April 20, 2006
Help For Public-Speaking Anxiety
High-Level Nervousness Cannot Be Easily Cured, But Can Be Lessened
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(CBS/AP)
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Even when their speech is over, sensitizers don't relax. In fact, they become even more anxious.
Witt's study appears in the March issue of Southern Communication Journal.
You Can Speak in Public
Here's the bad news. You cannot change your traits. They are part of your personality. If you are a person with high-trait anxiety, there's no simple way to become a low-trait-anxiety person.
The good news is that we can learn to win with the cards we are dealt. High-trait anxiety is a challenge. It need not be a disability.
Witt doesn't try to motivate people. Instead, he teaches public-speaking skills.
Before speaking:
During your speech, deal with symptoms as they occur:
"Those symptoms that distract us are treatable," Witt says. "It doesn't take a Ph.D. to figure this out, but so many people don't — because as sensitizers, they become so focused on their symptoms and their embarrassment in front of other people."
There are, of course, psychological problems that require more than visualization and practice. Witt recommends counseling for people who have violent symptoms such as vomiting. But for the rest of us — who fear that everyone in the room can see our palms sweat — it's a matter of gaining confidence by learning a set of simple skills.
"Virtually every speaker gets nervous most of the time, or at least some of the time," Witt says. "We all deal with our nervousness in different ways.
The important thing is it does not have to make us embarrassed or frightened or upset to speak in front of other people. We can deal with that. You may be nervous, but you don't have to be disabled in front of other people."
SOURCES: Witt, P.L. Southern Communication Journal, March 2006; Vol. 71: pp 87-100. Paul L. Witt, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication studies, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas.
By Daniel J. DeNoon
Reviewed by Louise Chang, M.D.
© 2006, WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.
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