What causes nervousness before speaking in public?

(2) On July 22, 2011 at 7:58 pm Kacarsil [0] said:

Also consider the basic physiological mechanism behind nervousness, especially in regard to public speaking and social anxiety. When you are thinking about speaking public, you have an autonomic nervous system response. Essentially what you're experiencing is a basic response to a perceived threat, in this case an audience and the perceived likelihood of judgement and ridicule, and your brain releases hormones that cause a short burst of epinephrine because it thinks that you're in danger. The fear of judgement and embarrassment is the perceived threat, and your body enables you with its stress circuitry to respond in a way that assures your survival. Evolutionarily speaking, modern day fears such as public speaking are quite new to humans as a species, and so we don't yet have the biological response to dealing with non lethal yet extraordinarily stressful situations. Our bodies respond to mortal peril.

Keep in mind this is just a biological explanation. When speaking of "perceived threat," there are a whole host of personal variations in anxiety levels and responses, as well as emotional regulation on the part of the individual.

(1) On October 21, 2010 at 2:04 am Dothy earthstar [0] said:

I believe that speaking in front of people also called Social Anxiety may be alleviated by practice and learning some tips on how to have more self confidence. As soon as you have this thing, you'd be able to slowly overcome the fear of talking in front of a crowd. Learn more about this by checking out http://www.getridofstress.com.au.

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