment you know your material cold, a certain confidence shows up on its own, long before you reach the podium. Rehearse. If you tend to get very anxious, try budgeting an hour of practice for each minute your speech will run. A ten-minute talk, by that math, earns about ten hours of work.

Writing the speech comes first, and it's the bulk of the job. As you draft it, read it aloud to someone you trust. Their reactions give you something to work with, pointing out what to cut or rephrase. Once you're satisfied with the wording and can deliver it close to word for word, the dread that comes from being underprepared mostly evaporates.

Visit the venue ahead of time if you can. Walking the room and getting a feel for the space takes the edge off, because familiar surroundings are simply less intimidating than unknown ones. Ten minutes is plenty. You can even do it the morning of your talk: arrive before anyone else, while the room is still empty, so your attention lands on the space itself rather than on a crowd.

Meeting a few audience members beforehand helps too. Spend a couple of minutes circulating and introducing yourself. You don't need the whole room, maybe ten people. Those brief hellos build on the sense of familiarity that keeps your nerves in check once you step up.

Another trick is to seed the audience. Invite people you know and trust to come watch, so you have friendly faces to anchor on while you speak. A good ratio is roughly two to five of them for every hundred people in attendance. Ask them to scatter and sit in different parts of the room, so wherever your gaze travels during the talk, there's someone familiar to settle on.

Keep in mind that the people in the seats came to hear you. They're pulling for you. A lot of speakers get anxious imagining they're wasting everyone's time, when the opposite is true: the audience showed up on purpose, hanging on what you're about to say and ready to lend their support. Let that fact energize you.

Breathing is the thing people forget. It's remarkably easy to pour all your concentration into the words and stop breathing properly. After you finish making a point, pause for two seconds and take a full breath in and out. That little reset keeps anxiety from piling up, and it pulls some of your focus off the exact wording, which matters because stumbling over a sentence can snowball the nerves.

Run through these steps the next time you have a speaking engagement. They leave you prepared and focused, which cuts way down on the chances of something going sideways and lets you feel more at ease the whole way through your talk.

By Rosemary Kitchen. Sources: Kim, L. (2015). 15 Ways to Calm Your Nerves Before a Big Presentation. Staley, K. (2015). 30 Ways to Manage Speaking Anxiety. University of Iowa Counseling, Student Life.