Can the Fear of Public Speaking Be Conquered?

cool that you might have temporarily summoned. And all those people around the table in the conference room or classroom or auditorium are doing the absolute worst thing that they could do right now. They're staring and waiting and waiting and waiting for you. I just want to run and hide. Do you say to yourself, this is not going well.

I'm going to bomb. According to both my own personal experience and one Scott Compton, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine, that's exactly what those with a fear of public speaking are thinking, and that anxiety, of course, is exactly the problem. The

fear of public speaking is seriously real. It's a type of social anxiety disorder, which is a term first coined in nineteen eighty in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the d s M from the National Institute of Mental Health, quote, people with social anxiety disorder have a general intense fear of or anxiety toward social or performance situations. They worry that actions or behaviors associated with their anxiety will be negatively evaluated by others, leading them

to feel embarrassed. This worry often causes people with social anxiety to avoid social situations. Social anxiety disorder affects a whopping fifteen million American adults. Among the many subsets of the disorder, the fear of public speaking, sometimes called glossophobia, is king. As many as seven out of ten Americans may grapple with some degree of glossophobia. Jerry Seinfeld once equipped. According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking.

Number two is death. This means, to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy, and this fear is way more serious than sweaty palms and a tied tongue. Those with severe glossophobia worried so much about how they act or appear in public that they often avoid public settings altogether, and that can be harmful to their personal and professional well being. And the Anxiety and Depression Association

of America warns that things can get even more serious. Quote. People with social anxiety disorder are also at an increased risk for developing major depressive disorder and alcohol use disorders. The Andrew Cukees Foundation for Social Anxiety lays it out in stark terms. The name may sound harmless, but the disorder is complex, cruel, and anything but simple. Social anxiety is far more than shyness and a fear of public speaking. It's an addiction to avoidance and a disease of resistance.

So what's happening here? A Social anxiety disorders, including glossophobia, are defined by extreme fear and worry. They are the most common mental disorders in the US. The signs that someone may be experiencing an anxiety disorder may include feeling nervous, irritable, or on edge, having a sense of impending danger, panic, or doom, having an increased heart rate, breathing rapidly, sweating and or trembling, feeling weaker, tired, difficulty concentrating, having trouble sleeping,

and or experiencing guests, or intestinal problems. The anxiety is thought to be centered in the amygdala, a part of the brain associated with emotions. The idea is that the amygdala, acting on bad memories or false ideas of what could happen, releases fight or flight hormones that put the body in a stressed state, thus the sweaty palms, racing heart, and the desire to get away. The disorders often start in

young people. Psychiatry professor Compton says a shy child who won't participate in class even though he or she knows the answers, or who's afraid on play dates, or who won't join a sports team for fear of messing up, and grow as the child becomes an adult. Compton said most of the anxiety disorders start in early childhood and go untreated and unrecognized. People end up developing some pretty maladaptive sort of coping strategies. The go to strategy seems

to be avoidance. Of Those who have been dealing with social anxiety for years, including the fear of public speaking, simply avoid stressful situations whenever they can, and that's about the worst thing they can do when it comes to conquering their fears. Compton said, the more you avoid, the worse It becomes. My motto and therapy is you need to avoid avoidance. It's almost like, if something causes you anxiety, you need to do the exact opposite of what your

history is telling you to do. Therapy can help a fear of public speaking and many other social anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a type of psychotherapy talking things through that is widely used to treat social anxiety by many mental health professionals. Compton said, in therapy, you start with kind of small things. I know you don't want to go to a conference and be a keynote speaker, but would you be willing to give a talk in

front of one other person? Start small, build up some confidence and success, and then turn the heat up in terms of making the situation gradually more anxiety Provoking anxiety listening medication is a possibility too, but the first step may simply be practicing a speech in front of a mirror or with a friend or so low in an

empty room. Also, learn to slow down and breathe and try to buy into the idea that your life will be better if you overcome your fear, Compton said, when they can make the step of being willing to do that thing, even though their history is sort of saying, oh my gosh, this is going to be awful, those are the ones that kind of get over their fear

of public speaking. For those facing the scary prospect of making a public speech or being in any public setting where you may have to talk, the National Social Anxiety Center has loads of tips. One is to decatastrophize the brain freeze, that public speaking blackout that often happens with glossophobia. From personal experience. Again, the audience wants you to do well, and we'll forget about any mistakes you make quickly and

even if you completely bomb. One of the best lessons about performing that I ever got was from one Chuck Bryant. As he was getting off stage after coping with a particularly tough crowd of middle schoolers. He shrugged and said, there's always next time. Today's episode was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang for iHeart Media and How Stuff Works. For more on this and lots of other calming topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.