Fear Of Public Speaking And How To Improve

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fear of public speaking can be overcome. To understand this, firstly the nature of fear and anxiety will be discussed. This will be followed by a discussion of the four things people can do to improve their public speaking ability: systematic desensitization, cognitive restructuring, preparation, and practice.
Public speaking anxiety is a type of communication apprehension or CA, where CA is defined as "fear or anxiety associated with real or anticipated communication with another person or person" (O'Hair, Freidrich, Wiemann & Wiemann 344). This communication apprehension can occur in a communication with just one other person, or with several others. However, the level of apprehension generally differs based on the situation. In short, communication is situational, the level of anxiety depends on factors such as the nature of the communication and the size of the audience. This explains why in most cases, anxiety increases when the size of the audience increases. While ...

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however, feels that same emotion in situations that others would say pose no threat, and he or she feels it to the extent that it interferes with their everyday life" (Seamon and Kenrick 499).

Therefore feeling fear at having to make a speech does not mean the individual has a problem. Most people will feel some degree of fear and nerves. It becomes a problem though, when this fear interferes with a person's ability to make that speech. This can result in an anxiety disorder, where unnecessary fear is experienced.
The fear of public speaking is a recognized problem and various treatments have been defined for it. While many of these are designed for extreme cases, an ...

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