“Just chill!”

“There’s nothing to worry about!”

“You’ll be just fine!”

If you’ve ever been told these things before giving a talk – or have said some version of these to yourself – then you know they don’t quite work.

Why? Because it’s very hard to control the mind with the mind.

This is both good news and bad.

The Bad News: Your mind can’t override your body

It’s bad news because, despite this effort being doomed to fail, we’ll all keep trying. If, like me, you’ve been raised to believe in willpower, in the triumph of the individual over their environment, and in reason over instinct, it can be hard to accept there are certain battles your will can’t win.

Hello Anxiety, my old friend

The first form of speaking I ever did professionally was to deliver training on presentation skills.

Ironically, during my first 6 months in that job, I spent every morning puking and praying that some asteroid would fall on my trainees’ offices and cancel my session. At the same time, I was getting great feedback from my trainees, and my superiors were very encouraging and supportive. So I reminded myself of these things in between invoking cataclysm and trying to soothe my upset stomach.

But my mind just couldn’t think my body into calmness.

Of course, you don’t need to suffer from this level of glossophobia (fear of public speaking) to recognise that gap between what you would like to experience as you’re giving your talk (ease, flow, calm, connection, joy, accomplishment), and what you’re really experiencing (discomfort, stress, anxiety, difficulty finding words, nervousness, mental blanks).

The Good News: Our thoughts & emotions don’t come from outer space

Thoughts and emotions are a function of our body!

How we stand, move, breathe, how and when we sleep, what we eat and drink, how we look at the world (literally, with our eyes!) – all have an impact on our nervous system and are much more easily controllable.

And in order to manage stress in the body, we need to understand it.

Stress is a spectrum from boredom to burnout

Between boredom and burnout, there is a whole range of stress levels.

Somewhere in the middle is what the literature calls “eustress”, where optimal performance takes place.

In eustress, we are energised and focused. Here, we face just the right level of challenge: high enough that we keep engaging, and not so high that we fail and become demotivated.

Stay under that eustress threshold, and you won’t be able to “contaminate” your audience with the excitement, curiosity or indignation you want them to feel during your talk. Tip over that optimal stress level and you’ll begin to experience discomfort, unease, anxiety and even full-blown stage fright.

We each respond to stress in different ways

For some of us, stress manifests as avoidance (I find myself in this category): we’ll do whatever we can to get it over and done with. That can look like talking too fast, or trying to give the shortest possible answer and then passing the ball to someone else in a meeting, for example.

For others, public speaking stress can feel like conflict. Clients I’ve worked with have referred to this as “I want to attack the situation”, “I am ready for battle”, “I have my ammo [facts / ideas] ready”, “I’ll show them what I’m made of”. While that’s a more empowering stance for the speaker, it doesn’t always lead to a better experience for the audience, as there’s just as little space for connection as in the first case.

And then, there’s the freeze: that moment when your head is full of white noise and you have no idea what you’re supposed to say next, despite all the preparation. In a milder form, this type of stress can manifest as rambling or incoherence.

Stress is in the eye of the beholder

The only difference between anxiety and excitement is how much we want to be in that situation.

We don’t love a room full of people watching and judging us, but we love racing down snow-covered slopes, sports betting, action movies, exercise, learning, going on dates – need I go on?

Stress is physiological, not just psychological

Our brain is constantly trying to optimize the use of resources in our body (glucose, water, Calcium, Magnesium, Oxygen, amino-acids, etc). According to Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, stress is simply our body mobilising these resources in anticipation of effort (Lisa Feldman Barrett, "How emotions are made")

Increased heart rate, adrenaline and glucose rushing into the bloodstream, digestion put on hold – all of these are adaptations our body is making to prepare for effort.

To the person walking on stage, it feels like their chest might explode, their hands and legs are trembling, and their mouth has gone dry. But to their brain, this is the right thing to do according to the level of effort it anticipates.

Stress is a memory, as well as a prediction.

As the ultimate resource optimiser, the brain doesn’t just respond to stress in the moment. It predicts it.

For example, if I got praised for speaking or putting on a show as a child, my brain learned it was a safe activity. Therefore, no need to prepare for a huge effort. Therefore, no need to spend too much of the body’s “budget”.

So as an adult, my brain doesn’t go into overspending mode whenever I do a presentation, because it has no reason to anticipate trouble, based on its prior experience.

If, however, I am criticised by a demanding parent, or the entire class laughs at my show and tell, my brain will learn that this situation endangers my belonging. This has a direct impact on my resources and safety.

Now when I step on stage as an adult, my brain will anticipate a greater effort for me to belong to that social group. So it does what it does best: mobilise the body’s resources to help it make this effort.

The body isn’t just reacting—it’s remembering.

At this point, you might say – but hey, isn’t it a good idea to mobilise this energy, since speaking in public does take effort? And yes, that would be a great thing to do, if the brain could direct that energy and those resources to itself!

Instead, it sticks to the pattern that has worked best since animals first started hunting each other some 500 million years ago: when in doubt, prioritise motor systems (so you can fight or run) and put all non-essential functions on hold (such as digestion, reproduction, or remembering your lines).

Modify your emotional state by adjusting your physical state

Our primary need in moments of unwanted stress is to feel safe.

Enter: the Vagus nerve - a brain-body communication highway.

And here’s the really good news: 80% of the fibers that make up the Vagus carry information from the organs to the brain (source). Essentially, they let the brain know if the body is doing well or not.

Which means that we can modify our emotional and mental state by modifying our physical state.

The Vagus connects our brain with areas in the neck, external and inner ear, pharynx and oesophagus, heart, lungs, abdomen and digestive tract. It is involved in all the bodily functions that can make or break our experience as speakers – my aforementioned GI distress, that pounding heart, the shallow breath, the shaky voice, the dry mouth.

Of all these functions, there is one we can control: our breathing.

Breathing impacts stress, but not how you think

You’ve surely been told to “just take a deep breath” by a well-meaning person, probably the same one who said “there’s nothing to worry about”. The problem with that is that a long or vigorous inhale will speed up your heart, and therefore make you feel more nervous. Here’s how that works (source):

When we inhale, the diaphragm moves down, creating more space for the heart, which physically expands (larger volume).
Blood inside the heart moves more slowly due to this increased space.
The brain responds to this change by getting the heart to pump faster, to make sure the blood keeps travelling through the body at the same rate (despite the longer distance through the larger heart volume).

Takeaway: Stronger or longer inhales → faster heart rate → more perceived stress.

The opposite is also true: a longer and deeper exhale will slow down the heart.

When we exhale, the diaphragm moves up, reducing space for the heart, which becomes smaller (less volume).
Blood moves faster through this smaller heart.
The brain signals back to slow the heart down.
This generates a feedback loop via those 80% afferent fibers of the Vagus nerve, telling the brain that since the heart has calmed down, it can also relax.

Takeaway: Longer and deeper exhale → slower heart rate → lower perceived stress.

Breathwork as a stress management tool

Breathwork has been around for thousands of years as a spiritual practice, and is now being studied in laboratories all across the US and Europe (the Mindful Breathing Laboratory at Mayo Clinic, the BREATHE Center at the University of Florida, Aarhus University in Denmark and the Brighton & Sussex Breathwork Lab in the UK – to name but a few).

Simple and safe breathing patterns:

4-8 (4 seconds inhale – 8 seconds exhale) and
4-4-8 (4 seconds inhale – 4 seconds hold – 8 seconds exhale);
If that feels too difficult, go down to 3 seconds inhale – 6 seconds exhale.
Incorporate this into your daily routine, and notice how your resilience shifts over time.

Different people will require different amounts of repetition. In my case, thanks to a long-standing, almost daily breathwork practice, 2-3 rounds are enough to send that calming message and get my heart to slow down.

But back in 2020 when I was trying it out for the first time, I needed about 20 rounds before the effect was noticeable.

The great thing about this is you can do it fairly discreetly just about anywhere, without anyone noticing: in a meeting, backstage while waiting for your name to be called, even during a talk, if you can make it look like a strategic pause (not 20 rounds though!)

Remember this

Public speaking anxiety isn’t a battle of the mind - it’s a physical state. Instead of throwing more willpower at it, use your body to send a calming message to your brain. A prolonged exhale is one of the most accessible ways to do that.

Register live training on “Handling Nerves” for speakers - March 6

On March 6, 2025 I’ll be leading a live training on “Handling Nerves: How to Make Your Brain and Body Work With You.”

We will go deeper into breathwork as well as other stress management tools that speakers can employ weeks before, moments before and during the delivery of a keynote speech.

The session will be hosted inside The SpeakerPath® Community.