Public speaking – a fate worse than death?

In surveys conducted around the world, it has been discovered that the act of speaking in public is something many people have an intense fear about. In fact, public speaking often ranks higher on our list of fears than death itself!

If your palms start to sweat, your legs turn to jelly, and you start to feel faint just at the thought of speaking to an audience, help is at hand!

“Going peripheral” – a technique from “Performing in The Zone”, can help you to feel calm, in control, and confident when you are speaking in public.

Be careful though, you might end up enjoying public speaking engagements

So, let’s go straight to it. “Going Peripheral”. What is it? And how can it help you to feel calm, in control, and confident when speaking in public, or performing in other situations?

Here’s an extract based on a section of “Performing in The Zone”:

Have you ever seen one of those nature documentaries, and noticed what happens when an animal gets startled?  The eyes widen, the fur sticks up on end, the animal freezes for a second, and then disappears into the night.

Converted into human terms, you might say that in a stressful situation such as immediately prior to a public speaking engagement, your eyes may widen, your palms start to sweat, you may freeze for a second, you may feel like you want to run off into the night, but you know that you can’t and instead have to stay in that stressful situation, and give that speech.

Eyes and vision

Your eyes, or rather, the external and internal muscles controlling their movement and appearance, can display a vast range of emotions, easily interpreted by other people as well as animals.  You know if someone is genuinely happy not by how wide their smile is, but if their eyes are ‘smiling’ too.

Similarly you can see if someone is experiencing an extreme level of performance arousal, positive or negative, by looking at their eyes and the muscles around them.

How your eyes function and indeed what you see and how you interpret what you see is different when experiencing a high level of performance arousal (+5 or -5), compared to when performance arousal is low (+1 or -1), or non-existent (0).  This ocular reflex is controlled by the Autonomous Nervous System, mentioned earlier, but can also come under our conscious control. (more about performance arousal and your Autonomous Nervous System in “Performing in The Zone”)

Tunnel vision

When your Sympathetic Nervous System is highly active, for example when experiencing the ‘Fight or Flight’ response, you can experience a sort of tunnel vision.  In this state, your eyes make swift, jerky movements as a natural way of looking for ‘the enemy’.  When this happens, objects directly in front of you are perceived as more prominent, whilst objects to the side of your main focus, and out in the periphery are often not registered.

Applying the brakes

If you are in a situation where you need to reduce the amount of performance arousal you are experiencing, or counter the effects of anxiety, taking conscious control over your eyes can help.  By using the technique of Going Peripheral, you can lessen the activation of your Sympathetic Nervous System (the accelerator pedal), and trigger your Parasympathetic Nervous System (the brakes), creating a calming effect on your body and mind.

To Go Peripheral, simply follow these steps:

1. Look straight ahead.
2. Relax your eyes – or even close them slightly.
3. Focus on objects or the walls at the extreme left and right of you, without moving your eyes.
4. Maintain this attention to your peripheral vision for as long as you feel necessary, but at least 30 seconds.

Going Peripheral can aid you in restoring control to your body and mind if you feel over-excited, nervous or anxious in performing and non-performing situations alike.

This technique has its strongest effect when incorporating the standing posture explained in the first 4 steps of the Qi Gong Basic Horse-stance Standing Meditation exercise in Chapter 26 of Performing in The Zone.

Exercise:        The Going Peripheral Experiment

Try Going Peripheral now using the steps given above.

What effects does Going Peripheral have on you?

You may notice that your breathing slows down, and that you begin to relax muscles in the rest of your body.

Before going out on stage in front of that audience, or before presenting your next powepoint presentation, or before giving congratulatory speeches at the upcoming wedding, “Go Peripheral”, and see for yourself how his simple yet powerful technique can help you to speak in The Zone!