Short Stuff: Fear of Public Speaking

must be like. Do you remember. I mean, we've done plenty of talks, we've done live shows. That's just kind of part of what we do. Do you remember them crippling stage fright I used to get. Yeah, I mean we both had varying levels early on. It's not like I was always a cool cucumber. You seemed like it. Well that you didn't go into the bathroom with me moments before showtime. I always wanted to, But yeah, you were. You were that through me. Um. You always were a

bit more nervous. But I think you're just wound a little tighter in general. But we we both overcame that for the most part, don't you think. Yeah? Yeah, And you know how we overcame it. I can tell you how, and I know that you know how, but let's tell everybody else through through basically exposure therapy, just doing it. And it turns out what we're talking about is is just public speaking in general. But um, the fear of public speaking almost goes hand in hand with public speaking.

I saw a stat that said that people of people in the world have a fear of public speaking. I'm surprised it's not more than that. To be honest, I am too. And then there's that old trope, the idea that there's some poll taken somewhere of what Americans fear the most, and number one was public speaking and number two was death. And Jerry Seinfeld turned it into that men that most people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy because of that fear of public speaking.

And there's a word for it too, it's called glossophobia, which is great work. Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a real thing, and we should point out that it is a legit um anxiety disorder, a social anxiety disorder for for most people. Um, Like I had a bit of the jitters. I don't think I was had a technical I was a technical glossophob um. But for a lot of people, it's not just like I'm nervous, my

palms are sweaty. For some people, it's debilitating to the point where they will structure their life so that they never have to do that, never have a job where they have to speak in front of like a conference room, you know, right, or small handful of people, basically anybody. They always want to be the ones in the audience. They don't want to be the ones giving the talk so much so, like you said, they'll they'll structure their

their life around avoiding it. Avoidance is like the number one go to thing that people do when they suffer from glossophobia. They just do whatever they can to not give that talk. That's right, And like you said that, it's a it's a subset of a social anxiety disorder, which is really at base a social anxiety disorder is a UM. It's a performance fear. It's the fear of being judged and or failing. Um, that's what it is

among your peers. Yeah, it's the it's the fear of the result, not like I mean, it manifests its ways as you like walk up on that stage but what you're really afraid of is saying the wrong thing, uh, feeling like you've said something dumb, being judged as not knowing what you're talking about. And that's why it helped us, because we have a very forgiving, loving, loyal audience whenever

we go out to do live shows. It makes it a lot easier than And we've done talks where we weren't full in a room full of stuff you should know, fans, and those are always more nerve racking for me. Well, they also always went really poorly too. You're kind of right.

But one of the problems though with this is is like that that you're not only your fear, you know, not knowing what you're talking about or being judged and failing, but also catastrophically screwing up, like forgetting your place, maybe bursting into tears and running off of stage, and so you fear these things. But the insidious thing about you know, glossophobia are really any social anxiety disorder, is that you come to fear the fear. Right. It's not like you

experience just the fear while you're up on stage. You you fear this, this failure, this whatever it is you're you're having to do for a very long stretch ahead of time. And that is the most crippling part of any social anxiety disorder, the fear of the fear of so aciated with it, and that's what leads to the avoidance. Right, So let's take a quick break and we're gonna come back and talk about how this manifests itself in what you can do about it right after this. If you

want to know, then you're in luck. Just listen to Chuck. All right, So you gotta give a talk at your school or whatever, which I did, by the way, my very first like a big in front of people speaking and not just like classroom size, was when I ran for a vice president of student council. I had to speak in front of the entire school in the gym and it was pretty nerve. Ranking new locker combos for everyone? Was that your platform? No? What was it? Brady or no?

A Happy Days? Was angled parking? That was the big thing that Richie was running on, Was it? Really? Yeah? Man, that is a it's an arcane trivia question right there. I have no idea how that's stuck with me. But um, what you will feel in your body, which is what I felt back then and what I don't so much feel now is on edge. Um, if it's really bad, sense of panic and doom, your heart's gonna be beating faster. These are like literal physical changes. You will be sweating,

especially if you're me. You might be trembling, you might feel weak and dizzy. Uh. You might have trouble sleeping in the days proceeding for weeks or weeks. Um, I have trouble sleeping after shows because of just the adrenaline, just because you're so amped. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, there's definitely a come down stage. But all this is actually science and physiological things that are going on in

your body, isn't that right? Yeah, And the reason why you're having this physiological reaction is because the whole thing any social anxiety disorder, but also a glossophobias, since it's a subset of that is centered around the amygdala, which

regulates our emotions. And for some reason, they think it starts in childhood, probably where there's just some sort of you know, innate shyness that doesn't um dealt with and just grows and grows and grows as an adult, but you start to associate performance with fear and the amygdala. Then when it senses that there's some sort of performance

impending starts to freak you out. It associates performance with that fear and not only things that have gone wrong in the past, but all the things that could go wrong in the future, and releases the same stress hormones that it releases. If a bear suddenly shows itself to you and takes a swipe at you with with its clause, which means that the fight or flight uh response is kicked in, So you're having a physiological fight or flight response, which is why you feel like you want to run

from wherever. The place you have to give the talk is just run forever, quite job, start a new life, maybe grow a mustache as a disguise. Yeah. And as a kid, it's like it can very easily be avoided instead of dealt with. And then that fear just never has overcome and you become an adult who has that same fear uh and you walk a really fine line as a parent. I'm already seeing this with like, now you don't have to do that. If you don't, you know, if it freaks you out too much, or you know,

you don't want to be the fifties parent either. That's like, no, get on that high dive and jump right, you know, like they back then they thought they were helping. Like my dad, I was scared of roller coasters and he told me, I'm not bringing you back anymore than if you don't get on this roller coaster right now. And I did and I loved it. However, I mean, people

don't parent that way anymore. So you really got to walk that fine line of encouragement and maybe like it might be good if you could overcome this fear without traumatizing them at the same time, Right, you have to figure out a way to trick them into doing it kind of you. There's a lot of trickery involved, I can imagine there has to be. That's the there's your fine line, there's the balance struck right there. But avoidance

is not going to solve your problem. And experts say, if you want to, if you have to overcome this fear or want to, uh, you gotta do what we did and you've got to just kind of start doing it on a smaller scale ideally, right. So, um, if you really really have it bad, and this is say

like affecting you personally or professionally or whatever. Um, it would help probably to go seek a cognitive behavioral therapist who's going to help you retrain your brain to see things differently so that your brain doesn't associate public speaking

with abject fear and terror. And the way that you do this, like you said, just kind of starting out small, maybe giving a speech alone in a room, and then moving up to one in front of a friend, then a handful of friends, your dog, maybe even first I'll

bet your dog, wouldn't you. Most dogs aren't very judging usually, and then maybe moving up to some thing like toast masters, like a supportive group that is that that can really help you and give you a chance to give speeches in front of other people who are very supportive and

aren't going to judge you. And then you just keep going and pushing yourself and pushing yourself, and by doing that over and over again in increasingly um anxiety inducing settings, you retrain your brain so that it doesn't associate terror, it associates good things instead, like that that being pumped

up on adrenaline afterwards because you're you're so thrilled with yourself. Yeah, I've I've been to many weddings where I feel bad for the toastmaster that UH was kind of that position was shoved onto them, and they it ruins the wedding up until that point for them a lot of times, because you can just tell they're just like, I don't want to do this, man, I've just been going over,

been writing, and I just always feel so bad. I thought you're gonna say it ruins the wedding, Well, it ruins their experience right until it's over, and then they

just get plastered. Right. But on one of the things you can do to UM, no matter whether you're performing for yourself in a room alone or in front of like a room full of people, UM, one way to really help yourself is to know the material to be prepared and not just memorize it, because if you memorize that, you can lose your place and then you're just toast.

To know the material so much that you can improve and add lib whenever needed, because there's such thing as hecklers out there and they will try to throw you off. But if you know the stuff, you can find your place again and be much more comfortable. That's the advice I always give to people is if you're nervous, just know the material inside now, and then you can start to relax and make the jokes that people love. Good advice.

If your crutches the actual material, then you're in good shape. Right. So that's it for public speaking. Get out there and speak publicly and in the meantime, this is short stuff out. Stuff you should know is production of I Heart Radio. How stuff works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H M.