NEVER Feel Anxious Presenting Again (9 Proven Techniques to Stay Calm and Confident)
A set of practical techniques anyone can master
Studies estimate that approximately 75% of the population experiences some level of fear or anxiety when speaking in public.
Speech anxiety is no joke. It can rob industrious, intelligent, or good-natured humans of normal, happy participation in personal and professional life.
When you are unable to express your thoughts to your fellows, to express yourself vigorously and comfortably in your business and social life, you live a diminished existence. The greater part of your intellect, your creativity, and your very being lay dormant.
-Ralph C. Smedley, founder of Toastmasters
Despite my years of presenting in corporate settings, running workshops, and giving lectures, no matter how comfortable I appear to the audience when at the front of the room, it's a scientific fact that my brain and body will experience some kind of fear before and often while I'm speaking.
Mark Twain, who made most of his income from speaking, not writing, said
There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars.
When we are in front of everyone, be it in-person or virtually, it's impossible to stop our brains from fearing what they perceive as the worst tactical situation for a person to be in. There is no way to turn it off, at least not completely. This fear response is hardwired into the primitive parts of our brain, regions that operate automatically and largely beyond our conscious control.
However, all the fun and interesting things in life come with fears. I actually do a better job of presenting when I'm mildly nervous.
Over the many presentations I've delivered throughout my career, both online and in-person, I've collected and field-tested various methods of managing nerves and anxiety before walking on stage or giving a high-stakes presentation. Here are the techniques that I repeatedly come back to and that I have no doubt will help keep your anxiety at ease, in no particular order.
1. Square Your Breath
Your trembling voice is simply a symptom of your body's tension. By addressing the physical manifestations of anxiety first, you can stabilize your voice and project confidence.
Box breathing, also known as square breathing, is a simple yet powerful technique with a solid scientific foundation.
How it works:
Inhale for 4 seconds
Hold your breath for 4 seconds
Exhale for 4 seconds
Hold your breath again for 4 seconds
This cycle is repeated multiple times, typically for 1-5 minutes.
Here's why it works:
Shifts your autonomic nervous system from the "fight-or-flight" mode to the "rest-and-digest" mode
Lowers cortisol, the primary stress hormone, helping to reduce physical symptoms of stress like elevated heart rate and muscle tension
By focusing on the breath and visualizing a "box," the technique diverts attention away from stressors or distractions, improving concentration and emotional balance
I provide these reasons so you understand the science, but the most important thing is to just do it. And don't judge it.
This technique will relax your body and help prevent your voice from trembling.
Sit down, breathe deeply, and hold it in. Then take in one more gasp of air to fill your lungs even more, and let it all out very slowly. By doing this four times in a row, I can calm my body down in less than a minute.
I do this without fail, every single time I have to deliver an important presentation.
2. Mind Over Chemistry
Your body has prepared energy for you to use. The body doesn't care whether it's for good reasons or bad, it just knows it must prepare for something to happen. If you pretend to have no fears of public speaking, you deny yourself the natural energy your body is giving you. Anxiety creates a kind of energy you can use, just as excitement does.
The body's reaction to fear and excitement is actually the same. The primary difference between anxiety and excitement lies in their cognitive interpretations.
So it becomes a mental decision: "Am I afraid or am I excited?"
If the body can't tell the difference, it's up to you to use your instincts to help rather than hurt you. Use your anxiety as an advantage.
Many studies show that reframing anxiety as excitement improves performance in tasks like public speaking, math tests, and karaoke singing. Participants who said "I am excited" out loud adopted an opportunity mindset, leading to better outcomes compared to those who tried to calm down.
Simply saying "I am excited" out loud before your presentation can help reframe your mindset. This shifts your attention to potential positive outcomes rather than risks.
3. Their Needs, Your Calm
Get in the mindset of service. If you think about yourself, you become more nervous.
When I spoke on my first few stages, my underlying problem was thinking too much about myself and how others saw me, instead of considering my audience and how they heard my message.
Pay close attention the next time you're listening to a good public speaker. The speaker is probably natural and comfortable, making you feel as though they're talking to a small group, despite how many people are actually in the audience.
If you really prepare, if you really do the work, that's when you stop worrying about yourself. By the time you speak, whatever you're talking about, you're giving them something valuable.
Ideally, you've spent time thinking about how the people in your audience might resist your message, and rightly so. They do have that power. But, having studied them, you should also have insights into what makes them human and frail. Remembering that they're just as flawed as you are will help calm your nerves.
Think about the audience and how you can serve them. This shift in focus will naturally reduce your nervousness.
4. Audience of One
Find the smiling faces in the audience. Focus on them while you present and engage your audience. Hold eye contact, finish a thought, and move on to another smiling face.
If you are presenting online, this is even easier as you can focus on one smiling face.
If this seems too overwhelming for you, just imagine your favorite person is in the audience, and you are presenting to them. This will instantly put a smile on your face as you present.
Stephen King discusses the idea of writing for one person in “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”. He writes:
Someone—I can't remember who, for the life of me—once wrote that all novels are really letters aimed at one person. As it happens, I believe this. I think that every novelist has a single ideal reader; that at various points during the composition of a story, the writer is thinking: I wonder what he/she will think when he/she reads this part?
For King, this ideal reader is his wife, Tabitha, whose reactions guide him during the creative process.
Find your Tabitha in the audience. And present to them.
This person serves as a mental audience, helping you focus and feel at ease.
5. Spiral of Doom Destroyer
Studies show that nervous speakers tend to speak 20-40 words per minute faster than calm individuals, driven by cortisol and adrenaline surges from the "fight-or-flight" response.
Faster speech also correlates with higher self-reported anxiety and physiological arousal (e.g., elevated heart rate).
This is why I call this the Spiral of Doom.
The faster you speak, the more nervous you think you are. The more nervous you think you are, the faster you speak... and the cycle continues.
If in the moment you notice yourself getting worked up and your voice is trembling:
Pause.
Take a deep breathe and significantly slow down your rate of speech.
It will calm you down.
Generally, when people are nervous they speak faster as they want this over and done with.
In different studies, students who spoke slowly and softly during anxiety-inducing tasks showed lower cardiovascular arousal compared to those using fast/loud speech.
Practical steps to calm down mid-presentation:
Pause: Stop speaking for 2-3 seconds to interrupt the anxiety spiral
Breathe deeply: inhale through the nose (up to 4 seconds), exhale slowly (up to 6-8 seconds)
Resume speaking at 120-140 words per minute (slower than conversational speed)
Strategically pause: insert 1-2 second breaks between sentences to maintain control
6. Sweat First, Speak Later
If you have an important presentation, interview, or before you go on a stage, your body is releasing excess adrenaline to get you ready for fight or flight.
Since we respect our body's unstoppable fear responses, we have to go out of our way to calm down before we give a presentation. We want to make our body as relaxed as possible and exhaust as much physical energy early in the day.
When I have an afternoon or evening presentation, I make it a point to exercise that morning, with the goal of releasing any extra nervous energy before I get on stage. It's the only way I've found to naturally turn down those fear responses and lower the odds they'll fire.
If you are short on time, or presenting in the morning, do just a bit of brisk exercise.
You don't have to do this in front of everyone if you are speaking at a conference. 10 pushups or a 5-minute brisk walk will help get rid of excess adrenaline.
7. Early Bird Advantage
Arrive early to avoid the last-minute rush that releases additional stress hormones into your system.
Being early will allow you to do a tech and sound rehearsal well before your start time. If you are presenting online, you can use this time to check if your microphone and webcam are properly connected and if your screen sharing works properly.
I do this as standard practice, and I cannot count the number of times I've seen online presenters abandon the call and come back in, leaving everyone waiting, because they had to accept a new browser update, a new privacy policy from their screen sharing software, or had similar issues.
If you are speaking at an in-person location, arriving early will enable you to walk around the stage so your body feels safe in the room. You can also sit in the audience so you have a physical sense of what your audience will see.
Showing up early enables you to talk to some people in the audience before you start (if it suits you), so it's no longer made up of strangers. This will make it easier to find those friendly faces in the audience while you present. The same applies for an online setting. Online presentation platforms often include waiting room features, allowing you to admit participants gradually in smaller groups if greeting large audiences feels overwhelming.
All of these things allow you to get used to the environment you will be speaking in, be it online or in-person, which should minimize your body's sense of danger.
As you can see, being early carries a lot of benefits and can put you at ease.
8. Broaden Your Horizons, Literally
Neuroscientists have discovered that engaging peripheral or panoramic vision can help ease anxiety by calming the brain's stress mechanisms. When we focus narrowly on a single object, such as during stress or anxiety, our visual field shrinks, triggering alertness and activating the brain's stress response.
Conversely, expanding the field of view by relaxing the eyes to take in the surroundings or gazing at the horizon reduces arousal signals in the brainstem, promoting a calmer state.
This works because panoramic vision shifts attention away from the narrow focus associated with stress and activates neural pathways that signal safety, helping to regulate the autonomic nervous system. By consciously broadening your gaze, you can interrupt the fight-or-flight response and ease tension.
Before your next online presentation, you can pick a fixed point in front of you, such as the center of your monitor. While keeping your eyes on that point, consciously expand your awareness to include everything in your visual field, like objects to the sides or even slightly behind you (your mouse and keyboard, your desk, your drink, the rest of your room).
If you are at a live event, focus on a central point. Without moving your eyes, identify everything you can see in your peripheral vision. Repeat this exercise multiple times, aiming to increase the number of items you can notice.
Do this before you present.
9. The Practice Ladder
You have to do more of the activity that causes you anxiety to get better at it.
If speaking in front of 10 people or leadership at your company is nerve-wracking, next time at lunch with your friends try to up the ante and desensitize yourself. Make a toast, tell a joke.
Repeated exposure decreases anxiety over time as the brain learns the activity isn't harmful. For example, practicing speeches in low-stakes settings (like lunch with friends) reduces fear in high-stakes scenarios (presenting to leadership).
Each exposure overwrites the fear response with a new memory of safety.
Different studies show that participants in exposure therapy programs improved their ability to speak publicly by incrementally increasing audience size and complexity.
More importantly, if you'd like to be good at something, the first thing to go out the window is the notion of perfection. Every time I get up to the front of the room or get ready to teach or present, I know I will make mistakes. And this is OK.
Managing speech anxiety doesn't require personality transformation, it's primarily about mastering a set of practical techniques that anyone can learn. Pick a few that resonate most with you and find which ones are most effective through trial and practice.
I'd love to hear which of these techniques works best for you. If you can drop a comment below, letting me know if these techniques helped with your speaking experiences, it might inspire others facing similar challenges.
As you learn to say what you mean in the way that you mean to say it with diminishing anxiety, you'll feel what it means to represent yourself in the world honestly and ably—instead of wondering what that would be like.
Good luck and be patient with yourself.
-Rinaldo