going red

Hello,

In my current role i have to give a number of presentations and speak regularly in public. However I find that I go really red and this effects my confidence. Is there a reason for this and more importantly is there a way that I can stop this from happening going forward?

any help with this gratefully appreciated.

Thank you.

David

[Doctor]

David

I'm not a trained medical professional - but what you are experiencing is the effects of presentation nerves. Adrenaline starts to pump around the body, the heart rate increases and more oxygen is accried in the blood. The same thing happens to an athlete just before a race.

Presentation nerves happen to the best of us. It is just that the more practice you get, the less you beome aware of them.

Personally, I would not worry about going red. People tend to go red when they speak and the audience generally do not to notice. It will also settle down as you get into the swing of it and the adrenaline surge goes down.

If you can start with an ice breaker, a funny story or a video clip. It will give your body a chance to settle down.

The main thing that you can do is to learn to to relax. There are a couple of things that can help. The first is to practice public speaking as often as you can. The more confident you become, the less you will worry.

Secondly I would suggest that you write out the words for your talk and practice them out loud at least four times one of which should be in front of a real audience (family, friends etc)

Thirdly - Visualization. Try to imagine a very happy time in your life. Close your eyes and imagine that time. What does it fees like? What did you see? What were the sounds that you heard? Now imagine the same feeling when you step down from the podium. I usually do this just before I walk on stage and it has a wonderfully relaxing effect.

I hope that this helps.

thank you very much.. im just 12 and i started to go red when i had to get up infront of evry1 to tell them about my book that i have been reading. since then i have been going red all the time... i feel that i cant put my hand up in class because i will be in fear of having to get up infront of every1... and because im so quiet now i feel the teachers always pick on me =[.. i now really hate skool and cant talk to girls that im not good friends with because i go bright red and i dont even feel embarresed =[ =[ =[ =[ =[

[Doctor]

I would not worry too much about going red. All of us go red when we have to speak in public. It used to bother me when I was 13 but I soon got over it.

The difficulty becomes that we can become too self aware of it. There are two main areas that we can help with this.

The first is to see if we can find someone who you will be able to talk to about this. I would probably try not with your school friends, but with an ***** that you can trust.

The second is to turn your energy not into worrying about what people will think about you, but more about what you will say. If it helps have a notebook and start to write down and practice what you want to say to other people. This way you will not be put on the spot if a teacher asks you a question, but will have a pre-planned answer that you will be able to give. With luck you will will be able to give or read out your answer before you have a chance to go red.

Good luck. It seems a very big difficulty now but in a while you will not give it a second thought.

I cant stop going red! It started when i was 13 and its been going on for a year, i cant talk to my mum or friends properly anymore! It bothers me so much! I cry about it somtimes and if the teacher askes me somthing i go bright red! Will this stop? How can i make it stop? I hate it, im fed up, it gets me down so much!