Mice show that you can overcome fear of public speaking

If you get nervous about speaking in public, the recently published results from a scientific experiment on mice, should give you some hope. The experiment showed that mice that had been trained to feel calm, coped better with stressful situations.

The mice were trained to associate a specific sound with safety. They were then subjected to a stressful event – a mouse swimming pool that they could not escape from. The mice would eventually give up swimming as if they had given up hope. But when the “safe” sound was made, the mice started swimming again.

The lead researcher, Eric Kandel said: [Read more]

15 baby steps to overcoming the fear of public speaking

In the three previous posts (Overcome your fear,  No perfect presentation, Seven thinking sins) I have talked about the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) approach to overcoming the fear of public speaking. I’ve focused on the cognitive principles on the basis that if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably doing presentations (the behavioral part of CBT). But maybe you know somebody who gets so nervous at even the idea of presenting that they avoid it whenever they can. This post will look at what they can do to help themselves, using the behavioral principles of CBT. On the assumption you’ll forward this link to them, I’ll now start talking directly to them.

Here’s the important thing about the behavioral approach. It’s not about just going out and doing it. You need to take a gradual approach. In psychology this is called systematic desensitization.

Imagine if you were frightened of birds. A therapist working with you would gradually expose you to a bird. They might start by showing you a small picture of a bird and keep it far away from you. You’d be nervous at first, but gradually you’d realise no harm was going to come to you and your symptoms of fear (heart beating, sweating) would die down. Then the therapist would bring the picture closer and wait again till your symptons faded. The therapist would then repeat the process with other pictures, then a feather, then a stuffed bird, then a bird in a cage, and finally a live bird flying free. So the process is slow, graduated and systematic.

[Read more]