2.3.1: Reducing Communication Apprehension

Preparation

If the source of your anxiety is related to feeling unprepared, feeling different or inferior to your audience, or being the center of attention, there are several steps you can take as you begin to prepare your speech:

• Learn more about your audience by conducting audience analysis.
• Visit and get comfortable with the performance space to learn about the A/V setup, acoustics, and room layout
• Ask questions about expectations, logistics, or anything else you are unsure of.
• Research your speech topic thoroughly to ensure you haven’t missed important information and to prepare for questions.
• Prepare physically and mentally by giving yourself plenty of time to arrive the day of your speech and packing everything you need the evening before your speech so you are not rushed or frantic the day of your speech.
• Prepare and practice with your speaking notes before your speech so they are familiar and easy to read.

Positivity

If the source of your anxiety stems from negative self-talk, a fear of failure, or excessive focus on yourself, then refocusing your thoughts and creating a positive routine can help you to relax.

• Focus on your message, not yourself.
• Perform vocal warm-ups and practice physical relaxers such as power poses, stretches, and breathing exercises both before you practice and before you deliver your speech.
• Think about your audience and remember that they want you to do well.
• Remember that the audience doesn’t know your speech. They will not know if you make a mistake.
• Use positive self-talk such as “that went really well” or “I know this speech well and will always be able to recover and improvise if I need to.”
• Visualize your speech going exactly as you’d like it to and the audience responding positively.
• DON’T imagine your audience naked. This often-repeated piece of advice is a myth.

Practice

Figure 2.3.1.2 Practice is the best way to decrease your anxiety

The most effective way to decrease your CA is to practice. Feeling unprepared or nervous about speaking in front of your audience can easily be addressed by practicing often and in a variety of ways. Remember, you perform the way you practice. Utilize the following tips:

• Avoid simply reading your speech to get familiar with it.
• Stand up, use full volume, practice using your visual aids and speaking notes.
• Practice in chunks before you do full run-throughs to become more familiar with your speech.
• Practice in front of many different types of audiences: single, classmates, family, etc.
• Always time your full run-throughs for consistency and to ensure that you have room to speak quicker or slower the day of your speech.
• Practice without any speaking notes to get as familiar as possible with the structure and content of your speech.
• Identify your own strengths and weaknesses so that you know what to flex, what to expect, and what to build upon.

Above all else, know that a small amount of CA will always remain, and that’s not such a bad thing.

Focus on your Breath

According to a meta-analysis of studies looking at the effect of breathing on blood pressure published in the International Journal of Cardiology Cardiovascular Risk and Prevention (Garg et al, 2023), breathing exercises have a significant effect on lowering heart rate and a modest effect in lowering blood pressure.

There are many breathing exercises to choose from that will successfully reduce calm the fight-or-flight response and positively effect your physical reaction. For ALL of these exercises, the first step is to relax your body. If you feel comfortable, close your eyes, allow your shoulders, neck and facial muscles to completely relax. Then try one or more of the following and see what works best for you.

1. 4-7-8 Breathing Method - STEP ONE: Inhale through your nose for 4 seconds - STEP TWO: Hold that breath for 7 seconds - STEP THREE: Breath out slowly, using your lips and throat to slow release of air for 8 seconds. Repeat.
2. Box Breathing - Imagine a box with four equal sides. As you complete each step of this process, imagine tracing the four lines of the box or square. STEP ONE: Breath in for four seconds. STEP TWO: Hold that breath for 4 seconds. STEP THREE: Breathe out for four seconds. STEP FOUR: Pause and hold that breath for four. Repeat.
3. Alternate Nostril Breathing - Bring your dominant hand up to your face. Use a thumb or other finger to gently press your right nostril closed. Take a slow, deep inhale through your left nostril. Release the right nostril and close your left nostril. Exhale slowly and completely through your right nostril. Keep your left nostril closed and inhale deeply back up through the right nostril. Now, release your left nostril, close your right nostril again and exhale completely through your left nostril. Repeat

Use Imagery to Calm Your Mind and Body

Imagery is another way to calm your mind and body. Whether it is a natural setting, a photograph, video, or computer generated image of nature, people feel decreased cognitive stress when exposed to these environments or images (Koivisto and Grassini, 2024). Nature is a natural way to lower your heart rate. If you are near to a park, forest, waterway or mountains or if you have a view of the sky, this is easy. Find a beautiful piece of nature to look at, whether this is a flower, tree, or lake. Take a deep breath and feel the quiet and peace of that calming space. If you do not have nature like this nearby or if it's not safe to go outside, you can use a video or photograph of nature. Just being in a natural setting or looking at images of the natural world has a calming effect on our bodies and our minds.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

This exercise can be done quickly, using just the hands or participants who have more time can progress through their entire body. For each part of the body you choose to use for this exercise, you will first isolate it, stress it or squeeze it as tightly as you can (while relaxing your shoulders, neck, and facial muscles), then release that tension completely. When the tension is released, you may feel a surge of energy going through your body and a sense of calm. Here are the full steps of the relaxation exercise, as outlined in the journal article from Medicine (Pathan, et al, 2023):

Step 1:- Make a fist with the dominant hand without involving the upper arm.

Step 2:- Pushing the elbow of the same arm down against the arm of the chair while keeping the hand relaxed.

Steps 3 & 4:- the non-dominant arm worked separately.

Step 5:- Raising the eyebrows.

Step 6:- Screw up the eyes and wrinkle the nose.

Step 7:- Clenching the teeth and pull back the mouth corner.

Step 8: Pull the chin down, press the head against the support, and tense the neck muscles.

Step 9:- Drawing the shoulders back.

Step 10:- Tightening the abdominal muscles.

Step 11:- Tensing the thigh of the dominant leg by contracting the knee flexors and extensors together.

Step 12:- Pointing the dominant foot down (Plantarflexion).

Step 13:- Pulling the dominant foot up toward the face (Dorsiflexion)

Steps 14, 15, 16:- The nondominant leg was worked separately.

1. Garg, P., Mendiratta, A., Banga, A., Bucharles, A., Victoria, P., Kamaraj, B., Qasba, R. K., Bansal, V., Thimmapuram, J., Pargament, R., & Kashyap, R. (2023). Effect of breathing exercises on blood pressure and heart rate: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International journal of cardiology. Cardiovascular risk and prevention, 20, 200232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcrp.2023.200232
2. Koivisto, M., & Grassini, S. (2024). The restorative effects of mental imagery of nature: A study on subjective and physiological responses. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 96, 102346.
3. Pathan, F. K. M., Pandian, J. S., Shaikh, A. I., Ahsan, M., Nuhmani, S., Iqbal, A., & Alghadir, A. H. (2023). Effect of slow breathing exercise and progressive muscle relaxation technique in the individual with essential hypertension: A randomized controlled trial. Medicine, 102(47), e35792.

Contributors and Attributions

CC licensed content, Shared previously

• Person in empty gym. Located at: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/112248. License: CC0: No Rights Reserved
• Speech Rehearsal. Authored by: Moon Angel. Located at: https://flic.kr/p/5bM6tv. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

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• Use Your Breath | Jitesh Vaswani | TEDxTucson. Provided by: TEDx Talks. Located at: https://youtu.be/tNpmruPaj1Q. License: Other. License Terms: Standard YouTube License
• The surprising secret to speaking with confidence | Caroline Goyder | TEDxBrixton. Provided by: TEDx Talks. Located at: https://youtu.be/a2MR5XbJtXU. License: Other. License Terms: Standard YouTube License

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• Reducing CA. Authored by: Anne Fleischer for Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution

This page titled 2.1.1.10: Reducing Communication Apprehension is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Lumen Learning.