Communication Anxiety
This handout is more effective if it is used in conjunction with your textbook’s resources. See
Chapter 4, pp. 60-69
Go to the Metcalfe web site. (You can open the site by choosing “External Links” in
Blackboard. Select Metcalfe and the site will open in a new window in your browser.)
Select Chapter 4, “Understanding and Reducing Your Apprehension.” Look under “Book
Resources” on the left side of the screen. Click “PRPSA Survey.” Take this online speaking
apprehension test and e-mail the results to your instructor (rlanc@sbcglobal.net)
Download from “Course Documents” on Blackboard the PowerPoint review for Chapter 4 in
your text.
Communication anxiety has a lot of familiar names (nervousness, stage fright, apprehension),
and symptoms that most of us know all too well. The jitters can overtake
students in a public speaking course and ordinary people doing common
speaking activities in their ordinary jobs. Even professional entertainers
experience stage fright. In short, communication anxiety is a common
affliction with varying degrees of unpleasantness.
If you are worried about speaking in front of an audience this semester, you
need to know at the start of class that you are not alone in your feelings. In fact, there are
perfectly good reasons we can experience the unpleasantness that we call public speaking
anxiety.
Common Causes of Apprehension
1. Fear of being stared at. It isn’t exactly the audience we are afraid of. It’s their eyes. Most
of us hate being stared at. We feel awkward, self-conscious, and ill at ease. So, when you
meet “all those eyes” looking back at you from your audience, and you feel your heart
throbbing or knees shaking—remember, you are having a perfectly normal experience.
2. Fear of failing in public. None of us wants to look foolish in public. We don’t want
others to ridicule us or laugh at us. If you fail a math test, let’s say, no one has to know but
you and the instructor—unless you choose to share that failure with others. If we look
unprepared in a speech, everybody, everyone knows. There is something deeply
embedded in our psyche: We don’t want to look dumb in public; we don’t want to be
laughed at or ridiculed. What is irrational about that feeling?
3. Fear the audience will be unresponsive or unsympathetic. When we are in front of an
audience, we know we are being judged; we’re being evaluated. And none of us likes
rejection. We want people to like us, to appreciate our efforts, to respond favorably to our
presence and our ideas. Sometimes we say we don’t care, but that is a mask we can use to
cover the possibility we may find ourselves rejected by others. What is worse than being
rejected in public? There is an old saying, “I don’t want egg on my face.” It is derived
from an old tradition of audiences tossing eggs at speakers they don’t like. Public rejection
is an old as public speaking.
is an old as public speaking.
4. Fear of the unpredictable. The space behind the podium—what we are going to call this
semester the "public space—is a place where unpredictable things happen. Every speaker
has a story to tell to make that point. The reality is that, as they say, “stuff happens.” As
public speakers we have to accept this and do the best we can through our preparation to
reduce the chance of the unpredictable. Though we naturally fear these unknown,
unforeseen occurrences, life does go one. We survive.
The Value of Apprehension
Communication apprehension is a bad thing, ok. But a certain amount of anxiety or
nervousness is not a bad thing. In small doses it can give us a helpful jolt of adrenaline that
we need to perform at our peak. Any athlete or performer can tell you that. Communication
apprehension becomes detrimental when it turns to run-away energy that gets trapped inside
us, with no place to go, except in those familiar symptoms of butterflies and wobbly knees
and befuddled minds. If we can siphon off excessive energy generated by nervousness, then
the dread of speaking before an audience becomes manageable—and a controlled energy
even valuable to the experience.
Suggestions for Reducing Communication Apprehension
Your goal, then, is to keep your jitters under control. You want enough anxiety to have that
“performance edge” but not so much anxiety that your worst fears run away with you.
You can find suggestions for reducing communication apprehension in Metcalfe (pp. 63-69).
You may also find it helpful to know that are things you can do in the planning period for
the speech, things you can do immediately before the speech, and things even during the
speech itself to reduce anxiety. These are all common sense suggestions, but they are often
forgotten by students who are giving speeches, many of them, for the first time.
In the planning stage
1. Put no stock in inspiration. The best insurance against the unknown and unpredictable is
your own hard work and preparation. Start preparing early so that you have plenty of time
to gather ideas, make your outline, and make a set of speaking notes. Then practice.
PRACTICE -- on your feet and, if possible, before any audience you gather.
2. Do not attempt to memorize your speech. Memorization makes the speech sound
mechanical and only increases the chance that, if you forget or get lost, you will
experience the actually the things would are hoping to avoid. Don’t memorize and don’t
read your speech.
3. Give additional time to rehearsing the introduction and the conclusion. You are most
at risk in the earliest moments of your speech. This is the time the anxiety will be the
greatest. You should, therefore, spend extra time practicing your introduction. Practice the
conclusion so that you can maintain your confidence. You will always know, regardless of
what might go wrong, that you can get out of your speech gracefully.
Immediately before the speech
1. Get acquainted with the setting and environment in which you will be speaking. On
the morning you are going to speak, come to class early. Spend a few minutes at the
podium. Visit with other students. Don’t sit silently at your desk, penning up more
nervous energy that you can release.
2. Use physical actions to release tension. Drain off excessive nervous energy with physical
exercise—small releasers you can do at your desk. Take deep breaths, exhaling slowly.
Do isometric exercises: tighten and then relax leg muscles. Push your fingers or hands
together or against a hard object and then release the tension. Tension, release . . . tension,
release. Keep the patterns going until you calm yourself down.
During the speech
1. Pause a few moments before you begin speaking. The silence gives you a chance to
prepare yourself, to collect your thoughts and check your notes. But the pause also gives
the audience a chance to settle. They can focus on you, and in the quiet moment before
you begin their interest in what you will say starts to build.
2. Keep focused on what you want to say. Knowing the idea you want to communicate
gives you confidence. The words will come, even if they are different words from those
you practiced.
3. Trust that most symptoms of the jitters are not visible to an audience. Although you
may keenly feel the anxiety you are experiences, you may be surprised to find that your
audience usually is oblivious to your distress. People are focusing on what you have to say
to them. They are not hearing your pounding heart or feeling your sweaty palms. And this
leads to the next point . . .
4. Never apologize to your audience for being nervous. We all know that public speaking
can be stressing. We have all felt the jitters, so why call attention to something we take for
granted. By commenting on your nervousness, you invite us to stop listening to what you
have to say and begin watching for all the signs we can recognize of the anxiety you have
just announced. Besides, telling the audience you are nervous won’t help calm you. So
there is no good reason to apologize.
5. Slow down. Don’t speak too fast. When you feel speaker’s anxiety, you may want to
speed and get the speech over with and sit down as soon as you can. Don’t do it. Slow
down. Pause. This often gives you the chance to collect yourself. Often speakers write
themselves reminders in their notes: "PAUSE HERE . . . SLOW DOWN." Simple
instructions like these, place among your notes, are useful reminders that pacing your
speech can help you have a more natural, comfortable style of delivery, and that has a
calming effect on speakers.
Additional
Help
You can find additional help with communication anxiety at
http://www.roch.edu/dept/spchcom/ca_links.htm