Classes with public speaking/presentations, severe anxiety, how do you deal?

bodangles
Tue, 22 Aug 2017 20:37:01 +0000

In my engineering internship this summer, I had several speaking opportunities, including one that gave me about an hour and a half to prepare because the original presenter was unable to come that day. I’m still working on speaking well; I was very nervous for my end-of-summer presentation and had trouble creating the slides for it because I had an instinctive, deep-in-my-gut aversion to doing it, for some reason. Still had to force myself to speak.

Someone I know tries to channel the persona of a good public speaker – they imagine they’re another person who is very confident and assured. You might also try “power poses” or breathing exercises to get rid of nerves right before a presentation.