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Comment by amygdala_panic | Hacker News Reader

Anyone been able to overcome panic attacks while public speaking? Medication seems like a hassle. And most advice is just obvious tips ("know your material!") that doesn't address the physiological problem.

My first talk was in front of a many-thousands-attendees conference and I didn't have a problem. It was fun. I've for years enjoyed speaking in front of groups. Never enjoyed doing the exec presentation per se, but I'd done it before and was comfortable with it. Then at two back-to-back jobs, two managers told me I wasn't actually good at it, neither speaking in front of crowds nor communicating to execs. Basically, they said I sucked at it. Thanks a lot :-(

Now I have the pleasure of enjoying a nearly crippling fear of talking in groups. My brain blanks. I stammer and repeat the same thing over and over. I simply can't find the words, and the longer the pause extends, the more I probably look like I'm having a stroke.

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Could you try to build up confidence by speaking at smaller/tiny groups that are on your side (peers, friends) and work your way upwards? Counteract the terrible feedback from those managers (ugh, sorry that happened to you) with more positive and welcoming feedback from friends before you move onto strangers.

Even when not speaking I have panic attacks and am generally a bit anxious, yet I can speak pretty well in front of an audience because I learned to think of the audience as a group of my friends that I care a lot about and whom know or understand less about my topic, which they will benefit from knowing/understanding more about, than I do, so I get to talk to/with them about it and fully share my thoughts about it.

Consider going to something like Toastmasters and practicing. Getting useful feedback and improving might get your brain out of the idea that you're not good at it.

Going to Toastmasters seems to be the universal Internet standard advice for improving public speaking, but I'm not so sure about it.

I'm coming from a similar place of intense public speaking anxiety as the parent poster, and so attended my local Toastmasters, and at the first session mostly just observed. The hour was ~20 people who have been doing this for years giving highly refined talks to each other.

It was somewhat valuable seeing good speakers in their element, but to someone like me who's coming in with unrefined speaking manners and an anxiety problem, it was a total no-go. It probably varies by chapter, but I realized that Toastmasters wasn't a support group for bad speakers, it was a group of good speakers working to become great speakers.

That's not to say they wouldn't have been supportive and all, but in my opinion Toastmasters isn't an environment for overcoming anxiety at the low end. Of course, your mileage may vary.

> but I realized that Toastmasters wasn't a support group for bad speakers, it was a group of good speakers working to become great speakers.

No, it's very much a support group for people who want to become better speakers. Did you only attend one session?

Yes, you could have gotten a bad chapter, but that's the exception. Toastmasters are incredibly supportive of people just starting out. In general, they are the best group of people to speak in front of. They are respectful, encouraging, and even for many who are good, still very nervous when they go up to speak (even if you don't see it).

Maybe you visited a particularly bad group for beginners? Or maybe you were just too anxious, and needed an extra kick so that you'd let them be supportive?

The Toastmasters are a standard advice for a reason. Public speaking is entirely a learnable skill. You quickly get better with practice, but that supportive element of other people is required to overcome strong stage anxiety if you have one.

I think it might be worth it to try approaching one of the members and telling them, "I'm new here, I'm really bad at public speaking and want to get better, but I'm anxious because you all are such expert speakers already; can you help me?". If the Toastmasters group is worth anything, they'll put extra effort to make you feel comfortable.

Good to know, I have not attended one yet (but plan to), so I appreciate hearing from people who have.

You have to remember that most people there have started at the same place you're at right now. You even said it in your post.

>The hour was ~20 people who have been doing this for years...

That sounds like a goldmine of knowledge and experience to learn from. Find someone from that group who is willing to mentor you. Heck, the Leadership booklet has a checklist with one of the items being to mentor someone.

Talk to the people in the group about where you're coming from and what you'd like to come away with. I find that the people who are a part of Toastmasters are pretty supportive. Of course, groups can vary. But with a sample size of 20, you're bound to find someone.

Thanks for the response.

> You have to remember that most people there have started at the same place you're at right now. You even said it in your post.

So this is the part I disagree with. Everyone gets nervous doing public speaking, but there are some of us who get really nervous to the point that physical symptoms are, without a word of exaggeration, debilitating. Just getting up in front of that room and giving a crappy talk would have been very, very hard.

> That sounds like a goldmine of knowledge and experience to learn from. Find someone from that group who is willing to mentor you. Heck, the Leadership booklet has a checklist with one of the items being to mentor someone.

You're right, and I really don't want to slight the group here -- the interactions I had and everyone I spoke to was extremely supportive, it's just that getting spun up to their level would have an incredible daunting order even give months/years of work. I should give it another shot, but I just didn't see a path forward there at the time.

Right, the debilitating physical symptoms are the thing. It's not about being a good or bad speaker. Like you said, I'd be happy to get to the point of just being a plain "bad" speaker. There are times when even reading the words on a slide, verbatim, is excruciating. It's an entirely irrational autonomic response.

Defensive pessimism have worked for me in the past. Convincing yourself that the event is already over and have failed. The deal is done, you don't have to fear your failure - you have already thought through the consequences of failing, and have accepted that you will have to face them. The actual speaking will just involve going through the already determined motions.

This, I find, can give some relieve from the most debilitating effects of anxiety during speaking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_pessimism

When you've spoken to a big crowd, and somebody (especially a powerful person) tells you later that you aren't good at it, remember this:

     He's on trial, not you.

You know you can make yourself clear to a big audience. If he can't understand you, well then, he's sexting somebody or he doesn't have the cognitive chops to understand what you're saying. That's sad for him, but not for you.

Remember this: people really want to hear what you have to say. They want to believe you. They want you to succeed.

That sounds horrible, so sorry to hear. Gotta say that your managers are jerk for doing you in like that without providing a solution.

Have a little sheet with bullet points of your talk so if you get truly lost you can get back on track. Better than that is asking a member of the audience, just be straightforward, "I just lost my track where were we?" Most people forgive a rough-around-the-edges speaker if there's a feeling of informality and participation.

Also practicing but quality practice is the key. Record yourself and watch it. Practice in several different places. Practice in front of a friend. Practice at a Toastmasters. Skim your speech during the little spare moments you have. And if you start to get down go search through some tech talks, there's a lot worse speakers than you out there so find one and boost that esteem haha.

Therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy in particular seems to have a good track record with anxiety and difficulty functioning in certain scenarios.

If this is really stressful and holding you back, you owe it to yourself to try to find a professional who can help you with it. There are a lot of mediocre therapists out there, but a good one can change your life.

Propanolol is a pretty harmless recommendation. Exposure. Keep in mind that the more panic attacks you have the more intractable this problem will become. So don't push yourself too hard.

TBH this seems like the best option. I don't think my mind is actually nervous. I know my material, I'm happy to share it. It's the stupid lizard brain thinking I'm about to fall off a 100ft cliff and cutting off the blood supply to my brain and giving me dry mouth and deregulating my diaphragm. It's a STRONG physiological response, but I think without those physical effects and feedback loop I'd be fine.

For what it's worth, this comment rings so familiar to me that I feel like I could've written it myself. I've read the normal speaking advice, am reasonably articulate, well-prepared, have good material (or which I like anyway), and am generally a decently well-adjusted human being, but I have a fairly severe physical reaction when it comes to public speaking. Every guide on the subject ever written talks about "everyone gets nervous" and to "imagine the room is full of friends"/"imagine everyone is naked"/"speak only to the back wall"/etc., but over the years I've realized that the type of nervous they're talking about and the type of nervous I'm talking about simply isn't on the same level.

A lot of people think that they get it, but I think that unless you have it, it's fairly difficult to understand. The result is a lot of very unhelpful advice online. Besides your comment, the only other place I've ever read similar stories are for comments for propanolol on various drug-related websites online, where many people seem to indicate that they experienced paralyzing fear from public speaking, and that in many cases propanolol seems to have help them overcome it.

I've never tried it, but I'd be curious to hear if anyone hear had anything to say about it one way or the other. I'm an IC and have been mostly avoiding public speaking lately, but am at a company right now that engages in frequent song and dance shows where people are highly encouraged to get up and give lightning talks and such for everyone else. I've managed to dodge it so far, but there's no question at all that poor speaking skills will be detrimental to my career over the long run and that I need to find a fix.

Yup, this is a definite wall in my career too. There is simply no way to get where I want to be, if I can't calmly explain stuff to my boss's boss. I dread being discovered as "that guy who gets really nervous". And of course that makes it worse.

Stay strong, brother.

Just try it. I have tried it. It works. It blocks the action of adrenaline so you essentially can't have a fight or flight response. This is especially important because there is a very negative feedback loop that goes from physical to mental over and over (get sweaty -> notice how sweaty you are -> pulse increases -> notice increased pulse -> wonder if everyone else can tell too -> get sweatier, etc.) that can end with a panic attack.

At least for me, I have the fight or flight response because of essentially prior trauma (minor when compared to trauma from war but still technically sub-clinical PTSD) and so "you shouldn't take drugs forever" isn't a strong counter-argument because you just need to take them until you have enough positive experiences for your dumb pattern-recognizing brainstem to chill out. Thank goodness for the gift of forgetting.

You can get like 160 doses online from India for like $17.

well described. My problem is my mind goes blank. blank. and i might stammer, esp if I psyche myself up too much.

but if I just finish something physical (exercise etc), I am calm and cool as a cucumber and have no fear.

see my other reply

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