Wednesday, Jan 5, 2022 • 23min
Speaking Up Without Freaking Out: How to Tackle Communication Anxiety
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In this podcast episode, we share the science behind nervousness and offer tips for keeping your cool during various speaking situations.
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Matt Abrahams
Alia Crum
Baba Shiv
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Matt Abrahams
00:01
According to comedian
Jerry Seinfeld
, people fear public speaking more than death. So at a funeral, most people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. This joke is funny because it rings true for many of us. Hello, I'm Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at Stanford's
Graduate School of Business
. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart - the podcast.Share
00:27
For today's episode, we return to one of our podcast's key goals: helping people feel more comfortable and confident in their communication. With this in mind, we've pulled together insights from three episodes to help us better understand our nervousness and provide us with specific tools to manage it.
Share
00:46
To get started, we need to understand where our communication apprehension comes from. Then, we can explore how our mindset and framing of this stress can be hacked to help us. Finally, we'll look at specific techniques we can use to manage our anxiety.
Share
01:03
The fear of speaking in high stakes situations is very common. 85% of people report being nervous about speaking in public And I quite frankly believe the other 15% are lying. So why is this? What is it about speaking in front of others that makes most of us nervous?
Share
01:22
Those of us who study this ubiquitous fear believe it is part of our human condition. Evolution has wired us to pay very close attention to our relative status to others. Now, when I'm talking about status, I'm not talking about who drives the fanciest car or who got the most likes on a social media post.
Share
01:42
What I'm referring to is back in our evolutionary past, when we were hanging around in groups of about 150 people. Your status in comparison or relative to others meant your survival. The lower status you had, the less opportunity you had to get shelter to get food or reproduction. Your life was literally on the line. When we speak in front of others, we risk that status. People are judging and assessing us. This is ingrained in who we are.
Share
02:18
Now, just because this is part of the human condition, does not mean we can't manage our nerves. There will always be a situation that can make us nervous, but we can learn to manage our anxiety so it doesn't manage us.
Share
02:33
Not only will this help us feel less nervous and more confident, but it helps our audience too. Let me explain. We have all watched a nervous speaker. Most of us feel bad for them. Some of us begin to experience what I call secondhand anxiety. We get nervous because the presenter is nervous. We are distracted and can't focus on the speaker's message.
Share
02:56
So, as a speaker, reducing anxiety also helps our audience by allowing them to focus on us and our message, and not our anxiety and their reaction to it. One way to address our speaking anxiety is to explore our mindset and framing. Here is a helpful exchange I had with
Stanford
psychology Professor Alia Crum
on this topic.Share
03:18
You know, when it comes to communication, stress and anxiety loom really large, be it delivering a presentation, giving constructive feedback or answering questions. What insight does your work on stress provide to those of us suffering from communication anxiety and stress around speaking?
Share
Alia Crum
03:36
People have been studying stress and anxiety for over a century now, from an academic standpoint, of course, we've always experienced stress and anxiety to some degree. And by and large, what they focused on is, when it comes to the psychology of stress, is what people call "appraisal".
Share
03:55
So, how do you appraise or think about the stressor and your ability to handle it? So, do you view conflict or a challenging situation or an important presentation or an important meeting as a threat? Something that you don't have the resources to overcome or a challenge Something that's difficult, but you do have the resources to overcome?
Share
04:20
Those sort of appraisals have shown to be really important in shaping how we show up and how we perform in stressful situations. Our work on mindset goes a little bit deeper into the mind, into understanding, not just sort of how we appraise a particular situation, but what are our core assumptions about the nature of stress itself?
Share
04:46
The nature of a challenging situation, or, you know, a demand in our life, that's what we've been focused on. And what we've found is that if you kind of go back into those core assumptions. What you realize is that most people have the mindset that stressful situations are inherently debilitating.
Share
05:08
They're going to ultimately make us sick, make us struggle, make us crumble under pressure. And when you look at the truth about stress, which is like most things, very complicated, you realize that that is a simplified assumption. It's not necessarily wrong, but it's only one way of viewing stress.
Share
05:32
And you start to realize that the true nature of stress is more complex. And in fact, there's a whole other side of stress that reveals to us that the body's stress response, the mind stress response was not designed to be debilitating, but instead designed to help us elevate our performance and behavior to meet the demands we are facing.
Share
05:55
There's a whole side of stress that shows that it can have enhancing qualities on our cognitive functioning, our physical health and on how we behave and interact with others. And so our work is not necessarily to find out the truth of stress what is or what isn't, but to look at how our mindsets, the core assumptions we make about it, shape, how we respond in stressful situations.
Share
06:23
And what we've shown is that if we can get people to open their minds to this notion that stress can be enhancing, that stress can help you rise to a new level of understanding, can deepen your connection with others, can make us even physiologically grow tougher and stronger. Having that focus shifts our attention and behaviors in ways that make that mindset more true.
Share
Matt Abrahams
06:52
To reiterate what
Alia
said, reappraising our communication stress and changing our mindset toward it helps us put our anxiety into perspective, and actually harnesses the benefits of it. Next up is advice we heard from Stanford
School of Medicine
Professor Andrew Huberman.
Andrew shares the purpose of reframing while helping us understand the biology behind our anxiety.Share
Andrew D. Huberman
07:17
When we are in a state of alertness, whether because of excitement or fear, the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system, let's just call it the alertness system, deploys a hormone from our adrenal glands, adrenaline, and it deploys the equivalent chemical in the brain where it's called epinephrine. It's actually the same chemically identical structure, but called two different things, because neuroscientists and physiologists like to make things complicated, not simple.
Share
07:46
But the role of adrenaline slash epinephrine is to create agitation in the body and to create focus in the mind. And this is an important concept because that agitation makes it harder to be still, which is sort of a, duh! Right? That's the definition of agitation. But it was designed for to move us, to physically move us, so that we would be biased towards ambulation. We're biased toward um shifting from one position to a new one.
Share
08:20
And so one of the toughest things for many people is to tolerate that level of adrenaline or alertness when they have to be still. The simplest example I can give this that I think most people will be familiar with is if, in the days where we congregated in person, there's this traditional practice of going around the room and introducing yourself and saying something about what you do, and most people actually find that to be very stressful, especially if they toward the end of the line.
Share
08:48
Now, why would that be right? Most people know their name and can say their name. Most people know what they do and can say that. It's anything but a high stress circumstance, and occasionally there's some social pressure where someone is very funny before us, or they say something in a particularly nice way than we feel like some additional pressure to do that as well.
Share
09:05
But it really has more to do with the fact that when we're in a room listening to somebody, we're comfortable with the fact that we're not going to speak or walk or do much, and we can just sit there and write or listen or text or whatever it is we have to do. As we are called on to say something.
Share
09:23
The reason it's easier to do early in the line is because we are holding on to a reverberatory circuit, there are circuits in our brain that anticipate action and prepare us for action. And the longer we keep that in check, the more challenging it becomes when we are trying to withhold action, but we're preparing for action, there's a lot of reverberatory, excuse me, activity in our nervous system, and it feels like stress.
Share
09:52
Getting ready to go up to the podium is tough. When we get up to the podium, many people, including myself, find that if we rock back and forth a little bit, or we can engage some movement in our body, suddenly we start to relax, and that's because adrenaline, adrenaline slash epinephrine was designed to move us, and it wasn't designed to move us in response to incoming large predators.
Share
10:13
It was, but that's not its primary function, its primary function was to move us from whatever position we're into a new position, sometimes towards things, sometimes away from things depending on whether or not we want the experience or we want to avoid the experience. But the actual inner experience, what we call inter reception, our perception of our internal landscape is identical for something that we want to approach versus we want to move away from. Absolutely identical. Below that, from the neck down, that is.
Share
Matt Abrahams
10:42
Really interesting. So, if you can reframe the physiological response, you can see it very differently. And I find fascinating that, when we see somebody who is nervous moving one way versus the other way as an audience member, we have very different perception.
Share
10:58
So, if somebody steps up on a stage and then takes a step back as they're starting to speak, it looks like they're retreating and therefore may be nervous or shy, but if somebody actually steps forward, we have a perception that they're confident and stepping into the challenging situation. So it's not only what we perceive, it's how the audience perceives it as well.
Share
11:19
So once again we learn that reframing how we see speaking anxiety can really change how we feel and act. Additionally, forward movement, like stepping toward our audience when we start an in person presentation, or leaning in slightly when in a virtual meeting, can help us feel better and appear more confident.
Share
11:38
Reframing is one key element to managing our anxiety about speaking. Let's explore other ways. We will again hear from Professor
Alia Crum
followed by Stanford GSB
Professor Baba Shiv.Share
11:54
So let me put you on the spot. Let's say I am somebody who has a big upcoming presentation or meeting contribution, and I'm getting nervous. What could I do in terms of my mindset to help me feel a little less nervous and perhaps even more excited about the opportunity?
Share
Alia Crum
12:14
The first is to acknowledge that you're stressed, right? So you have an upcoming meeting or a presentation that you're given... it's important. Just acknowledge that you're stressed. I'm stressed about this, right? And also become a... sorry, go ahead.
Share
Matt Abrahams
12:34
And it's normal to be stressed about it. Most people would be.
Share
Alia Crum
12:37
Exactly. Notice that it's normal. So, acknowledging means acknowledging without judgment, right? Knowing, just noticing what you're feeling, right? How do you respond to stress? Is it, you know, getting hyperactive, and you know, your sweaty palms? You know, for me sometimes it's like, I have a big presentation or talk and I just get... all of a sudden I'm exhausted.
Share
Matt Abrahams
13:03
I perspire and blush. That's my big thing. I started dripping with sweat.
Share
Alia Crum
13:10
Yes. So noticing the physiological reactions, noticing your emotional reactions, noticing your behavioral responses without judgment. That's the first step. The second step is to welcome your stress. So why the heck would we welcome our stress?
Share
13:29
Well, it goes back to what I just talked about. We only stress about things that we care about, and so inherently underneath the stress is a true value, a true care, a true purpose. And we wouldn't be in this situation if it wasn't for something that mattered, we wouldn't be stressed about it if it wasn't for something that mattered.
Share
13:50
So that step involves basically just asking yourself for completing the sentence, right? I'm stressed about X, this upcoming presentation, because I care about... why? And what is the why?
Share
Matt Abrahams
14:06
Right? So it's the goal that you're trying to achieve or the change you're trying to affect, that's the why.
Share
Alia Crum
14:11
Exactly. I care about it because I, you know, really feel like I have something important to say that could improve the lives of the people I'm communicating to, or could change the way we're doing things at this company, or could alter fundamentally, you know, the relationship that I have with this loved one, right?
Share
14:32
These are the whys, right? And, you know, you got to go deeper in asking the why, we call it sort of the downward arrows of whys. You know, sometimes people are like "well I'm stressed about this presentation because I don't want to screw it up". Well why don't you want to screw it up? "Well, I don't want to screw it up because I don't want to get fired".
Share
14:54
Well why don't you want to get fired? You know "I don't wanna get fired because I feel like I have a contribution to make here, because there's something in here that I feel that I really have to offer. " You go until it resonates at that positive level for you. That's the second step. So first acknowledge your stress. Second, welcome your stress as being linked with something you care about, reconnect with what you care about.
Share
15:21
And the third is to use or utilize your stress in ways that help address the purpose, address that why, rather than spending all your time money, effort, energy trying to avoid or get rid of the stress, right? So you start to realize, oh you could go back to those behavioral or emotional responses you identified in step one.
Share
15:45
You know, you get flushed, or you start getting jittery, you know, I start kind of getting tired, it's like, okay, well sometimes physiological responses you can't change, but oftentimes the behavioral responses you can, right? So maybe you start snapping at your spouse, or your kids or something, and then you start getting anxious and talking really fast and you realize: "okay, well, that's not serving my purpose of the underlying value, which is to really communicate this important thing that I have to share".
Share
16:20
So the third step is really utilizing your stress to address the core value or purpose underlying that stress. So those are three steps that we share with people to help them to get into this mindse that stress can be enhancing, that the experience of stress can help us rise to a higher level of communication and performance and existence.
Share
Matt Abrahams
16:46
That is really powerful and very specific and thank you. And it avoids the checking out and the freaking out, and allows you to harness the stress to support the goal that you're trying to achieve. I think that's fantastic.
Share
Baba Shiv
17:09
First and foremost, in my opinion, the tactic is go for any practice that will kind of distress you. Right? Anything, and this can range from, in some cases, just taking some deep breaths, it could be visualizing the audience and seeing the other person being very receptive.
Share
17:33
It could be laughter, it need not be real laughter, even fake laughter will kind of distress you. The reason that's important is because, if we don't do that, if you're not in the right state, and what I mean, the right state, if you're stressed, then your brain tends to adopt frames that are much more risk averse. And it doesn't allow you to experiment, because you're coming out of fear.
Share
17:58
Right? So the main tactics says: just feel comfortable in your own skin. Are you comfortable out there or are you still stressed? Now, sometimes you don't know that. So that's why practices like meditation is so very crucial, right? Not just for health reasons, but also for communication reasons. To be a good communicator, your brain needs to be a lot more resilient to stress, right?
Share
18:24
I mean, Matt, you have done this talking to an audience and what will happen is that when you want to crack a joke and this has been part of what you've planned to do and you get into the stressful situation, the joke will fall flat, right?
Share
Matt Abrahams
18:39
Right.
Share
Baba Shiv
18:39
Some of the things that I'll do is, I'll do the following: "oh, I got to tell you a joke, haha". I laugh myself before I tell the joke, and then people will start giggling, because it's a natural human tendency, right? If someone else's is laughing, you tend to laugh yourself. And then I'll crack the joke.
Share
18:57
So there are these kind of techniques, but the most important thing, I believe, is that of course you need to know your audience. That is the first thing you've got to know, and you probably have been mentioning this time and time again.
Share
Matt Abrahams
19:08
We have.
Share
Baba Shiv
19:08
I'm a big believer that the most critical factor here is you are in a state of comfort, right?
Share
Matt Abrahams
19:14
And we we've talked about this. Interestingly, we've had a couple guests, Christian being one of them, who you teach with, and
Dan Klein
, who I know you know. When it comes to this improvisational mindset and really the logic is the same, we get in our own way through our anxiety and the pressure we put on ourselves.Share
19:34
And if we can actually learn to relax, that allows us to achieve our goal much more readily and be much more present oriented too, so..
Share
Baba Shiv
19:42
Right, and you got to understand that the way the brain is working as all these instinctual brain systems are shaping it. If you're stressed, then what happens is that it will completely shape the frame that you're adopting about the audience, about your content, etcetera. And your body language is also going to tell. A lot of our ability to persuade, as we all know, that's not just dependent upon what you're saying, but how we're saying, right? And so, if you're not in that state, I mean, it is when it shows.
Share
Matt Abrahams
20:10
Right, the tells that we reveal for sure. I have enjoyed so much getting some of your tips. I'm wondering do you have any other tips that we haven't discussed, that you think might help us be more effective communicators?
Share
Baba Shiv
20:22
Absolutely. So if it is going to be a very important piece of thing, you're giving a talk to an audience, a large audience out there, I would just say go to bed early as you often do get a good night's rest, don't sacrifice on sleep. I know people doing this that they will keep on practicing the talk and go through the night and they get about three hours of sleep before they deliver the talk.
Share
20:46
If you not had a good night's rest, guess what? Your brain chemicals are going to be such that you are going to be risk averse. You'll then adopt a frame of mind where your brain is already thinking about failure and that's the wrong state to be in. If you didn't get a good night's rest, it could happen, right?
Share
21:03
And then you're traveling like - Matt, you do this, and I have done this, you travel across time zones, getting the jet lag and stuff like that. So one of the things that very quickly do, I'll order food that is comfort food for me, right? So for me it is growing up in
India
and you talk to most Indians, it is yogurt rice.Share
21:23
So I will just go order for order some plain rice, get some yogurt, plain yogurt, mix it up and have it. Because you need to have that comfort, and comfort food brings a lot of comfort. And then if I'm not able to sleep that night, I will go for a run in the morning because running also, within about 15 minutes of a run, serotonin levels, some of the chemicals in the brain will actually be increased and then you get into the right kind of estate when you're giving the talk
Share
Matt Abrahams
21:52
Great, I love that. Any excuse to eat my comfort foods I'll take. So I'm now going to tell everybody "Baba told me to".
Share
Baba Shiv
22:00
Even if it is unhealthy, a little bit of it is ok!
Share
Matt Abrahams
22:07
We now have some very specific techniques we can employ to manage our communication apprehension. We can change how we view our anxiety through reframing. We can explore the value our communication brings to us and others. We can work to sleep well and eat right. For more techniques you can use to manage your anxiety check out
Stanford. io/amp
. Stanford. io/amp.Share
22:39
Each of us has the ability to become a more confident calm communicator. It can take a lot of repetition, reflection and feedback, but it is possible. I see it all the time with my students, the people I coach, and I've even seen it in my own communication journey.
Share
22:57
So regardless of if you're presenting at a wedding or a meeting, protesting or pitching, I hope you confidently share your stories, give your input and spread your ideas. We all stand to benefit from your speaking up without freaking out.
Share
23:15
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart - the podcast. Produced by
Stanford
University's Graduate School of Business
. For more information and episodes, visit GSB. Stanford
. edu or subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts. Finally find us on social media @ Stanford
GSB.Share
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Matt Abrahams
Alia Crum
Andrew D. Huberman
Baba Shiv