Page 88 - Between One and Many The Art and Science of Public Speaking

Chapter 3 Managing Speech Anxiety 55

High Exhibit 3.1
Optimal arousal and Arousal and
performance Performance

Level of performance Medium

Excessive
arousal
and
diminished
performance
Low
Low Medium High
Level of arousal

and more energy. Moderate arousal is necessary for everything from spiking
volleyballs and kicking fi eld goals to writing a good essay and delivering a pow-
erful speech. The adrenaline charge from moderate arousal makes you more
motivated and alert, energized, and ready to perform the activity at hand. A
little arousal helps you to perform physical behaviors especially, but too much
arousal can produce undesirable side effects (see Exhibit 3.1). Too much arousal
6
causes excessive adrenaline in the body, which can cause constricted muscles
and vocal cords, rapid and shallow breathing, and light-headedness. Too much
arousal also can make us feel weak in the knees, make our hands tremble, and
make it diffi cult to concentrate on the task at hand. Too much arousal, in other
words, produces many of the signs that we commonly associate with being tense,
nervous, and uncomfortable with the situation in which we fi nd ourselves. As we
approach the task of giving a public speech, the trick is not to make feelings of
arousal disappear but to keep these feelings in check so that they do not unneces-
sarily interfere with the ability to speak effectively.

The Psychology of Arousal

and Performance

The body does what the brain tells it to do. The body, moreover, does not dis-
tinguish what the brain communicates as real or imagined, exciting or terrify-
ing. People sometimes cry out during a bad dream or jump in their seat dur-
ing a scary movie because their imagination produces a physical response, even
though they are not really in harm’s way.
Such physical reactions to stimuli help us when we are actually threatened.
For example, they help us get out of the way of an out-of-control car that jumps
the curb onto the sidewalk where we stand. Our physical reactions also can help
us fake out a would-be tackler as we break into the secondary while carrying
the ball in a game of football. They can hinder us, however, when the threat is
more psychological than real. For many people, the anticipation of and act of