Conquering stage fright

Do you suffer from stage fright? It’s awful isn’t it?

There is a way through. It is possible to become a calm, successful speaker.

The thing is, your fear has a physiological root and needs a physiological solution. Becoming comfortable on stage is really about managing your limbic brain. The amygdala, a part of our brain not much bigger than an almond, governs our fight or flight response. It can hijack our responses by telling our adrenal glands to secrete hormones.

So there you are, up on a stage. Your amygdala keeps sending a message to your body: "Different! Scary!" There are thousands of people in the audience. Your amygdala says, "Threatening!"

So, what do you do? The amygdala, as it turns out, loves to have you follow patterns. Proven patterns keep you safe. But your amygdala does NOT like new situations. When you’re not following a pattern, your amygdala, which can’t distinguish between real physical danger and irrational fear, can go berserk.

Your job is to make being on stage feel routine to your brain. The way to train your brain to be comfortable speaking is by speaking.

Here’s Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can’t Stop Talking, on The Tim Ferriss Show talking about her own intense fear of public speaking. "If you’re afraid of something, you have to expose yourself very slowly to the thing that you fear in really manageable doses. So, you can’t start off by giving the TED Talk. So, in my case, I signed up for this seminar in – it was a seminar for people with public speaking anxiety. It was here in New York. And you’d get there. And on the very first day, all you had to do was stand up, say your name, sit back down, declare victory. You’re finished. And that’s it."

What Susan did was to condition her brain - very slowly - to become accustomed to speaking in front of other people, to standing up and talking. She did it in the smallest possible dose first, and then moved up to larger doses.

You can do the same thing.

Start with the smallest, least threatening opportunities to talk - a few people in a team meeting, the PTA, Toastmasters - anyplace that you can start to create a new pattern, to teach your amygdala that standing up and talking is normal.

To help your amygdala along, create a grounding exercise that you do before each talk and each talk rehearsal – planting your feet on the ground, feeling your skeleton, breathing, shaking out your arms, doing a few vocal exercises. When you do this consistently you’re creating a soothing pattern for your amygdala.

You can help your amygdala even more by meditating. And, if you need it, by using hypnosis or EMDR. Each of these practices works, but none of them works instantly. Meditation will help you master your impulsive mind and body, but it takes a time investment of several months of daily meditation to build the capacity to summon calm.

When you commit to any daily practice - speaking, breathing, grounding exercises, meditation - your body and brain remake themselves. Real change comes from consistent, patient, disciplined, daily focus on new behavior.

It worked for Susan Cain. "It was my dream come true to be a writer. And I cared so much about the ideas in the book. And I didn’t want my fear to stand in my way. And I was giving this TED Talk. So I had to overcome it."

The results of incremental daily practice are certain. It just takes time. Just keep going, grasshopper!