There are two kinds of stress associated with public speaking. I have one, but not the other.

The first one is really bad and it’s basically what people commonly refer to as the fear of public speaking. This is the idea where you get super nervous and even panicky the moment you think about being on stage.

I don’t have that problem, and I’ll talk about how I solved that in another essay. But here I want to talk about the second kind, which is one that I still have sometimes.

This is the kind where you love public speaking and actually enjoy being in front of other people and talking about your ideas. But you still get over-excited at the exact moment that it’s time to get on stage.

I consider this to be a healthy form of stress. I don’t even think about it as stress; I consider it excitement.

Anyway, the problem is, if you are over-excited, and your heart is beating extremely fast, you are likely to speak too quickly and not deliver at the pace or in the tone that you wanted to. You could also have voice quavering in the first couple of minutes, which sounds like nervousness and a lack of confidence.

I don’t like those symptoms and I just recently found something in the last year or so that has reduced them by 70-95%

The short version is: Wim Hoff breathing.

The longer version is one to three cycles of deep, fast breathing of around 30 repetitions (which used to be known as hyperventilating), followed by a very long and deep exhale which you hold for as long as you can (safely of course), and then followed by a super deep inhale, which you then hold for as long as you can.

So:

That’s one cycle.

If you do one cycle of this, your heart rate massively comes down and you feel a powerful sense of calm and control. Honestly, it works for any situation in which you want a bit of extra peace and relaxation, but it’s really good for public speaking.

If you can do 2-3 cycles of this in the 10 minutes leading up to your talk, and if you have any response anything like mine, you’ll have an 80-95% reduction in your early-talk-over-excitement.

That’s really it.

If you want to know how I handled the bigger, nastier, more common fear of public speaking, let me know, and I’ll write that one shortly.