Do you want to be a more fearless speaker? Here's a 5-minute exercise to calm you, strengthen your focus, and show you how to breathe for power! 

Which would you rather do: a) Give a speech in front of 400 people, or b) Defend your tribe's territory alone against 400 hostile invaders?

Believe it or not, in terms of our evolution as a species, fear of public speaking doesn't differentiate between the two. In either situation, it tells you "Danger!" Once that happens, your fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in. That's actually a terrific tool for getting you to safety. But it's one of the worst things that can happen to you as a business speaker.

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Speech anxiety can put a serious crimp in your performance, of course. And it can make you a bundle of nerves. Equally important is the damage that can be done by having stress hormones constantly released into your system—emotionally, psychologically, and physically.

Invasions from neighboring tribes should be rare events. But if your body is subjected to similar stress week after week if you have speaking fear, it's simply an unhealthy situation. The extreme overreaction of the fight-or-flight response is great for getting you out of danger. It's not such a good thing when there is no danger, but you're repeatedly reacting as if there is.

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So, let's talk about some stress reduction that can help make you more fearless and resilient. After all, there's no downside in you learning how to calm your nerves before speaking. 

The Miracle of Breath Control for Mindfulness

For the past 25 years, I've specialized in helping people at all levels control and even banish their fear of public speaking. Among the most powerful tools I use in teaching coping mechanisms is healthy breathing. As I tell clients, nothing is faster or more reliable for reducing acute mental and emotional distress than diaphragmatic or belly breathing, which provides the level of oxygen you need to calm a rapidly beating heart. (Here's my free resource on "How Breathing Can Help Control Your Fear of Public Speaking.")

Call it a mindful way of using the breath. If you want the name it was given thousands of years ago by yoga practitioners, it's Pranayama. That's a Sanskrit word that simply means "breath control." And that's the key: learning to control the breath, which is one of the most powerful tools of mindfulness.  

Activating the Parasympathetic Nervous System

Specifically, using the breath to counter stress involves activating the parasympathetic nervous system. Our autonomic nervous system is composed of the sympathetic and parasympathetic modes of operating. The sympathetic system is the active version—it's what activates the fight-or-flight response that can induce fear and even a panic attack while speaking.

The parasympathetic system is the opposite: it's a calming mode which allows you to rest, rejuvenate, and even reinvigorate yourself. By using Pranayama, i.e., controlling the breath, you can flip the switch to activate your parasympathetic response.¹

Calming the Storm and Becoming More Confident 

But it gets even better. By employing a technique known as "resistance breathing," you can boost your calming response into . . . well, I was going to say high gear, but perhaps that should be "low" gear. I first learned about this technique in Richard P. Brown and Patricia L. Gerbarg's book, The Healing Power of the Breath. As the authors explain it: creating resistance to the breath creates a soothing effect, just as a cat's purr is caused by air moving past a partial obstruction in the cat's throat. The purring then induces greater relaxation.² 

I was greatly interested in this effect because of my work coaching speakers to reduce their fearful response to public speaking. Since giving a speech is a form of performance, I began adapting Brown and Gerbarg's suggestion, along with a form of slowed respiration that's been around for centuries and that they refer to as "4-4-6-2."³

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I wanted to take all of this into the performance realm by creating an exercise that would (1) counter the mental and physiological effect of speaking fear, (2) activate the calming nervous system, and (3) reduce physical tension prior to speaking. The 5-minute exercise is the one I give below, which I call "The Controlled Breathing Sequence."

The Controlled Breathing Sequence

The aim of this sequence is specifically to prepare you to cope with performance anxiety. You should become comfortable doing it on a daily or weekly basis, including times when you may not be facing a public speaking situation at all. In it, I've combined Pranayamic breathing; a slowed breath count; resistance breathing (combined with some work on your lips and tongue, your principal articulators); and lastly, a technique for "breathing into" your tension.

The Controlled Breathing Sequence

(5 minutes or more)

• Slowing the breath. Silently count your respiration cycles (one inhalation + one exhalation = one cycle) for one minute. Your target should be 5 or 6 respiration cycles per minute. Don't be alarmed if the first count you get is in the high teens, or even upwards to thirty.

• 4-4-6-2 pattern. INHALE for a moderately-paced count of 4, GENTLY PAUSE for a count of 4, EXHALE for a count of 6, and STOP BREATHING for a count of 2. Repeat this pattern until you’re fully comfortable and relaxed and you feel no oxygen starvation whatsoever.

• Resistance breathing. Now you’ll create some gentle resistance by reducing the openings through which the breath is released from your body. Doing so turns on the parasympathetic or calming nervous system response. Begin with pursed lips, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth. Next, raise your soft palate at the back of the throat to bring it closer to the roof of your mouth (the hard palate); inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth as you do this. Finally, inhale and exhale through the nose while keeping your soft palate raised but not touching the hard palate. Because you're reducing the space for the breath to move in all of these manipulations (and thereby adding resistance), you may hear a soft “whooshing” or hissing sound.

• Directed breath. Scan your body mentally. Is there tension present anywhere? If there is, "exhale into” whatever part of your body is tight or tense. Though this of course is just a visualization, you should feel with each exhalation a reduction of the tightness or tension.

The more practiced you can become at activating your inner calm through THE CONTROLLED BREATHING SEQUENCE, the more easily you'll be able to call upon it in performance. You can start with 5 minutes, but feel free to get up to a 20-minute sequence if you want a longer and fully calming session. It truly is a hands-on, practical way of becoming a more fearless speaker.

¹ Ravinder Jerath, John W. Edry, Vernon A. Barnes, Vandna Jerath, “Physiology of long pranayamic breathing: Neural respiratory elements may provide a mechanism that explains how slow deep breathing shifts the autonomic nervous system," Medical Hypotheses (2006). 

² Richard P. Brown, MD, and Patricia L. Gerbarg, MD, The Healing Power of the Breath (Boston: Shambhala, 2012), 33-34.

³ Brown and Gerbarg, 91.

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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 is the author of the Amazon Best-Seller How to Give a Speech. His second book, Fearless Speaking, was named in 2019 as “One of the 100 Best Confidence Books of All Time.” For nine consecutive years, he was ranked by Global Gurus as one of The World’s Top 30 Communication Professionals, and he has been named as one of America's Top 5 Speech Coaches. His handbook for presenting in videoconferences, Speaking Virtually offers techniques for developing virtual presence. He is also the author of Speak for Leadership: An Executive Speech Coach's Secrets for Developing Leadership Presence. His latest book is The Confidence Book: 75 Ways to Reduce Your Anxiety, Let Go of Your Fears, Change Your Negative Thinking, and Perform At Your Professional Best. He is also the creator of The Dr. William Scarlet supernatural thrillers. Contact Gary here.