Clammy palms, fluttery stomach? Who ya gonna call?

If 'communication anxiety' is crimping your professional style, read on

By Rose McIlveen

You have this dream that turns into a nightmare. You are standing in front of an audience, and you are in the spotlight as the speaker, and you are so nervous you forgot what you were going to say.

While there is no magic cure for stage fright or, as Brenda Bailey-Hughes puts it, public speaking apprehension, there are ways to begin to eventually overcome the feeling of clammy palms, fluttery stomach and the fear of being ridiculed by an audience. Bailey-Hughes teaches a human resources course called "Nerves, Nail-biting, and Nausea: Overcoming Communication Anxiety."

"There are some people who are so paralyzed by that fear that they can't get themselves into a situation where they can practice, so they need some help to get past that initial fear," explains Bailey-Hughes, who is a training specialist in Human Resources Management at Indiana University Bloomington.

Her job isn't to turn her students into polished public speakers. Put simply, she provides those who take the half-day course with beginning exercises that point them in the right direction and lead to less apprehension, if they make a serious effort to pursue the strategies.

Bailey-Hughes tells the class that they will be going through systematic desensitization and gives an example.

"That's the same kind of thing you can do if you're afraid of an airplane. You walk out and look at an airplane first until you can do that without feeling nervous. Then you go sit on an airplane that's not moving until you can do that. Then you listen while you're sitting on the airplane -- what it sounds like before it takes off," she explains.

She darkens the room a little bit and shows the class how to go through some muscle relaxation and desensitization.

Bailey-Hughes points out that public speaking is not the only kind of fear. Her class is broken up into three groups with assigned topics and participants rotate through three situations that can cause anxiety: one-on-one social conversation, speaking at a departmental meeting and public speaking.

Then she breaks the class up into groups with an assigned topic, just as if they were in a departmental meeting.

As far as actually giving a formal speech is concerned, Bailey-Hughes has some "do's" and "don'ts."

Take a good look at the room (where you are going to speak) ahead of time so the setting is not a surprise.
Don't give a memorized speech. You may forget some of it and get lost.
Don't hold your notes in your hand. Your hand might shake and give away your anxiety.
Speak extemporaneously from notes. If you get lost, stop and take a drink of water. That will give you time to collect your thoughts.
If you garble a few words, just say, "The rest of my speech will be dubbed in English," repeat what you were supposed to have said and go on.

Bailey-Hughes teaches another class called "Juggling Act: Managing Career and Personal Life." The object is to get the class members to rethink their expectations, because many "jugglers" feel tired, disappointed and frustrated with themselves all the time.

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