Stop confirming your nervousness

Around twenty thousand years ago, most likely on a Tuesday, one of your rather distant ancestors was wandering across the steppe in search of something tasty to liven up the rabbit stew. Suddenly he heard a sound and looked up. In a blur of bright sunlight and one enormous shadow, he made out that he was standing face to face with a decidedly bad-tempered beast. In a single instant he turned and ran. His adrenaline spiked, and parts of his brain shut down so that he could focus one hundred per cent on the escape. Happily, he got away, because otherwise you would not be reading these words today.

Those stress signals were his salvation out on the steppe. They are rather less welcome on stage, where nervousness can lead to a dry mouth, a stammer, muscle cramps, and in the worst case parts of your brain shutting down to flee the threat. Because even though your audience looks a good deal less beastly than the animal on the steppe, your brain cannot tell the difference. And why can it not tell the difference?

Because you keep confirming the threat for it. Through a whole series of physical and mental signals, you are telling your brain to be afraid, really afraid. It is not your eyes that decide the audience is a pack of wild animals. So what we need to understand is how to stop behaving in this wonderfully counterproductive way. And it is simple:

• In your opening, avoid stepping backwards. Backing away is escape behaviour.
• Do not stand in flight position with one foot forward and one back. Stand with your feet parallel instead.
• Do not hide behind chairs, a lectern or the edge of a table. All that does is confirm that you want to hide from the threat.
• Use open body language. The moment you block your body language, you confirm that you feel under threat.
• Your body needs to burn off the excess adrenaline, so force some movement early in the presentation. Interact with your slides, write on a flip chart, use a prop. Just do not wander around the room aimlessly.
• Breathe calmly, speak slowly, and use plenty of pauses. That is how you signal to your body that everything is under control.

Here is a everyday example of how our bodily signals wind us up far more than anything we actually see. You are walking along a dark, deserted road and you start to imagine you can hear and see terrible things. As long as you keep walking calmly, nothing much happens in your body. But the second you act physically on those thoughts, break into a panicked run and glance over your shoulder, your whole system hits the ceiling. Exactly the same thing happens on stage. If you confirm the threat with your non-verbal signals, your brain concludes it is real, and your nervousness turns negative.

And finally, one thing worth holding on to: nervousness is good, because it is what lifts you to your best. It is when you are no longer nervous at all that you have a real problem. Everything is perfect in the right dose.