controlling presentation nerves

Nerves Can Help!
It is perfectly natural and healthy to be nervous ahead of a presentation. Nervous energy, when properly harnessed, will enable you to communicate with energy, passion and conviction. Nerves can give you the edge that you need to perform well. However, in order to do so you will need to harness and control your nerves in a positive way.

If you are too calm immediately before delivering your presentation, then you may be underestimating the challenge. Alternatively you may be suppressing your own nervousness. Neither scenario will help you to make an effective presentation. At this stage you may be thinking, why am I being warned against being calm in a presentation? When my problem is that the prospect of presenting terrifies me! You would not be alone; surveys usually find that public speaking is the thing people fear most of all - often coming several places higher than the fear of dying. It takes energy to stay calm, energy to speak in a lively and interesting way and energy to pay attention to the needs and requests of an audience. Since you only have a finite amount of energy available, learning to control your nerves is important as it lets you focus all of your efforts on presenting and interacting with your audience in an effective way.

Physiological Effects of Presentation Nerves
When you speak in public you will almost certainly notice one or more of the following effects:

Firstly, your temperature is likely to increase and you may notice that you have sweaty palms, a clammy collar and a hot forehead.
Secondly, adrenaline may be pumped into your system and this may make you feel shaky.
Thirdly, your respiration rate is liable to increase and this may make you feel stressed and panicky with the result that you may stumble over some of your words.
Finally, nervous energy may cause you to consume body sugar with the result that your mouth starts to feel dried out.
These effects - increased temperature, shakiness, panic, stress and a dry mouth can interact to make you feel extremely nervous, uncomfortable and tongue tied. However, recognizing these symptoms for what they are should enable you to cope better with them.

Research has shown that they are not necessarily signs of fear but may indicate that you are gearing up to perform. Many entertainers, public speakers and competitive sports people report the same four symptoms immediately prior to performing - often before giving the best performance of their lives.

Develop a Regular Breathing Pattern
Effective breathing is a fundamental ingredient of a good presentation technique. Uncontrolled nerves often manifest themselves in a shallow and irregular breathing pattern and a tight or constrained voice. Sometimes really nervous presenters squeak at their audience and run out of breath halfway through a sentence. When you are presenting you will need to breathe more deeply than normal. Here is an easy exercise that can help you to develop deeper and more relaxed breathing:

1. Standing with your feet shoulder width apart, place your hands on your back - on the bottom of your ribcage.
2. Now inhale deeply; you should feel your ribcage move outwards as the air fills your lungs.
3. Try to exhale over an extended period of about 25 seconds.
4. By practicing this regularly you should develop the deep breathing pattern that will give you more volume and power and help you to control your nerves.

Work With Your Nerves – Not Against Them
If you concentrate on your own nervousness then you will be drawing this to the attention of the audience and the impact of your message will be weakened. Furthermore as you become aware that the audience is observing your nervous state you are likely to become increasingly self-conscious and this negative loop can become self fueling. Ahead of a presentation try to visualize an enthusiastic audience, that is reacting positively to your presentation. Picture yourself delivering a clear and interesting presentation. Admit to yourself that you may be nervous but that you are going to use this in a positive way. Remember that everyone in the audience is not an adversary and they are not attending the presentation in order to pull you apart. Their interest lies in what you might say and show them. All or most of them are likely to empathize with you and want you to succeed. If you keep the presentation focused on the message and try to relax then the audience will be able to concentrate on taking the message on board.

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