Every time I teach a course called The Art of Public Speaking there are always many students who feel paralysed by anxiety at the thought of giving a speech. Do we need to accept this and force students to just do it anyway because they have to?
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| Photo by Ben Moreland on Unsplash |
Invariably, students have negative reactions towards public speaking scenarios. These can become powerful negative emotions that hold students back from becoming confident and effective speakers. I have tried many strategies to lessen stage anxiety. Besides frequent practice in low-stakes situations, the most effective approaches have been cognitive reframing strategies that enable students to alter the way they think and feel about speaking in public.
The role of emotion
Emotions are an ever-present and important part of who we are, impacting our learning, decisions, and relationships. The Mood Meter, developed by Marc Brackett, categorizes emotions into four quadrants: red, yellow, green, and blue.
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| Mood Meter (Permission to Feel - Marc Brackett) |
- Red is high energy and low pleasantness -- this includes emotions like anxiety and anger.
- Yellow is high energy and high pleasantness -- this includes excitement and joy.
- Green is low energy and high pleasantness -- this includes contentment and tranquility.
- Blue is low energy and low pleasantness -- this includes sadness and discouragement.
When we are anxious about doing something, we are in the red quadrant with high energy and low pleasantness. The high energy is helpful because the hormones released (adrenaline and cortisol) enable us cope with stressful situations. However, the low pleasantness leads to negative feelings towards that activity, including dread. This is how many people feel about public speaking.
Go yellow
When giving a speech, I think yellow is a helpful quadrant to be in -- both for the sake of the speaker and the audience. The high energy allows you to bring energy to the room and the high pleasantness allows you to be positive.
But you can't just change how you feel, can you?
Or can you? In his book, Permission to Feel, Marc Brackett describes how cognitive reframing strategies help us regulate our emotions by reshaping the way we think about a given situation.
Thinking about something in a different way can change our feelings. With public speaking, I encouraged students to think of all the benefits of giving speeches. Here are some of their ideas:
- I can share my opinions
- Even if I make a mistake I will learn from it
- It might be fun
Simply talking about these benefits together in class seemed to change the atmosphere. Students were reshaping their "instinctive interpretation of events" into more constructive thought patterns that helped many of them move from the red to the yellow quadrant. Negative anxiety turned into excitement.
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| Photo by Cam Adams on Unsplash |
Encouraging students to turn their feelings of anxiety towards feelings of excitement has been life-changing for some. "Now I think I could be a good speaker," said one previously reluctant student. Sometimes a simple mindshift can make a big difference.
Ongoing reframing
This is not just a once-off discussion, though. Frequent reminders of the truly good advantages of public speaking help students combat sneaking anxiety. And there are more ways to encourage positive emotions toward public speaking throughout a course.
- Praising students' efforts
- Showing my own enthusiasm for giving speeches
- Demonstrating all speech activities before students
In his TED Talk, Speaking Up Without Freaking Out, Matt Abrahams encourages us to reframe a speech as conversation rather than a performance. When students have a chance to rethink what a speech is, they begin to see it as a great opportunity, not an intimidating test. This also results in better speakers who are less focused on themselves and more focused on their message and their audience.
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.- Hamlet
- Have you tried cognitive reframing strategies with your students?
- What has helped them reduce anxiety and grow in confidence?
That's quite interesting.
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