Do you have speech anxiety? Here's how your body reacts during the fight-or-flight response, and what you can do about it.

Speaking to an audience is, of course, a performance art, whether it's an actor performing live in a play or you speaking at a conference or virtually. And just as is true of actors, what you bring to the "art" will help make the difference between mediocrity and excellence.

Consider further this connection between the theater and business: Actors speak from a script, just as you use notes or PowerPoint. In either case, the information alone that you deliver can't achieve your goal all by itself.

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For instance, a bare script will never convince an audience they're watching a real human being with real passions . . . and neither will your handouts. The key ingredient in the public speaking situation is the speaker in performance. Among many other factors, that means the uses and responses of your body.

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How Your Body Responds to Speech Anxiety

A normal reaction to any important presentation is some pre-speech jitters. However, for some, that escalates into speech anxiety. Millions experience it worldwide. Fear of public speaking can manifest itself in many ways—but a reliable symptom of stage fright is the heightened physical response that occurs.

Your body's reaction to any fearful situation can be powerful. It's one reason speech anxiety is such an uncomfortable and seemingly intractable problem. Another factor, incidentally, is the inappropriateness of the body's response: Public speaking isn't a truly dangerous situation, though if you have speech phobia you experience it that way. If over-activation is a problem for you, here's how to calm your nerves before speaking, even if you have just 5 minutes to spare.

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Three physical responses predominate: (1) Galloping heart rate (sometimes with a pounding sensation); (2) Rapid and shallow breathing; and (3) The release of stress hormones, in particular epinephrine ("adrenaline") and cortisol. A wide array of other symptoms may include sweating, a shaky voice, nausea, trembling hands, light-headedness, etc. But the responses above are the reliable "Big Three."

Dealing with Your Physical Symptoms

Fortunately, there are some simple and effective techniques for dealing with the physical symptoms of speaking fear. The following actions in particular can bring quick reliable relief:

1. Progressive Relaxation. Lie on your back with arms and legs uncrossed. Imagine a warm feeling in your scalp releasing all tension there. Keep that feeling on the top of your head, as you slowly allow that sensation to "flow" downward, relaxing each part of your body in turn. Now bring this feeling of total relaxation into your muscle memory. You can then call on it when you're getting nervous and tightening up prior to a speech.

2. Diaphragmatic Breathing. Breathing with the diaphragm or "belly breathing" is natural respiration. That's because the diaphragm needs to flatten so your lungs have maximum room to expand. Slow, deep diaphragmatic breathing like this oxygenates you fully, helping calm the heart and alleviating the rapid shallow breathing of anxiety. Here's more on how breathing can help control your fear of public speaking. 

3. Movement. Adrenaline is part of a "fight or flight" response which has nowhere to go: you can't fight your audience and you can't run out of the room! Simply moving will help dissipate this nervous activation. While waiting to speak, for example, tighten and release your muscles. And while you're speaking, make gestures, and use as much as possible of your performance area by moving around it.

Your physical reactions to public speaking fear are a reminder that speech anxiety isn't all "in your head." That's good news, since techniques to counter the body's responses can be more easily enacted, with a quicker payoff, than the more time-consuming task of changing your thinking through the process known as cognitive restructuring.

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 Gary Genard is an actor, author, and expert in public speaking and overcoming speaking fear. His company, The Genard Method offers live 1:1 Zoom executive coaching  and corporate group training worldwide. He was named for nine consecutive years as One of the World’s Top 30 Communication Professionals, and also named as One of America's Top 5 Speech Coaches. He is the author of the Amazon Best-Sellers How to Give a Speech and Speak for Leadership: An Executive Speech Coach's Secrets for Developing Leadership Presence. His book, Fearless Speaking, was named in 2019 as "One of the 100 Best Confidence Books of All Time." " He is also the author of the Dr. William Scarlet Mysteries. Contact Gary here.

Illustration credit: Aarón Blanco Tejedor on unsplash.com