A lot of presentation skills trainers will tell you that you should be able to control your nerves and ‘overcome’ them. Personally, I think that’s rubbish and what you should do is ‘use’ them. Why? Because the fear (which is what nerves are, really) kicks off your fight-or-flight reflex and stimulates your body to produce a fistful of hormones.
You’ve probably heard of one of them – adrenaline; you might even have heard of it’s companion – nor-adrenaline; the one we want is the third one – cortisol.
Think of cortisol as like adrenaline for the brain…. and you can imagine how many ways that can be useful in a presentation! The idea isn’t to get rid of the nerves, just to deal with them.
Not being nervous will all too often result in “not being interesting”. We like performance nerves: nerves are good. It’s just too much of ’em that’s a bad thing…..
So how do you handle the adrenaline rush without losing the cortisol effect? Easier said than done. There are dozens of possible solutions scattered all over the web (and even this blog!); the best of them all, of course is to get your breathing under control. Diaphragmatic breathing (breathing with your gut, not your chest) will help to release the sleep/sex/feelgood hormones which counter the adrenaline you experience as part of your fight-or-flight syndrome.
Of course, it’s easier said than done, but if you can remember to breath deeply (or breathing low, as I say elsewhere) you’re in with a fighting chance.
