Can the Fear of Public Speaking Be Conquered?

As many as 7 in every 10 Americans have a fear of public speaking. Learn how this type of social anxiety develops -- and what you can do to fight it -- in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren bog Obam. Here, your minutes away from presenting a speech,
your heart quickens, your hands turned clammy, and your brain
dissolves into oatmeal. Those killer opening lines that you had planned,
they've all but vanished, with no evidence that they ever existed,
just like your all day deodorant in any sense of

(00:22):
cool that you might have temporarily summoned. And all those
people around the table in the conference room or classroom
or auditorium are doing the absolute worst thing that they
could do right now. They're staring and waiting and waiting
and waiting for you. I just want to run and hide.
Do you say to yourself, this is not going well.

(00:43):
I'm going to bomb. According to both my own personal
experience and one Scott Compton, a professor in psychiatry and
behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, that's
exactly what those with a fear of public speaking are thinking,
and that anxiety, of course, is exactly the problem. The

(01:04):
fear of public speaking is seriously real. It's a type
of social anxiety disorder, which is a term first coined
in nineteen eighty in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, the d s M from the National Institute
of Mental Health, quote, people with social anxiety disorder have
a general intense fear of or anxiety toward social or

(01:24):
performance situations. They worry that actions or behaviors associated with
their anxiety will be negatively evaluated by others, leading them
to feel embarrassed. This worry often causes people with social
anxiety to avoid social situations. Social anxiety disorder affects a
whopping fifteen million American adults. Among the many subsets of

(01:44):
the disorder, the fear of public speaking, sometimes called glossophobia,
is king. As many as seven out of ten Americans
may grapple with some degree of glossophobia. Jerry Seinfeld once equipped.
According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking.
Number two is death. This means, to the average person,
if you go to a funeral, you're better off in

(02:04):
the casket than doing the eulogy, and this fear is
way more serious than sweaty palms and a tied tongue.
Those with severe glossophobia worried so much about how they
act or appear in public that they often avoid public
settings altogether, and that can be harmful to their personal
and professional well being. And the Anxiety and Depression Association

(02:25):
of America warns that things can get even more serious. Quote.
People with social anxiety disorder are also at an increased
risk for developing major depressive disorder and alcohol use disorders.
The Andrew Cukees Foundation for Social Anxiety lays it out
in stark terms. The name may sound harmless, but the
disorder is complex, cruel, and anything but simple. Social anxiety

(02:46):
is far more than shyness and a fear of public speaking.
It's an addiction to avoidance and a disease of resistance.
So what's happening here? A Social anxiety disorders, including glossophobia,
are defined by extreme fear and worry. They are the
most common mental disorders in the US. The signs that
someone may be experiencing an anxiety disorder may include feeling nervous, irritable,

(03:08):
or on edge, having a sense of impending danger, panic,
or doom, having an increased heart rate, breathing rapidly, sweating
and or trembling, feeling weaker, tired, difficulty concentrating, having trouble sleeping,
and or experiencing guests, or intestinal problems. The anxiety is
thought to be centered in the amygdala, a part of
the brain associated with emotions. The idea is that the amygdala,

(03:31):
acting on bad memories or false ideas of what could happen,
releases fight or flight hormones that put the body in
a stressed state, thus the sweaty palms, racing heart, and
the desire to get away. The disorders often start in
young people. Psychiatry professor Compton says a shy child who
won't participate in class even though he or she knows

(03:51):
the answers, or who's afraid on play dates, or who
won't join a sports team for fear of messing up,
and grow as the child becomes an adult. Compton said
most of the anxiety disorders start in early childhood and
go untreated and unrecognized. People end up developing some pretty
maladaptive sort of coping strategies. The go to strategy seems

(04:12):
to be avoidance. Of Those who have been dealing with
social anxiety for years, including the fear of public speaking,
simply avoid stressful situations whenever they can, and that's about
the worst thing they can do when it comes to
conquering their fears. Compton said, the more you avoid, the
worse It becomes. My motto and therapy is you need
to avoid avoidance. It's almost like, if something causes you anxiety,

(04:34):
you need to do the exact opposite of what your
history is telling you to do. Therapy can help a
fear of public speaking and many other social anxiety disorders.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is a type of psychotherapy talking things
through that is widely used to treat social anxiety by
many mental health professionals. Compton said, in therapy, you start

(04:54):
with kind of small things. I know you don't want
to go to a conference and be a keynote speaker,
but would you be willing to give a talk in
front of one other person? Start small, build up some
confidence and success, and then turn the heat up in
terms of making the situation gradually more anxiety Provoking anxiety
listening medication is a possibility too, but the first step

(05:15):
may simply be practicing a speech in front of a
mirror or with a friend or so low in an
empty room. Also, learn to slow down and breathe and
try to buy into the idea that your life will
be better if you overcome your fear, Compton said, when
they can make the step of being willing to do
that thing, even though their history is sort of saying,

(05:35):
oh my gosh, this is going to be awful, those
are the ones that kind of get over their fear
of public speaking. For those facing the scary prospect of
making a public speech or being in any public setting
where you may have to talk, the National Social Anxiety
Center has loads of tips. One is to decatastrophize the
brain freeze, that public speaking blackout that often happens with glossophobia.

(05:56):
From personal experience. Again, the audience wants you to do well,
and we'll forget about any mistakes you make quickly and
even if you completely bomb. One of the best lessons
about performing that I ever got was from one Chuck Bryant.
As he was getting off stage after coping with a
particularly tough crowd of middle schoolers. He shrugged and said,
there's always next time. Today's episode was written by John

(06:23):
Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang for iHeart Media and
How Stuff Works. For more on this and lots of
other calming topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works
dot com.