Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuf, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vogel Bomb here with another classic episode for you.
Speaker 1: Today's has to do with anxiety and public speaking and
Speaker 1: why the two so often go hand in hand. It's
Speaker 1: a thing I deal with and this is my day job.
Speaker 1: But there are things that you can do about it.
Speaker 1: Hey brain stuff, Lauren voel Bomb. Here, You're minutes away
Speaker 1: from presenting a speech. Your heart quickens, your hands turned clammy,
Speaker 1: and your brain dissolves into oatmeal. Those killer opening lines
Speaker 1: that you had planned, they've all but vanished, with no
Speaker 1: evidence that they ever existed, just like your all day
Speaker 1: deodorant and any sense of cool that you might have
Speaker 1: temporarily summoned. And all those people around the table in
Speaker 1: the conference room or classroom or auditorium are doing the
Speaker 1: absolute worst thing that they could do right now. They're
Speaker 1: staring and waiting and waiting and waiting for you. I
Speaker 1: just want to run in Hi. Do you say to yourself,
Speaker 1: this is not going well. I'm going to bomb, According
Speaker 1: to both my own personal experience and one Scott Compton,
Speaker 1: a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University,
Speaker 1: School of Medicine. That's exactly what those with a fear
Speaker 1: of public speaking are thinking, and that anxiety, of course,
Speaker 1: is exactly the problem. The fear of public speaking is
Speaker 1: seriously real. It's a type of social anxiety disorder, which
Speaker 1: is a term first coined in nineteen eighty in the
Speaker 1: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders the DSM from
Speaker 1: the National Institute of Mental Health quote, people with social
Speaker 1: anxiety disorder have a general, intense fear of or anxiety
Speaker 1: toward social or performance situations. They worry that actions or
Speaker 1: behaviors associated with their anxiety will be negatively evaluated by others,
Speaker 1: leading them to feel embarrassed. This worry often causes people
Speaker 1: with social anxiety to avoid social situations. Social anxiety disorder
Speaker 1: affects a whopping fifteen million American adults. Among the many
Speaker 1: subsets of the disorder, the fear of public speaking, sometimes
Speaker 1: called glossophobia, is king. As many as seven out of
Speaker 1: ten Americans may grapple with some degree of glossophobia. But
Speaker 1: Jerry Seinfeld once quipped, according to most studies, people's number
Speaker 1: one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. This means,
Speaker 1: to the average person, if you go to a funeral,
Speaker 1: You're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.
Speaker 1: And this fear is way more serious than sweaty palms
Speaker 1: in a tied tongue. Those with severe glossophobia worry so
Speaker 1: much about how they act or appear in public that
Speaker 1: they often avoid public settings altogether, and that can be
Speaker 1: harmful to their personal and professional well being. And the
Speaker 1: Anxiety and Depression Association of America warns that things can
Speaker 1: get even more serious. Quote.
Speaker 2: People with social anxiety disorder are also at an increased
Speaker 2: risk for developing major depressive disorder and alcohol use disorders.
Speaker 2: The Andrew Kuges Foundation for Social Anxiety lays it out
Speaker 2: in stark terms. The name may sound harmless, but the
Speaker 2: disorder is complex, cruel, and anything but simple. Social anxiety
Speaker 2: is far more than shyness in a fear of public speaking.
Speaker 2: It's an addiction to avoidance and a disease of resistance.
Speaker 2: So what's happening here? A Social anxiety disorders, including glossophobia,
Speaker 2: are defined by extreme fear and worry. They are the
Speaker 2: most common mental disorders in the US. The signs that
Speaker 2: someone may be experiencing an anxiety disorder may include feeling nervous, irritable,
Speaker 2: or on edge, having a sense of impending danger, panic
Speaker 2: or doom, having an increased heart rate, breathing rapidly, sweating
Speaker 2: and or trembling, feeling weak or tired, difficulty concentrating, having
Speaker 2: trouble sleeping, and or experiencing guest or intestinal problems. The
Speaker 2: anxiety is thought to be centered in the amygdala, a
Speaker 2: part of the brain associated with emotions. The idea is
Speaker 2: that the amygdala, acting on bad memories or false ideas
Speaker 2: of what could happen, releases fight or flight hormones that
Speaker 2: put the body in a stressed state. Thus, the sweaty palms,
Speaker 2: raise the heart and the desire to get away. The
Speaker 2: disorders often start in young people. Psychiatry professor Compton says
Speaker 2: a shy child who won't participate in class even though
Speaker 2: he or she knows the answers, or who's afraid on
Speaker 2: play dates, or who won't join a sports team for
Speaker 2: fear of messing up, and grow as the child becomes
Speaker 2: an adult. Compton said most of the anxiety disorders start
Speaker 2: in early childhood and go untreated and unrecognized. People end
Speaker 2: up developing some pretty maladaptive sort of coping strategies. The
Speaker 2: go to strategy seems to be avoidance. Those who have
Speaker 2: been dealing with social anxiety for years, including the fear
Speaker 2: of public speaking, simply avoid stressful situations whenever they can,
Speaker 2: and that's about the worst thing they can do when
Speaker 2: it comes to conquering their fears. A Compton said, the
Speaker 2: more you avoid, the worse. It becomes. My motto and
Speaker 2: therapy is you need to avoid avoidance. It's almost like,
Speaker 2: if something causes you anxiety, you need to do the
Speaker 2: exact opposite of what your history is telling you to do.
Speaker 2: Therapy can help a fear, public speed, and many other
Speaker 2: social anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a type of
Speaker 2: psychotherapy talking things through that is widely used to treat
Speaker 2: social anxiety by many mental health professionals. Compton said, in therapy,
Speaker 2: you start with kind of small things. I know you
Speaker 2: don't want to go to a conference and be a
Speaker 2: keynote speaker, but would you be willing to give a
Speaker 2: talk in front of one other person? Start small, build
Speaker 2: up some confidence and success, and then turn the heat
Speaker 2: up in terms of making the situation gradually more anxiety
Speaker 2: provoking anxiety listening, medication is a possibility too, But the
Speaker 2: first step may simply be practicing a speech in front
Speaker 2: of a mirror or with a friend or solo in
Speaker 2: an empty room. Also, learn to slow down and breathe,
Speaker 2: and try to buy into the idea that your life
Speaker 2: will be better if you overcome your fear. Compton said,
Speaker 2: when they can make the step of being willing to
Speaker 2: do that thing, even though their history is sort of saying,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, this is going to be awful, those
Speaker 2: are the ones that kind of get over their fear
Speaker 2: of public speaking. For those facing the scary prospect of
Speaker 2: making a public speech or being in any public setting
Speaker 2: where you may have to talk, the National Social Anxiety
Speaker 2: Center has loads of tips. One is to decatastrophize the
Speaker 2: brain freeze that public speaking blackout that often happens with
Speaker 2: glassophobia from personal experience. Again, the audience wants you to
Speaker 2: do well, and we'll forget about any mistakes you make quickly,
Speaker 2: and even if you completely bomb. One of the best
Speaker 2: lessons about performing that I ever got was from one
Speaker 2: Chuck Bryant. As he was getting off stage after coping
Speaker 2: with a particularly tough crowd of middle schoolers. He shrugged
Speaker 2: and said there's always next time.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article Conquering the Fear
Speaker 1: of Public Speaking on how stuffwork dot Com, written by
Speaker 1: John Donovan. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in
Speaker 1: partnership with hostuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klag.
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