You’ve got questions. And sweaty palms and a racing heart and a voice that shakes in every boardroom. Mo Shehu has given three TEDx talks, hosted radio, performed on stage, and coached speakers from terrified to magnetic. This week, we tackle public speaking anxiety.
“My hands shake, my voice wobbles, and I flush bright red. Is something wrong with me?”
Nothing is wrong with you. Your body is doing what bodies have done for hundreds of thousands of years: treating a room full of strangers as a mild predatory threat.
Public speaking anxiety has evolutionary roots. Our prehistoric ancestors depended on tribal acceptance for survival, and the prospect of rejection from the group carried life-or-death consequences.
Your nervous system hasn’t updated its threat model, and the boardroom triggers the same ancient alarm as the predator.
The sweating, shaking, and flush are all adrenaline. Your body has flooded itself with fuel for a fight it doesn’t need to have.
The good news? Most of your anxiety isn’t visible to your audience. The speakers who look relaxed have simply learned to manage their anxiety and use it to sharpen their performance.
“My mind goes completely blank mid-speech. I dread it more than anything.”
You’re not alone. Brain freeze is a common public speaking fear, and it can feel like the audience is judging you for not remembering your lines.
When you experience the freeze response, your body is ‘playing dead’ in an attempt to avoid a threat. You’re not dumb—just briefly paralysed by threat perception.
The practical fix is simple: practice out loud, not in your head. Silent rehearsal builds false confidence. Your mouth muscles need repetition, not your imagination.
If you want to reduce the chance that you’ll freeze during a talk, practising out loud is one of the most effective strategies available.
And when it happens anyway? Pause. Breathe. Your audience has no idea what you’re going to say next, so they won’t know your mind went blank unless you tell them. What feels like a five-second eternity to you feels like a thoughtful pause to them.
“Will the audience notice how nervous I am?”
Almost certainly less than you fear. What you feel inside isn’t as visible as you think. Audience members may perceive your anxiety at a three or four out of ten when you feel it at a nine or ten. Knowing this can free you to focus on your message and your audience rather than on your own internal state.
Your audience also wants you to succeed. Novice speakers commonly feel that people in the audience are extremely critical and want them to fail. This is very rarely the case. Think about the last time you sat in an audience. You were rooting for the speaker. So is everyone in your room.
“I’ve been speaking for years and I still get anxious. Shouldn’t I be over this by now?”
No. And I say that as someone who has given three TEDx talks and still feels the pre-stage surge every single time.
Experiencing speech anxiety is normal. Nearly everyone gets nervous before a speech or presentation, even experienced speakers. The difference between a nervous novice and a polished performer isn’t the absence of anxiety, but the decision to perform through it anyway.
There’s also a strong case that residual pre-speech anxiety keeps you sharp. Flat affect on stage is worse than nerves. A speaker with no adrenaline is a speaker with no energy. You’re not trying to eliminate the feeling, but to make it work for you.
| Speaker stage | Dominant anxiety | Most useful fix |
| Complete beginner | Anticipatory dread before the event | Start small: speak in low-stakes settings often |
| Early intermediate | Fear of blanking or losing the thread | Out-loud practice, not silent rehearsal |
| Growing in confidence | Impostor syndrome at higher-profile events | Reframe expertise; you were invited for a reason |
| Experienced speaker | Pre-event nerves that never fully leave | Accept it as fuel; channel it into energy |
“What if someone asks me a question I can’t answer during the Q&A?”
Say so directly. “I don’t know” is a perfectly valid answer (and a mark of intellectual honesty). It builds audience trust faster than a confident wrong answer.
The Q&A panic is its own category of public speaking anxiety and rarely accounted for. Many speakers prepare intensely for the speech and nothing for what follows.
Prepare a set of likely questions in advance. Anticipate the awkward ones, the hostile ones, and the left-field ones.
For anything unexpected: slow down, repeat the question back (“That’s an interesting angle, you’re asking whether…”), give yourself thinking time, and offer to follow up after if the honest answer is “I need to look into that properly.”
“I’m an introvert. Is confident public speaking even possible for me?”
Yes, and the evidence for this is overwhelming. Introversion describes how you restore your energy, not how well you can communicate in public. Many self-described introverts find they’re surprisingly comfortable on stage once they’re there.
Introverts often make exceptional public speakers precisely because they tend to prepare thoroughly, choose words carefully, and think before speaking. The unrehearsed, improvisational energy that extroverts rely on can actually be a disadvantage on a formal stage. Your careful, considered approach is a structural asset.
The hardest part for introverts is typically the social preamble and aftermath: the mingling, the small talk, the post-event networking. That’s a different skill set entirely. But the speaking itself is very doable.
“I feel like a fraud every time I stand up to speak. Like they’re about to figure out I don’t belong there.”
The thought lurking beneath the blank is often: “The minute I open my mouth, everyone’s going to know I’m a total phony.” This is called impostor syndrome. It’s a real thing, and a large number of people experience it.
Here’s the useful reframe: your audience invited you or accepted your presence. They haven’t made a mistake. Your expertise, experience, and perspective earned you a place on that podium. The anxiety doesn’t mean you’re unqualified; just that you care about doing a good job.
The most dangerous speakers are the ones who never question whether they’re prepared enough. A measured dose of self-doubt is a quality-control mechanism. It keeps you from winging it, coasting, or taking your audience for granted.
Common public speaking anxiety symptoms and what they mean
| Symptom | What’s happening | What it signals to the audience |
| Shaking hands or voice | Adrenaline response | Rarely as visible as it feels |
| Dry mouth | Blood flow redirected away from digestion | Almost unnoticeable |
| Racing heartbeat | Fight-or-flight activation | Invisible entirely |
| Mind blank / freeze | Threat-perception shutdown | Reads as a pause |
| Flushing / sweating | Cortisol and adrenaline | Slightly visible; audiences read it as passion |
| Rapid, fast speech | Nervous energy seeking exit | Noticeable; slow down deliberately |
The short answer to almost every question in this column is: what you’re feeling is normal, ancient, mostly invisible, and doesn’t disqualify you. It means you understand the stakes and respect the room enough to feel them.
That’s not a weakness. That’s a prerequisite for a good speaker.
Three-time TEDx speaker, trainer, and host of The Mo Talk Show.
