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How to Overcome Stage Fright

Jennifer Yu
Oct 24, 2016
2 min read

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You shake your shoulders, wiggle your toes, and sigh deeply. Maybe a sip of water will help, you frantically think, but as you tilt your bottle onto your dry lips, you realise that your hands are shaking. Hastily now, you gulp down some water down and try to rehearse your lines over in your head again. But then a loud, booming voice intrudes your inner thoughts.

It’s your turn to speak.

Sound familiar? Don’t worry, this is just a common phenomenon, also known as the most feared experience (especially for novice public speakers)- stage fright. All of us have probably encountered stage fright in our lives; whether it’s if you’re speaking in front of a small class of 8 people, or whether if it’s preparing to give a speech in front of a large audience. In this article, you will find some useful, and probably life-saving tips to help you whenever you are stuck in such a scenario.

1. Do sufficient preparation beforehand

I know, I know. You’ve probably heard this one a million times and it’s also ridiculously cliché, but it’s cliché for a reason right? Doing enough preparation is probably the best way you can help yourself because memorising your speech and knowing what hand gestures to make is the basis of a good performance. Besides, knowing that you are fully prepared increases your confidence.

Trust me, you’ll thank yourself later.

2. Stretch and straighten

If the destination you’re at permits, go to a restroom and do a couple of power poses. The name “Power Pose” says it all, as scientific research shows these poses truly make you feel more confident. According to an article by Business Insider, the amount of testosterone (a.k.a. the dominant hormone) increases sharply, while cortisol (the stress hormone) drops rapidly.

Doing these just a few minutes beforehand does wonders in increasing your performance, and they only take a couple of seconds!

3. The Positive Meter

Going into a room thinking that you’re going to fail won’t exactly boost your performance. In fact, some researchers believe that pessimism actually stresses out the body, inducing an elevated amount of hormones in the bloodstream. Alternatively, if you reject any negative thoughts and focus only on the positive ones, you’re much more likely to succeed.

4. Calm down

If you have time- even if it’s just a few seconds before your performance- take a few seconds to breathe deeply, relax your muscles and shake off all the fear and nervousness. Doing this helps physically ease all the growing anxiety and also warms up your body prior to the performance. Did you know that there is actually a direct connection between breathing and your emotional state? By immediately changing your breathing pattern once you know that you’re stressed actually slows your heart rate down, and while doing this, imagine that all the pressure and stress is dissolving away with every exhale.