Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren bog Obam. Here, your minutes away from presenting a speech,
Speaker 1: your heart quickens, your hands turned clammy, and your brain
Speaker 1: dissolves into oatmeal. Those killer opening lines that you had planned,
Speaker 1: they've all but vanished, with no evidence that they ever existed,
Speaker 1: just like your all day deodorant in any sense of
Speaker 1: cool that you might have temporarily summoned. And all those
Speaker 1: people around the table in the conference room or classroom
Speaker 1: or auditorium are doing the absolute worst thing that they
Speaker 1: could do right now. They're staring and waiting and waiting
Speaker 1: and waiting for you. I just want to run and hide.
Speaker 1: Do you say to yourself, this is not going well.
Speaker 1: I'm going to bomb. According to both my own personal
Speaker 1: experience and one Scott Compton, a professor in psychiatry and
Speaker 1: behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what those with a fear of public speaking are thinking,
Speaker 1: and that anxiety, of course, is exactly the problem. The
Speaker 1: fear of public speaking is seriously real. It's a type
Speaker 1: of social anxiety disorder, which is a term first coined
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Speaker 1: Mental Disorders, the d s M from the National Institute
Speaker 1: of Mental Health, quote, people with social anxiety disorder have
Speaker 1: a general intense fear of or anxiety toward social or
Speaker 1: performance situations. They worry that actions or behaviors associated with
Speaker 1: their anxiety will be negatively evaluated by others, leading them
Speaker 1: to feel embarrassed. This worry often causes people with social
Speaker 1: anxiety to avoid social situations. Social anxiety disorder affects a
Speaker 1: whopping fifteen million American adults. Among the many subsets of
Speaker 1: the disorder, the fear of public speaking, sometimes called glossophobia,
Speaker 1: is king. As many as seven out of ten Americans
Speaker 1: may grapple with some degree of glossophobia. Jerry Seinfeld once equipped.
Speaker 1: According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking.
Speaker 1: Number two is death. This means, to the average person,
Speaker 1: if you go to a funeral, you're better off in
Speaker 1: the casket than doing the eulogy, and this fear is
Speaker 1: way more serious than sweaty palms and a tied tongue.
Speaker 1: Those with severe glossophobia worried so much about how they
Speaker 1: act or appear in public that they often avoid public
Speaker 1: settings altogether, and that can be harmful to their personal
Speaker 1: and professional well being. And the Anxiety and Depression Association
Speaker 1: of America warns that things can get even more serious. Quote.
Speaker 1: People with social anxiety disorder are also at an increased
Speaker 1: risk for developing major depressive disorder and alcohol use disorders.
Speaker 1: The Andrew Cukees Foundation for Social Anxiety lays it out
Speaker 1: in stark terms. The name may sound harmless, but the
Speaker 1: disorder is complex, cruel, and anything but simple. Social anxiety
Speaker 1: is far more than shyness and a fear of public speaking.
Speaker 1: It's an addiction to avoidance and a disease of resistance.
Speaker 1: So what's happening here? A Social anxiety disorders, including glossophobia,
Speaker 1: are defined by extreme fear and worry. They are the
Speaker 1: most common mental disorders in the US. The signs that
Speaker 1: someone may be experiencing an anxiety disorder may include feeling nervous, irritable,
Speaker 1: or on edge, having a sense of impending danger, panic,
Speaker 1: or doom, having an increased heart rate, breathing rapidly, sweating
Speaker 1: and or trembling, feeling weaker, tired, difficulty concentrating, having trouble sleeping,
Speaker 1: and or experiencing guests, or intestinal problems. The anxiety is
Speaker 1: thought to be centered in the amygdala, a part of
Speaker 1: the brain associated with emotions. The idea is that the amygdala,
Speaker 1: acting on bad memories or false ideas of what could happen,
Speaker 1: releases fight or flight hormones that put the body in
Speaker 1: a stressed state, thus the sweaty palms, racing heart, and
Speaker 1: the desire to get away. The disorders often start in
Speaker 1: young people. Psychiatry professor Compton says a shy child who
Speaker 1: won't participate in class even though he or she knows
Speaker 1: the answers, or who's afraid on play dates, or who
Speaker 1: won't join a sports team for fear of messing up,
Speaker 1: and grow as the child becomes an adult. Compton said
Speaker 1: most of the anxiety disorders start in early childhood and
Speaker 1: go untreated and unrecognized. People end up developing some pretty
Speaker 1: maladaptive sort of coping strategies. The go to strategy seems
Speaker 1: to be avoidance. Of Those who have been dealing with
Speaker 1: social anxiety for years, including the fear of public speaking,
Speaker 1: simply avoid stressful situations whenever they can, and that's about
Speaker 1: the worst thing they can do when it comes to
Speaker 1: conquering their fears. Compton said, the more you avoid, the
Speaker 1: worse It becomes. My motto and therapy is you need
Speaker 1: to avoid avoidance. It's almost like, if something causes you anxiety,
Speaker 1: you need to do the exact opposite of what your
Speaker 1: history is telling you to do. Therapy can help a
Speaker 1: fear of public speaking and many other social anxiety disorders.
Speaker 1: Cognitive behavioral therapy is a type of psychotherapy talking things
Speaker 1: through that is widely used to treat social anxiety by
Speaker 1: many mental health professionals. Compton said, in therapy, you start
Speaker 1: with kind of small things. I know you don't want
Speaker 1: to go to a conference and be a keynote speaker,
Speaker 1: but would you be willing to give a talk in
Speaker 1: front of one other person? Start small, build up some
Speaker 1: confidence and success, and then turn the heat up in
Speaker 1: terms of making the situation gradually more anxiety Provoking anxiety
Speaker 1: listening medication is a possibility too, but the first step
Speaker 1: may simply be practicing a speech in front of a
Speaker 1: mirror or with a friend or so low in an
Speaker 1: empty room. Also, learn to slow down and breathe and
Speaker 1: try to buy into the idea that your life will
Speaker 1: be better if you overcome your fear, Compton said, when
Speaker 1: they can make the step of being willing to do
Speaker 1: that thing, even though their history is sort of saying,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this is going to be awful, those
Speaker 1: are the ones that kind of get over their fear
Speaker 1: of public speaking. For those facing the scary prospect of
Speaker 1: making a public speech or being in any public setting
Speaker 1: where you may have to talk, the National Social Anxiety
Speaker 1: Center has loads of tips. One is to decatastrophize the
Speaker 1: brain freeze, that public speaking blackout that often happens with glossophobia.
Speaker 1: From personal experience. Again, the audience wants you to do well,
Speaker 1: and we'll forget about any mistakes you make quickly and
Speaker 1: even if you completely bomb. One of the best lessons
Speaker 1: about performing that I ever got was from one Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1: As he was getting off stage after coping with a
Speaker 1: particularly tough crowd of middle schoolers. He shrugged and said,
Speaker 1: there's always next time. Today's episode was written by John
Speaker 1: Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang for iHeart Media and
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. For more on this and lots of
Speaker 1: other calming topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com.