When you're anxious what effect does it have on speaking?

[charlieHungerford]

I would be so grateful to anyone who votes on this poll. I thought it be best to make this a poll because I know a lot of people don't feel like writing.

If you find yourself in situations or around people in which you feel anxious, what effect does it have on your speaking? I am particular interested about the situations you are most anxious in.

 

[**removed**]

Woah I just made a thread on the same topic as this.. I was wondering if there were people with the same problem.

I find my voice trembles quite a lot.. sometimes I swallow a bit as well when i'm really nervous, just to make a pause for myself. This can happen around any people I don't often talk to or haven't spoken to at all.. i'm okaish with the people I know.

 

[Richey]

im going to a party today so ill let you know how it effected me and if ive improved but alot of the time my voice is shaky im hesitant ..i hold back knowing my voice could change alot ....it saps away my sense of humour and delivery of discussion ......i stumble over my words often, and in extreme cases i do stutter.

so i would say it has a significant effect on my voice and tone in general, sitting there watching people joke around with ease can also add to the pressure of succuess in speaking properly, in the comfort of my home i am a different person

 

[charlieHungerford]

Hi Pinker,

That is interesting. It does kind of suggest its not the fear of speaking as such, its that we are anxious in situations or around people we are not comfortable in - and that anxiety causes the problems we have with speaking. For instance an anxious situation might be if you have to go on a training course at work and you arrive there and are sat around a table of 30 people and everyone has to introduce themselves and say something interesting about yourself to the whole group. If you are anxious in that situation, then when it comes to speaking you find it so difficult to speak because you are so anxious. However, if you were sat in that same room but were surrounded by 30 plastic dummies and you are the only person in the room - then you would probably not be anxious and you can speak fine. Therefore the anxiety you suffer about a situation has the effect on your voice rather than having a fear of speaking - because we can speak but it depends how anxious you are when you have to speak.

However, if you know you have trouble speaking when anxious, that fear of speaking when anxious causes one real problem - it does make you avoid situations and lack even more confidence in those situations in which you are anxious in and have to speak because you have no confidence or belief that you can do it. I hope that makes sense.

So one big part to overcoming this is to get to that point where we are not anxious in these situations and therefore anxiety will not have an effect on our voice.

However, I think for those who have trembly voice or worse - i.e. struggle to get words out, we also need to change our beliefs and confidence about speaking. i.e. we will never have any confidence putting ourselves into speaking situations if we do not believe we can do it or if we know our voice will be trembly or worse. So that too is something that needs to be worked on at the same time.

Its such an interesting and complex problem. It will be a lot of fun trying to work this one out.

That is just my take on the situation.

 

[Richey]

Hi Pinker,

That is interesting. It does kind of suggest its not the fear of speaking as such, its that we are anxious in situations or around people we are not comfortable in - and that anxiety causes the problems we have with speaking. For instance an anxious situation might be if you have to go on a training course at work and you arrive there and are sat around a table of 30 people and everyone has to introduce themselves and say something interesting about yourself to the whole group. If you are anxious in that situation, then when it comes to speaking you find it so difficult to speak because you are so anxious. However, if you were sat in that same room but were surrounded by 30 plastic dummies and you are the only person in the room - then you would probably not be anxious and you can speak fine. Therefore the anxiety you suffer about a situation has the effect on your voice rather than having a fear of speaking - because we can speak but it depends how anxious you are when you have to speak.

However, if you know you have trouble speaking when anxious, that fear of speaking when anxious causes one real problem - it does make you avoid situations and lack even more confidence in those situations in which you are anxious in and have to speak because you have no confidence or belief that you can do it. I hope that makes sense.

So one big part to overcoming this is to get to that point where we are not anxious in these situations and therefore anxiety will not have an effect on our voice.

However, I think for those who have trembly voice or worse - i.e. struggle to get words out, we also need to change our beliefs and confidence about speaking. i.e. we will never have any confidence putting ourselves into speaking situations if we do not believe we can do it or if we know our voice will be trembly or worse. So that too is something that needs to be worked on at the same time.

Its such an interesting and complex problem. It will be a lot of fun trying to work this one out.

That is just my take on the situation.

absolutely fantastic way of looking at it ^^ very insightful
cheers!

 

[charlieHungerford]

im going to a party today so ill let you know how it effected me and if ive improved but alot of the time my voice is shaky im hesitant ..i hold back knowing my voice could change alot ....it saps away my sense of humour and delivery of discussion ......i stumble over my words often, and in extreme cases i do stutter.

so i would say it has a significant effect on my voice and tone in general, sitting there watching people joke around with ease can also add to the pressure of succuess in speaking properly, in the comfort of my home i am a different person

Richey I can totally relate to that. The fear of my voice going to be shakey or even stall on me when around certain people or in certain situations makes me so reluctant to speak and be myself as I am so afraid of how my voice will be. This would only happen around people I am not comfortable or confident around. Which is why I feel half the answer is to work at being comfortable around all these people. And the other half of the problem is to have belief and confidence in speaking. I mean my fear of speaking in case my voice goes just drains my confidence of speaking. I need confidence and belief that I can do it. But that is a real problem when I know currently I cannot do it when anxious.

I hope your party goes well and you make the progress that you are hoping for.

 

[blackcap]

I find that in some cases, my heart is beating so fast that I actually run out of breath while speaking. I can usually manage one or two sentences, but if I have to say more than that, such as when I have to explain something to a group of people then it starts to feel like I've been doing exercise and need to catch my breath, which must seem odd to people listening!

 

[charlieHungerford]

I find that in some cases, my heart is beating so fast that I actually run out of breath while speaking. I can usually manage one or two sentences, but if I have to say more than that, such as when I have to explain something to a group of people then it starts to feel like I've been doing exercise and need to catch my breath, which must seem odd to people listening!

I suffer like that too. I once had a conversation with someone very interesting who told me that this is the mind's way of protecting us - i.e. we must have such negative beliefs in these situations about ourselves (i.e. so self conscious about perceived flaws), our ability to be able to do it without being judged negatively and what people are thinking of us that the mind tries to protect us by making us unable to do this situation by paralysing our ability to do it. If we cannot do it then we will not put ourselves into such situations and hence not get judged negatively - and so we feel physical symptoms that we cannot do it - like literally cannot speak or we feel we cannot breath. I don't know how true that is.
But this causes huge problems when we cannot avoid the situation.

If that is true then the way to overcome this fear is for the negative beliefs about ourselves, negative beliefs about our ability to do it and our negative beliefs about what people are thinking all need to change to either neutral or positives.

 

[Richey]

thank you CHF! ...im a bit nervous about it but your advice helps

also to add to this subject, another MAJOR issue with all this is quick wittedness, i seem to forget everything because im too focussed on the people in the room ...so attempting a joke or quoting phrase feels overly contrived and unnatural when i attempt it.

so its fear of speaking while anxious, and being unable to resource information in an unrelaxed state and incorporating it into conversations, like for instance giving a coherent response that is satisfying to my potential is a monumental challenge

its all about relaxation ...how do you relax in an environment full of strangers who constantly walk past you??

is it about rapid exposure to those situations, to cure it?

 

[newleaf]

Personally

 

[Richey]

Personally I`ve seen myself on videotape while speaking to a group.
Although I was actually scared stiff inside and just wanted the ground to swallow me up... When I watched the tape back, I actually came across as really confident and self assured :?
I guess like they say "never judge a book by its cover"
looks can be (very) deceptive

thats a handy tool though yeh?

aaah thats what i need, a disguise because im fairly certain my anxiety is obvious and shines through to people, for instance people ask me if im feeling ok, they ask me to repeat my sentences, i come across as shaky.

how do you disguise that?

 

[charlieHungerford]

thank you CHF! ...im a bit nervous about it but your advice helps

also to add to this subject, another MAJOR issue with all this is quick wittedness, i seem to forget everything because im too focussed on the people in the room ...so attempting a joke or quoting phrase feels overly contrived and unnatural when i attempt it.

so its fear of speaking while anxious, and being unable to resource information in an unrelaxed state and incorporating it into conversations, like for instance giving a coherent response that is satisfying to my potential is a monumental challenge

its all about relaxation ...how do you relax in an environment full of strangers who constantly walk past you??

is it about rapid exposure to those situations, to cure it?

Hey Richie, what a great post, you raise some fantastic points and I totally agree with everything you say.

Thanks for your nice words, but I haven't really helped yet, it was just kind of diagnosing the problem but not yet answering it, but I am glad you like my thoughts and you have certainly helped open my mind up to problems that I hadn't thought about.

What you say about quick wittedness is so true. It is something that needs addressing definitely. Sometimes I have to go to the fax machine at work which is on a desk next to 4 girls at the other end of the office from me. These 4 girls are fairly new there and although I am friendly with them and say hello and ask how they are, I do not really know them or know what to talk to them about. Sometimes they say Hi Charlie, how are you? And I will say 'hi, I am fine thanks, how are you?' and then they reply with something like 'Yeah fine too thanks'. And then I think to myself 'what can I say to them now?' On a monday I may say did you have a nice weekend but what can I say on other days? Sometimes I will say 'You look busy' and they will say 'Yeah we are really busy, lots of work to do' and then I get anxious because I just do not know what else to say to them because I just do not know these people well enough. This sort of problem of not knowing what to say on the spot is awkward and makes me want to avoid these situations. So yeah that is a really good point and if we feel awkward making conversation at the click of your fingers then that will make us avoid it and feel uncomfortable in such situations - which leads to anxiety - and the anxiety as we have concluded effects our speaking.

Totally agree its all about being relaxed, how do we become relaxed around strangers and people we don't really know? The answer must be that we have to have confidence in ourselves - to have no self consciousness or negative beliefs on ourselves - we need to think of ourselves as good enough and think positively about ourselves. We need to have a positive mindset about how these people are judging us. I mean if we are thinking 'This person we are going to meet will think we are odd or don't look good enough or that they will think we are boring, etc' then we are going to be self conscious and worried and anxious around them. If we believe these people will like us and this is great we can show them what a nice cool person we are, then we will not be self conscious or worried about what they think of us. And then there is two more things - like you mentioned you need confidence that you can chat with these people and make conversation fine at the click of a fingers. You need to feel at ease in such situations. And finally we need to believe and have confidence speaking - i.e. that we can speak fluently unlike currently where we are self conscious and worried that our voice may go. I mean a lot of our confidence problems with speaking is these negative beliefs that we cannot speak fluently out loud in situations like this.

Its a lot to work on. I am convinced it can be overcome, I have made huge progress with SA which has given me such amazing hope and belief everything can be overcome. But it could take a long time.

Is it about rapid exposure? I believe yes and no. I mean practice makes perfect and if you do things often enough you will gain confidence and your mind will see there is no fear about situations that you keep doing. I think we should always try and expose ourselves to situations that will help build confidence. However, you must be careful with exposure. If you put yourself in a situation you know you cannot handle and you totally mess up and feel humiliated, then that can traumatise you and make the fear even more intense.
I also believe that most of the work has to be done in changing beliefs and gaining confidence in yourself. i.e. if you are self conscious about perceived flaws then when you are centre of attention you are going to be so self aware, self conscious, you are thinking negatively about yourself regarding your flaws you are self conscious about - and basically you are going to be so nervous. Its like on good and bad hair days or if you have a spot or not - if you feel good about yourself you feel more positive and confident. When you have a bad hair day or spots you get so self conscious and feel so worried and negative that you really lack confidence in yourself and do not want to be seen. And this is the point - if you are self conscious about perceived flaws in yourself - you have to change beliefs about these things as they drain confidence. Also changing beliefs on how people really see you is so important. I have had beliefs for so many years that no woman could ever be interested in me. Thinking like that is irrational and so negative and around any woman I am going to feel inferior and not good enough, I will feel self conscious and focus on my negatives. This again just drains confidence. If I believe I am good enough and I have so much to offer and so many great qualities then suddenly I feel so much better about myself and feel positive and much more confident. I think these issues we have are vital to sort out. Because no amount of exposure will correct these negative beliefs of oneself which one feels so inadequate, so inferior, so self conscious about.
But you can only get so far by changing these beliefs, at the end of the day exposure has to be done. So its half and half in my opinion.

Its really interesting stuff. Thanks for comments they have been fantastic, you have helped me so much! And I loved the question about a disguise, yeah that is fantastic - if we could believe we are appearing confident that would really eliminate negative beliefs about worrying what people think of us for appearing so anxious. Maybe that also needs addressing - we need to stop feeling self conscious about being shakey and appearing not confident. Hmmm.

I must go to bed now, I am shattered.

 

[missquiet]

i picked the last one. in really anxious situations i'm basically a mute mime and can't speak at all.. even if i do know what to say.

 

[charlieHungerford]

Missquiet, what is it that makes you so anxious in those situations that you can't literally get your words out because you are that nervous/anxious?

Do you feel that in those situations, that the people will be so critical of you, judge you purely negative because of your perceived negative thoughts?

You see I was thinking why I often get so fearful of speaking to women my sort of age - i.e. 20s/30s. Its not because I fear speaking to women incase my voice goes, its because I get anxious around women. Why? Because of many reasons such as I believe women are very judgemental on looks, I feel women will be critical of flaws in my appearance. I believe no woman could find me good enough looking to be considered good enough. I also believe women will be judging how confident I am and I believe I can only be judged negatively for this because I know I am not confident. I worry that women are basically judging me and being critical of me and I feel very self conscious for this. But beliefs that no woman could ever be interested in me makes me lack confidence around women and make me feel not good enough and inferior. I feel like around women I am entering an examination and that I am going to fail. I have for a long time felt women (and I know this is unfair and wrong to class all women like this) as being looks orientated and shallow. I just have seen how good looking guys get so much attention from women, I have see women act all giggly and ignore not so good looking guys just in order to get more noticed by these good looking guys. I have a good looking friend who gets lots of women at work emailing him saying they fancy him, would they go out with him - even though they don't know him as a person. I know a lot of guys are like this as well, but yeah its unfair to class all women like that because I am not like that as a man, I like people for the person they are. But beliefs like that are damaging. If you don't have high self esteem about looking good enough then you will be self conscious with such beliefs. Also I received a lot of nasty comments from girls in the past and that too has lost me belief that women will look at me in a fair and non negative way.
And its all of that which makes me anxious around women my sort of age. And because I am anxious I find speaking so hard. And knowing I will be anxious around women my age means I know I will find it hard to speak and so will avoid it. Therefore the answer lies at changing beliefs about beliefs I have of myself and of women and how they will judge me. Its something I am starting to work on.

Maybe others will disagree.

 

[missquiet]

☺☺☺☺

 

[tbaker818]

I've experienced the out of breath problem where I can only get out a few words between breaths, and if it's not breathing, it's swallowing. The swallowing would happen in any situation though with no warning. I also had the trembling voice many times and that's a killer because you then fear your own anxiety and what it does to you more than anything else - an that's just a downward spiral. In my case, it would generalize at times to where I had a hard time with most phone calls. This was mostly at work, but would generalize into other areas.

The phrase "let's go around the room and introduce ourselves" was a trigger for me. I'd immediately to into panic attack mode. I've had to just walk out of the room before because I knew there was no way I could pull through.

The funny thing was, I went to toastmasters and didn't have the problem. It was kind of an experiment and I suspected this might be the case. The reason is that toastmasters wasn't connected to my livelyhood like work was. I could have anything happen and it wouldn't have any impact on my career.

For me, medication worked to help me turn things around. The third day after I took it, I felt like a different person. Just before then, I had actually consented to giving a presentation because I knew I'd be going on medication. I knew I needed the good experience to turn things around, which it did. I still had the other symptoms for a couple of years and even sometimes today. I did a lot of cognitive work - changing how I thought about things. I've also been meditating for 3 years. See my other post under the subject "Speed." Meditation has helped me get to the point where I no longer have any doubt as to whether I'm going to break though my lifelong shyness, and I've only seen a small portion of what's in store. It would have been nice to discover these things sooner, but I have nothing to complain about.