Public Speaking Fear can be paralyzing… Standing in front of a crowd… You probably know the feeling. You can work weeks, learn the materials, prepare the presentation. You try to ignore the anxiety. And then it’s the moment… You go to the stand… Your throat is dry, you begin to stutter… Your brain feels empty.
What is happening to you? This frustrating phenomenon is called Public Speaking Fear.
You are not the only one to suffer from fear, or phobia. In fact, According to recent studies, about 40 percent of the population, were found to have a serious fear of public speaking. Almost everyone has some degree of fear regarding public speaking.
Whether it is in front of 10 people or a full auditorium, the fear of public speaking seems to affect nearly everyone at one point or another. Even the most professional public speakers can become nervous before an important speech.
This impacts of this anxiety vary from just ‘not being your best’ during the speech,,to not being able to even begin the speech, and in some cases even suffering from horrors and general feeling of incompetence.
Symptoms of this fear might be:
Rapid heartbeats
Shaky hands
Shortness of breath
Blank mind
Feel of freezing
Sweaty hands
Dizziness
Although you might hear and read about various reasons and factor that cause and affect Public Speaking Fear, I will divide the causes of this “fear” into 2 categories: Historically-based and Experience-based.
1.1 Historically-based factors
Imagine human beings in past times, when we used to live in small tribes. Those times encoded in us all kinds of fears, that helped humans survive. A human tribe would include between 30-100 members, usually with a single (male) leader. This leader was vital for the survival of the tribe and used to be the authority. Now imagine that one simple member of the tribe would arrange a speech in front of the tribe. The leader of the tribe would see this as an attempt to gain authority over the tribe. A common penalty for that could be death.
Public speaking used to be extremely dangerous in the past.
This historical reason is considered according to researches as the main reason why we are so afraid of public speaking.
There is a branch of psychology called “Evolutional Psychology”, which discusses matters like this. The most important thing that you should remember is that a major cause for your fear is irrational. You can’t explain it with the terms of our world. Only imagining the world as it was 10,000 years ago carries the real answer.
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