Why do I get such terrible stage fright?

Question

I hate getting up in front of people and speaking because I get so scared. My heart pounds and I sweat. I can't remember what I am supposed to say. Why is it so much easier for others I have seen?

Answer 1

This is super common and nothing to be ashamed about. If public speaking seems easier for others, it is probably because they have a lot of practice. In time and with growing confidence, these reactions slowly do fade. But it takes years.

I am a PhD psychologist as well as a public speaker and teacher, and have looked very closely at this topic both professionally and personally in my own journey. What I have found is that one of the absolute best ways to approach this is through somatics or embodiment. This is a much-neglected topic in Western approaches to speech and debate, but if you think about it, everything you're describing is very much a physical experience of the body. The heart pounds. The breath catches. The skin heats up. These are all physical sensations.

It turns out that there are already very highly developed tools available - both in Eastern Traditions and in Western Somatic Psychologies - to effectively explore and defuse these kinds of physical sensations. Master public speakers and performing artists learn to study their own physical reactions, and even to channel these reactions into their performances to make their presentation even more powerful. You might have seen parallel examples to this where an actor gets hurt or gets surprised in the middle of a film shoot, and instead of breaking character, actually channels the reaction into the character. Sometimes these are the most powerful theatrical moments caught on film.

So it's the same for a public speaker or other kind of performing artist. The greatest "rockstar performances" are not from speakers who are bored, calm, who have no energy in them. They are from speakers who are very activated and feeling a lot of energy, but have practiced how to "capture" that energy and not let it pull them down. And this is really a physical mastery: what you might call the practice of an "inner athletics."

If you want to work on these kinds of skills with me, you can book a session and we'll dive in!

Answer 2

The symptoms you are describing are a panic attack. This happens when we are triggered by someone that scares or frightens us (speaking in front of people), our brain sends our body adrenaline so we have the energy we need to run as fast as we can, but if we don't run, all of that energy is just coursing through our bodies, leaving us with symptoms of a pounding heart, sweating, uneasy breathing, shaking, trembling voice, and not being able to hear properly.

The reason we forget everything we were going to say is that the blood in our body rushes to the vital internal organs to protect them in case we are hurt. Oddly, the brain loses blood flow during this response so our short-term memory is diminished.

Hope that helps!

Answer 3

Fear of public speaking is not an individual problem - it is a human one.

The symptoms associated with Stage Fright appear in everyone because it is part of our “lizard brain” Flight or Fight response. This is built into our DNA. People who seem to have no problem getting up in front of a crowd are not immune, they have simply come up with workarounds to deal with the symptoms. The cure for stage fright comes with knowledge and preparation.

If everyone has this problem, then anyone can overcome it.