User:Luisfvila/sandbox

Glossophobia or speech anxiety is the fear of public speaking. The word glossophobia derives from the Greek γλῶσσα glōssa, meaning tongue, and φόβος phobos, fear or dread. Speech is the action of speaking out loud and anxiety is the feeling of worry, tension or concern that manifests when thinking that negative things will occur, and physically by increased blood pressure , sweating and shaking. Thus, speech anxiety is the feeling of worry and physical reactions caused when speaking to others, specially to larger groups.

The causes of Glossophobia range from nervousness produced by a lack of preparation to, one of the most common psychiatric disorders, Social anxiety disorder SAD.

Its symptoms vary from physiological changes, mental disruptions, and detrimental speech performance.

There are several ways to overcome Glossophobia, which include preparation and rehearsing, deconstructing your beliefs, engaging in positive self-talk, visualizing your optimal performance, practicing mindfulness, breathing exercises, creating an anxiety hierarchy, using virtual reality, computerized coaches and medications such as beta-blockers

Causes
Glossophobia, or speech anxiety, is a type of performance anxiety or Stage fright which is an anxiety professional athletes and actors experience when competing or performing. These anxieties are a specific symptom of social anxiety produced by fearfulness related to the Fight-or-flight response, which is produced by a perceived threat ; this triggers an elevated defense reaction in the Sympathetic nervous system to be alert, to run, hide or freeze. It is linked to the psychiatric condition known as Social anxiety disorder SAD which is a mental predisposition to believe that social interactions will result in harsh negative judgement from others and poor outcomes because of such judgement ; thus, before the social interaction occurs such as a public speech, the individual creates negative thoughts of failure, dread and the idea of being incapable, producing negative feelings and physiological responses.

Individuals who suffer from SAD engage in negative visualization and self-talk which halt their attention and ability to stay focused and drain their cognitive power and physical energy. People suffering from SAD believe they are just not good at public speaking, setting a belief as a fact and falling victim to a popular psychological phenomenon known as Self-fulfilling prophecy  Moreover, individuals with SAD add more mental pressure due to the fact that they commonly expect others to like them or accept them, measure their self-worth by their social interaction performance, and believe that showing emotions is the same as showing weakness.

A study with 59 individuals diagnosed with SAD and 63 non-anxious individuals in which they were engaged in an unexpected public speech, received standardized positive or neutral feedback and were asked to recall their positive feedback five minutes later and one week after their unexpected performance. Individuals suffering from SAD recalled their feedback less positively than what it had been, whereas some non-anxious individuals even recalled their feedback more positively suggesting a self-protective drive to maintain their self-esteem.

Symptoms
The more specific symptoms of speech anxiety can be grouped into three categories: physical, verbal, and non-verbal. Physical symptoms include: shaking, sweating, butterflies in the stomach, dry mouth, and rapid heartbeats(***Citation number 13 from current article***). As Garcia-Lopez (2013) (***Citation number 14 from current article***) ( has noted, symptoms can include acute hearing, increased heart rate and blood pressure, dilated pupils, increased perspiration and oxygen intake, stiffening of neck/upper back muscles, and dry mouth. Uncontrollable shaking is also common and often occurs prior to the phobia-eliciting stimulus. Verbal symptoms include (but are not limited to) a tense or quivering voice, and vocalized pauses known as vocal fillers or Speech disfluency.  Nonverbal symptoms could include going blank during the speech, and remaining dependent on note cards.

Help and relief
Communication skills, which include public speaking, are in high demand by employers; therefore, these skills are key for career success. The good news is that there are several ways for overcoming Glossophobia ranging from changing a person’s mindset, practice, coaching, virtual reality, and medication. However, avoiding public speaking increases the phobia and makes it worse over time undermining professional opportunities.

The most elemental step is practice. A speaker's anxiety can be reduced if they know their topic well and believe in it. The optimal ratio of preparation is one hour of practice per every minute of presentation.

Six methods that have been suggested by expert to help overcome Glossophobia

1.   Deconstruct your beliefs by identifying deep-rooted negative thoughts about public anxiety and be curious about them, question them rather than keeping them as facts and replace them for more positive ideas such as “How I perform or speak in front of others does not define me” or “It’s okay if I’m nervous; it shows that I care”

2.   Engage in positive self-talk. When individuals are faced with challenging situations, especially those that generate anxiety like public speaking, what they tell themselves matters. Thus, it is helpful to change their internal dialogue from fear and failure to resilience and success.

3.   Visualizing your optimal performance. It requires individuals to think about how they want to feel, think and act while delivering the presentation at the present moment. It requires them to visualize the entire scenario as detailed and real as possible and to use all the senses. This process activates the same brain areas that help to anchor attention to the present since the brain recognizes very little differences between imagined or real events.

4.   Create a practice of mindfulness. This helps guiding attention where it is wanted and needed. Staying focused on the present rather than on the future is key to overcoming stress and anxiety.

5.   Experiment with breathing exercises. This releases oxygen to the body especially the brain and activates the Parasympathetic nervous system, which promotes calmness and relaxation.

6.   Create an anxiety hierarchy. This is based on real life Desensitization (psychology). The idea is to gradually exposure oneself to public speaking starting by presenting to a few people and, as the individual starts feeling more and more comfortable, increases the size of the audience. By doing this, the individual will have the opportunity to unlearn negative thoughts and re-associate positive feelings with public speaking. It has been suggested that people should practice speaking in front of smaller, less intimidating groups when they're getting started in public speaking. Additionally, focusing on friendly, attentive people in the audience has been found to help.

Pauses are a good strategy to decrease anxiety during the presentation since they give the speaker time to breath, calm anxiety down, put ideas together, generate suspense among the audience, emphasize a point and give listeners time to put their ideas together. Pauses also help to diminish vocal fillers. “Great public speakers often pause for two to three seconds or even longer.” To silence these vocal fillers be aware of them like with any other negative habit. To do so, the speaker must record and watch his/herself to target vocal fillers or any other habit to be eliminated such as negative nonverbal behavior. Once the speaker becomes aware of these disfluencies, he or she will start to identify them in his/her daily conversations, and then, aim to pause instead of using a vocal filler.

Training courses in public speaking and/or organizations such as Australian Rostrum, Toastmasters International, POWERtalk International, and Association of Speakers Clubs can help people to reduce their fear of public speaking to manageable levels. To temporarily treat their phobia, some affected people have turned to certain types of medications, typically beta blockers. (***Citation number 7 from current article***).

In some cases, anxiety can be mitigated by a speaker not attempting to resist their anxiety, thus fortifying the anxiety/fight-or-flight loop. Other strategies involve using one's nervousness to enliven an otherwise fearful speech presentation. (***Citation number 8 from current article***).

Traditional advice has been to urge fearful speakers not to take themselves too seriously, and to be reminded that mistakes are often unnoticed by audiences. Gaining experience in public speaking often results in it becoming less anxiety-provoking over time. Recent studies suggest that there is a close link between fear of public speaking and self-efficacy and that attempts to help presenters improve their self-efficacy will also reduce this fear. (***Citation number 9, 10 and 11 from current article***).

Loosening up a "tough crowd" by asking questions promotes audience participation. A speaker may also find this exercise to be helpful when their mind "goes blank", as it gives them time to regain their train of thought.

New treatments for glossophobia are starting to emerge through the medium of Virtual reality where environments with sufficient realism can evoke a response in the user allowing for a virtual form of exposure therapy known as VRET these self-administered treatments have been shown to be effective, but it is a relatively new field and more research is needed. (***Citation number 12 from current article***).