My physiological reaction to stress

As we have covered the topic of stage fright we have to do some assignments connected with it. In this post I would like to tell about my symptoms which I have when I experience stage fright.

Usually I feel not very comfortable standing in front of the audience and I have also problems with making eye contact with people. Thus, I suppose that my main symptom during public speech is dilated pupils. 

My eyes cannot concentrate on things that are located close to me, in the contrary I start to look somewhere at the ceiling or the wall. When I am nervous I become very cautious and watchful because I feel the proximity of hazard. That is why I observe carefully a place where I am. My sense of hearing also gets heightened, I hear absolutely every sigh of people, little noises they make and even my own heartbeat. This can make me even more anxious and I also can get distracted and forget what I was going to say. 

My eyes shift to long distance view to let me see clearly the horizon, the background. Unfortunately, I have to lose something to acquire this long distance visual acuity and better peripheral vision. As I mentioned earlier, I do not have the ability to concentrate on closer things, which means that my short distance focus does not work any longer at that time. The audience seems to me as a blurred picture, I cannot see faces of those who listen to me. But even worse, peeking at my notes is impossible anymore. If I happen to lose my train of thought my speech will be a total fail because I cannot use my notes. I have only an option to improvise, but talking on the spot is not always successful and speech gets not very well-structured.

To my mind, it is ok to have some symptoms of stage fright, because we cannot control our body. However, we can control how our mind works. If we feel stress, uneasiness or tension we have to try to calm ourselves down. We should believe in our skills and hope that everything will be alright.

That’s it for today’s post. Tell me about your symptoms during a public speech if you have any. Leave some comments down below, please!