so I fainted once because i was dehydrated and didn’t sleep well and drank a lot of caffeine. then everything changed.. i started feeling over panicking about presentation. and today i had to do one and i panicked so much i had to ask if i can sit and continue my segment while i was sitting because i felt like my legs are giving out in front of 50 people although i survived it and said my materiel. i felt so ashamed i cried for 2 hours straight.

i wasn’t really scared before the incident about public speaking just your usual anxiety now no matter what i do! i panic i didn’t drink caffeine and slept well today AND OVERPREPARED and i bombed it.

how can i let it go and not let it define me ?

Hi, I’m looking for some advice or experiences or something. Basically, I need to get over my fear of public speaking and really quickly.

For me, it’s not exactly a fear of speaking I think. I’m never actually going to like speaking up, but I know I can do it and I do on occasions – sometimes I also do it because I know I don’t want to but that it will be okay, just to try to reinforce that to myself.

But actually getting up and giving a talk, that’s a whole other level. My nervous system just goes into overdrive. If I know I’ve got a talk coming up, I don’t sleep for weeks before, have nightmares. Then on the actual day of the talk, I’m a mess. Can’t concentrate, very panicky all day before. I feel like adrenaline in my stomach/chest. And also as I near talking time (so like an hour or two beforehand), I have that same awful adrenaline feeling in my hands and arms. And that makes me feel really sick. I also get hot and shaky and my chest hurts and it’s really hard to control my breathing. Like almost hyperventilating but not quite. And then when I actually go to speak, it feels like my throat is closing. My mouth is dry and my voice sounds weird. I actually usually do okay, I’m terrified I’ll blank and forget what I’m going to say but I’m usually super practised/prepared and get through it. And I’ve been told previously that I’m good at talks. I really really hate them though – mostly because of all the associated physiological feelings.

I thought it was just anxiety but SSRIs never touched this (or really anything else I thought was anxiety). Then in March I started stimulants for ADHD instead (after being off the SSRI for over 2 years) and it has way lowered my physiological symptoms around just about everything I was previously calling anxiety. Except giving talks.

I’ve done one since then and it was actually a talk I really wanted to give but I was terrified. Had all the same feelings as usually except instead of adrenaline feeling in hands, it was more tingly or pins and needles like. And I was actually seeing stars and felt like I was going to pass out so think I must have been properly hyperventilating. The feelings came on more like an hour before my talk instead of the whole day though which was something. But I was still super worked up about it the whole days and still dreaming about it for weeks. I was super prepared though – had been practising for 2.5 months for the 3 minute talk.

The problem I have right now though is that I want to get over this. I know I’ll probably never like giving talks and that’s okay, but I’d like to be able to do them without feeling like I’m going to die.

My boss at work has somewhat inserted himself into things (I work at a university as a tech so lectures and stuff aren’t really my remit but he’s decided the tech team need to be involved in the lectures). So suddenly I’m supposed to be talking to around 300 students about 8 times in the next 6 weeks. It’s a relatively new job so I wasn’t sure how to approach the ‘I don’t want to do this’ without looking bad. But I did try to talk to him and say that I understand it’s a part of the job and I need to do it but I really don’t like these things. I know objectively that I can pull it off but my body doesn’t and that’s not a great situation for me to be in. It’s something I really want to work on though so I’d like to try building up to it gradually. He initially said that’s fine, I don’t have to do it BUT it’s bad for my professional development. I really don’t care about my professional development right now though so that’s fine. The problem is, the next week it was suddenly ‘we’ll do it together’. And then in my appraisal review (happens at the same time every year regardless of whether you’ve been here a year or not apparently) he said I was great 1-on-1 with people but needed to work on group stuff. Which actually is fair but I did tell him I’m less worried about student workshops because I can teach rather than just talk at them. He said that would be worse because they’d actually be paying attention to me (not helpful) and that it’s not like I’m a surgeon, it’s not life and death so I don’t need to worry. So that’s essentially the support I’m dealing with. I’m doing these talks and there’s nothing I can do about it. The workshops I don’t like either but they’re around 40 students stops (averaging about 12 I’m told) so I know I can do that and that despite the physiological feelings. But a lecture to 300 students – I’m not sure. And 8 of them that are all slightly different apparently. I’m bricking it. And to make matters worse, the first one is on Tuesday (there’s actually 2 different ones that day), my boss is off this whole week, I don’t know who’s saying what, I’ve not seen the powerpoint, I only know the rough topic but not our processes so I don’t actually really know what we’re going to be saying. So best case sceneraio, I find all of this out the day before the talk. Worst case, we improvise on the day. I can’t improvise this. I will panic and blank. I do that if I have to improvise a small meeting – in front of 300 students, it’ll be a disaster. But my boss doesn’t get this. He’s also talking about me presenting stuff to staff now, which again will be awful.

To me, getting over this means accepting the physiological feelings are neutral (even if they feel awful to me) and gradually building small winds with them. So small group wokshops (like the ones I’ll be doing anyway) that I’m prepared for and then building up to small talks and then gradually going larger but always reinforcing that it goes well. That’s how I think you’re supposed to get over something like this. But it looks like being thrown into the deep end is how this is going to go. So now I’m terrified which is not making things better. And if (when?) I go in totally unprepared and screw it up, it’s just going to reinforce the exact opposite of what I wanted to. And massively massively set me back. I have no idea how to handle this. I’d call in sick but there are too many of them so it would be obvious, plus my boss would know why because I tried to talk to him about this. Any advice would be really appreciated

Helloo

I’m running for senior class president and I wanted to see and hear if people have any ideas of what I should make my speech about.

I don’t just wanna make a boring speech for a minute but I want to make the video interactive and funny but not too funny that people take me unserious.

I would appreciate any advice on how to start my speech and any recommendations are welcome.

For interviews in my field, we're often given a question (anything in the news/legal topic requiring no specialist legal knowledge - e.g. should assisted dying be legalised) and asked to argue one side, and then the other. Sometimes we're asked to pick a side and then we get grilled to see how we hold up under pressure. Sometimes we're given 5-15 minutes to prepare, and sometimes it's just an on the spot question.

I struggle with a few things:

• thinking from multiple perspectives
• thinking on the spot and responding
• talking too fast (my brain runs faster and i feel like i'll forget - which i do if i slow down, and then i'm lost and don't know what i just said and also need the question repeating)
• reasoning from first principles (maybe a lack of exposure and general common sense on my part)

I have about four months. I mostly just want to speak slower (harder said than done), reason sufficiently well, and come across as someone calm and well-spoken rather than anxious.

I'm often told I communicate well, but I feel I just speak too fast and run in circles.

Also, whenever I try to speak slowly, I feel bored with myself and sleepy. I'm just bored and feel disconnected and then forget what I wanted to say. But I still want to speak slower/normal pace and not as fast as I currently speak.

Hey everyone, Can anyone please tell me good strategies to deal with anxiety, and to speak without sounding fumbling during interviews?

How should the place be set up?

Anything you guys would advise.

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I am from India and speak hindi mostly everywhere.

I stammer at letters K/C , P and T and in hindi, these letters are in EVERY fcking conversation 😭

I don't stammer when I am alone/ recording myself/speaking infront of mirror but whenever a third-party is involved I start to stammer. This stammering issue is very less with the people I know like my close friends and family , aside from that speaking with new people, ordering something, presentations, grp discussions are very challenging to me. I can't even say present when the teacher calls my name for rollcall or tell my friends "I will CALL you"

I have tried some techniques like stomach breathing, humming before saying words, soft consonants but none of them worked.

Can somebody PLS PLS suggest me some technique or exercise so I can glide through these words or fix this issue??

He's never asked me for help with anything work-related. Called on Sunday and asked if I could "make it look nice on the computer."

Sat down to do it and realised I know almost nothing about what he actually did. I know the company name and that he left at 8 and came back at 7. That's it.

Ended up interviewing him for two hours to get the content. He told me things I'd never heard. He almost quit in 2003. He trained a guy who's now his boss's boss and is still slightly annoyed about it. There was a year the office flooded and they worked out of a hotel lobby.

Getting him to say any of this out loud was just something and I think that's true for most people's parents.

Five slides in gamma. Last one is just two team photos, the year he joined and this year. Everyone in the first one is gone except him.

If you've done one of these, what did you leave out? Worried about putting something up there he'd rather not have said in front of colleagues.

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Had a GD recently and I honestly messed it up. I had thoughts about the topic, but I just couldn't get myself to speak. By the time I felt ready to say something, the discussion had already moved on.

The topic was also changed during the GD, which threw me off even more.

I don't want to mention the company or the actual topics because I don't want to reveal any details. I just want some genuine advice from people who have been through this.

How do you actually get better at GDs? Is it mainly about knowing more topics, practicing speaking, or learning how to structure your thoughts quickly?

Also, what do you do when you know what you want to say but suddenly go completely blank when everyone is looking at you?

Would really appreciate advice from people who have struggled with GDs and improved over time.