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Professionals swear by these tricks to stop your voice from shaking when speaking publicly

"I get a crying voice every time. I hate it."

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Professionals swear these things will stop your shaky nervous voice.

There's nothing more frustrating than when you go to speak in a meeting and it sounds like you're about to cry. This annoying vocal trembling can affect people regardless of the size of the crowd they're speaking to, as it's related to nervousness. Several professional speakers and coaches have learned how to control that nervous vocal fry with a few tricks that may help you get through your next presentation.

The seemingly unfamiliar noise our throats make when nervous can add to the feelings of anxiety. Now, you're not just worried about speaking in front of a few people; you're also wondering if they think your voice sounds weird or if they're concerned about your emotional state. Maybe they think you've been crying or are about to start. Either way, you notice the strange, shaky sound making every word you say vibrate uncomfortably, and all you can think about is making it stop.

public speaking; shaky voice; nervous voice; social anxiety; nervous speaking; public speaking nerves Stressed man wipes forehead while reading documents.Photo credit: Canva

Usually, when this happens, your pulse quickens, you start to sweat, and your face starts to feel hot. It seems your body is acting out in a pretty extreme way, and you're not sure why. So, what is the deal? Why doesn't this happen to everyone, and how can you make it stop? Well, while many are naturally good speakers, others become effective speakers because they've learned how to master their nerves so they sound confident even when they're not.

Why does my voice shake when I speak publicly?

Extra TV co-host Mona Kosar Abdi explains, "Number one tell-tale sign that you're nervous is a shaky voice. That happens when you're so tense that the muscles around your vocal chords tighten."

public speaking; shaky voice; nervous voice; social anxiety; nervous speaking; public speaking nerves Woman lost in thought at a café.Photo credit: Canva

The technical phrase for this muscle tightening is "voice change anxiety symptoms," and, according to the Anxiety Centre, "Voice changes anxiety symptoms can precede, accompany, or follow an episode of nervousness, anxiety, fear, and elevated stress, or occur ‘out of the blue’ and for no apparent reason. Voice change anxiety symptoms can range in severity from slight to moderate to severe. Voice changes can also come in waves, where it’s strong one moment and eases off the next."

public speaking; shaky voice; nervous voice; social anxiety; nervous speaking; public speaking nerves Sweating Season 12 GIF Giphy

How to stop your voice from shaking

As for how to get the muscles around your voice box to chill out so you can get through a simple conversation or meeting, Abdi says the trick is to relax those muscles. She shares that right before you're supposed to speak, you should hold one finger in front of your lips like you're telling someone to be quiet, take a deep breath, and, when exhaling, make a "ghost noise."

"I know it looks crazy, but do it like five to ten minutes before you have to speak, and what it does is it helps loosen up the muscles and also helps you control your airflow," the TV host says. She adds, "Slow down. When we are nervous, we tend to let out a million words a second, which leads to stumbling and being out of breath. Slow down. This allows you to enunciate your words and also get in deep breaths."

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Replying to @SaSa public speaking anxiety is mental and physical by addressing both you can relax your mind and sound more confident.

A leadership and resilience coach who goes by Cass on social media shares that one way to avoid nervousness. A shaky voice before meetings is often a sign of avoiding last-minute meeting prep. Cass suggests going outside to take deep breaths before speaking, and then combine it with hyping yourself up. This means reminding yourself that you know what you're talking about and deserve to be in the spaces you're taking up. She also points out that last-minute reviewing of material adds to the anxiety and nerves, so stepping away aids in calming your nervous system before speaking.

@thrivewithcass

Does your voice get shaky before you go to speak up at work? Save this video and do these 2 things #womeninleadership #thrivewomen #womeninbusiness #burnoutprevention #highachievingwomen #womenincorporate #publicspeakingtips

Another tip for ending the shaky voice while speaking is to project your voice from your diaphragm. When nervous, you tend to take quick, shallow breaths. Slowing your breathing and using it to speak from your diaphragm will not only help make that shaky, nervous voice stop, but it will also make you sound more confident. One way to know you're using your diaphragm to speak is to take a breath with your hand on your belly. If you're breathing from your diaphragm, your belly just below your ribcage should move. As you begin speaking, you should feel the same area contract.

Several public speaking coaches mentioned this as one of the best ways to sound more confident while knocking the nerves out of your voice. Taking deep breaths, slowing down your speech, and speaking with your diaphragm have been the most repeated tips by professionals. So, if you get nervous while talking in front of others, give these tricks a try and see how they work for you.

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My Greatest Generation grandad had one rule to never run out of things to say in conversation

It's incredibly basic, but too many people forget it.

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Manners and social etiquette have changed over the years, but the classics still work.

My grandad was, simply put, the man. Fought in World War II, lived into his 90s with the strength and vigor of a much younger man, and made an unforgettable impression on everyone who knew him. He was truly a force of nature that I was lucky to have in my life.

He was also a highly quotable man, full of incredible one-liners. When I was a kid and my family would visit, and he was ready to wrap things up, he'd cheekily say "Well, we certainly have seen you," and, "Come again when you can't stay so long."

My Greatest Generation grandad also loved to entertain. Though not a man of many words, he was a legendary host. His advice to us grandkids about being a great conversationalist was always the same:


manners, etiquette, small talk, psychology, conversation, greatest generation, boomers, millennials, social anxiety Can you believe there was a time that being polite and of high-character was more important than being charismatic?Britt Ful/Flickr

"Always ask the last question."

That was it. That was his key to never running out of things to say in a conversation. It sounds extremely obvious, but you'd be surprised how counter it runs to a lot of the advice young people are getting now. In certain sectors, the name of the game is all about how to be more charming and more charismatic. "Self-help" forgets that the real key to being interesting is being interested in what the other party has to say.

What made my grandad's execution of this simple concept great was his confidence in the fact that they didn't have to be great questions. He would just keep asking them, like a steamroller. He knew that, if he kept it up, he'd eventually hit on something that would launch a deeper and more interesting discussion.

Conversations were often logistical at first: How was the drive? What time did you leave? Was there any traffic? Where'd you stop to eat? What did you order? Before you knew it, you were off and running. That was the beauty of the technique.

Asking questions, of course, is not new advice! It's been around forever, and it's still preached heavily today by psychologists and master small-talkers.

But anybody who's been in conversation with another human being lately knows that a lot of people are really bad at this and only want to hear themselves talk. The Guardian calls them "non-askers." And they're everywhere.

Harvard Business Review writes that about 70-80% of what children say is made up of questions, but that number plummets dramatically in adults. It's like we lose our inherent curiosity somewhere along the way, and we pay for it in the way we relate to, or don't, with others. You don't have to do much research to see how big of a problem this is becoming, from people lamenting horrid first dates where they can't get a word in edgewise, to an excruciating lack of self-awareness from people in the working world who just.... won't. stop. talking!

manners, etiquette, small talk, psychology, conversation, greatest generation, boomers, millennials, social anxiety Asking good questions: The original party trick.Stephen Coles/Flickr

Why is this mind-numbingly simple advice so hard to follow?

In Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, author Susan Cain writes that the idea of "having a good personality" is a pretty modern invention. She says that the Western world transformed at some point from a culture of character to a culture of personality, timed around the rise of salesmen and the corporate world. In that burgeoning culture, being charming, charismatic, and a great storyteller was crucial to your success.

We think it makes us impressive to know all the answers, have the best stories, have an anecdote or fun fact to share about every topic. In fact, appearing that way can often be the key to getting ahead at work and making more money. We want to be the one holding court at a party, making guests laugh with our raucous jokes and monologues, because we equate that image with popularity, success, and belonging.

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But it wasn't always this way. My grandad came from a time, in the old South, where good etiquette and manners were more important than being incredibly charming.

In the late 1800s, Professor Thomas E. Hill wrote in The Essential Handbook of Victorian Etiquette: "Do not aspire to be a great storyteller. An inveterate teller of long stories becomes very tiresome. To tell one or two witty, short, new stories, appropriate to the occasion, is about all that one person should inflict upon the company."

Etiquette of the era also dictated not bragging about your connections or accomplishments, and not using highfalutin words to sound smarter than you really are. Some funny ones include parents not telling too many stories about their kids (preach!) and avoiding using too many puns.

Now, my grandad didn't exactly grow up in Victorian England — more like Great Depression-era America — but you can get a sense of how our priorities have changed since 1900 to today. There were a lot of things about that time period in the United States that weren't so great, but that emphasis on making other people feel comfortable and heard in social settings, instead of advancing your own status and standing, would be a welcome return. Luckily, it's easy to do it even today. Just ask a question, literally any question, and you'll already be doing way better than most people.

They don't call them the Greatest Generation for nothing!

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The world's top mentalist reveals brilliantly-simple 'trick' to remember anyone's name

You have to involve your visual memory, which is stronger and easier to access.

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The world's greatest mentalist reveals 5-second trick to never forget someone's name

The longer I'm alive, it seems the more people's names that I have to remember. With two kids in school, sports, and other activities, I find myself trying to keep track of dozens of different friends, teammates, siblings, coaches, teachers, and of course, parents. It makes my brain hurt! Lately I've had half a mind to start a spreadsheet so I can start remembering Who's Who.

In order for that to work, I've got to find a way to stop people's names leaving my head immediately after I'm introduced. I know I'm not the only one who does this. It's like people say their name and it just zips right into one ear and out the other! And for that, I went looking for tips when I stumbled upon a good one from a unique sort of expert.

Derren Brown is one of the most famous mentalists in the world, so he knows a thing or two about people. Mentalists are a special breed of magician that focus on tricks and illusions of the mind.

They do things like hynopsis, mind-reading, and impossible predictions. There's trickery, involved, of course; but mentalists are also masters at reading people and have to employ advanced memory techniques to keep track of information they learn during their shows.

In an interview with Big Think, Brown revealed some of his favorite memory hacks; including his 'party trick' to never forget a person's name.


names, psychology, social anxiety, memory, memory tricks, small talk, people, parties, meeting people Trick number one: Say their name Giphy

The secret is to create a link between the part of your brain that stores information like names, and the visual part of your brain that is more easily accessed. Visual memory has also been found to be substantially stronger and more detailed than auditory and other kinds of memories, so what you want to do is get the visual part of your brain involved in remembering!

"You find a link between the person's name and something about their appearance, what they're wearing, their face, their hair, something," Brown says. "You find a link with something that they're wearing so if they're called Mike and they've got big black hair you think, 'Oh that's like a microphone' so I can imagine like a big microphone walking around or if they've got a stripy T-shirt on you imagine a microphone with those stripes going around it.

"And it's the same process later on in the evening you see them, you look at the stripes and you go, 'Oh that's Mike. Oh yeah that's Mike. The hair, why am I thinking the hair is like a big microphone? Oh yes, of course, they're called Mike.'"

Microphone Mike! Any sort of alliteration based on a physical characteristic will work. Stripey Steve, Tall Tim, Green Gene. The more interesting and unique, the better you'll remember.

If this sounds a little bit like Michael Scott's mnemonic devices from The Office, well, they're not far off. He applies in a pretty strange and convoluted way: "Baldy. Your head it bald. It is hairless. It is shiny. It is reflective, like a mirror. M. Your name is Mark." But ultimately, he was on to something. If you watched the show, you know that Michael Scott never forgot a name!


names, psychology, social anxiety, memory, memory tricks, small talk, people, parties, meeting people Michael Scott: Memory master. Giphy


There is one catch with the technique: You have to actually listen and pay attention when someone tells you their name!

"So, you do have to listen that's the first thing when they say the name," Brown says. "Normally the very moment where someone is giving you their name you're just caught up in a whole lot of social anxiety anyways you don't even hear it, so you have to listen."

Using someone's name when you talk to them has tons of benefits. It conveys respect, friendliness, and intimacy. When you're on the receiving end and someone you've just met uses your name, it just feels good! It feels like it matters to them that they met you. Just don't overdo it. Repeating someone's name every other sentence comes across disingenuous and salesy. A good rule of thumb is to repeat their name immediately after learning it ("Nice to meet you, Jim") and upon saying goodbye. The rest of the memory work should happen in your head to avoid creeping them out!

"And then at the end [of the party] you get to go around and say goodbye to everybody by name and everyone thinks you're very charming and clever," Brown quips.

Listen to the entire, fascinating interview here.


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Brown's name-remembering technique is tangential to an ancient philosophy called the "Method of loci".

The method involves attaching things to be remembered (numbers, tasks, facts) to specific places that are easy to visualize in your head. Imagine taking a brain-walk down the street you live on and all the objects or places you might see there. The mailbox, the gnarled tree, the rusty fire hydrant. This memory method asks you to visually associate one thing you want to remember with each item or location. The more strange and visual the image you can create, the better! Brown uses the example of trying to shove a sparkling-clean shirt into his mailbox, reminding him to do his drycleaning.

When you need to recall the item, you just take a little walk in your head down the street.

(Did you know that there's a World Championship of Memory? Most of the best competitors use a version of this technique, which originated all the way back in Ancient Greece, and possibly well before even that.)


names, psychology, social anxiety, memory, memory tricks, small talk, people, parties, meeting people The Method of Loci could save you from forgetting key information. Giphy

The name hack isn't so dissimilar. You're attaching an intangible, abstract thing (a name) to a specific visual image you can see in your head and even in the real world. But that's just one way of getting better at remembering names! There are all kinds of tips, hacks, and methods you can try.

Some people swear by repeating the name immediately after hearing it. "Hi, my name is Jake." "Hi, Jake, nice to meet you!" (Just don't say someone's name too frequently or you risk coming off a bit slimy.)

Others use a technique similar to Brown's loci idea, but instead of a visual, you lean on things that are already deeply engrained in your memory, like rhymes or free-association. or even celebrities. Mary - had a little lamb. Jake - the Snake. Daisy - flowers. Tom - Cruise.

Another trick (that I've definitely used before) if you do forget someone's name? Introduce them to someone you know! "Hey, this is my wife, Sarah." The person was almost always introduce themselves using their own name, and then you get a second chance at remembering it.

A lot of the best advice really comes down to being intentional about remembering when you're introduced to a new person. Whatever mental gymnastics you choose to do with the name, the mere fact that you're thinking about it with such focus immediately after is a big part of why these 'tricks' help names stick.

It feels really good when someone cares enough to remember your name, so it's definitely worth putting in a little effort of trying to instill that feeling in others.

And, furthermore, remind yourself that it's perfectly OK to forget someone's name; especially if you've just met. A kind, honest, and vulnerable, "I'm sorry, can you remind me your name again?" might feel awkward in the moment, but it utilizes the easiest 'trick' of all: Just being a normal human and asking.

This article originally appeared in February. It has been updated.

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Tom Cruise has advice for people with social anxiety, and it's actually pretty great

His words had a "profound impact" on a co-star's life.

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Tom Cruise

Not only can Tom Cruise do his own stunts, he's a good therapist too. His Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One co-star, Haley Atwell, has revealed that she, like so many of us, struggles with social anxiety. On the Reign with Josh Smith podcast, she discusses how it often overwhelms her and makes her want to retreat.

Tom Cruise, mission impossible, stunt, stunt man, actor, film Tom Cruise Mi GIF by Mission: Impossible Giphy

But she was saved by incredibly insightful advice from Tom Cruise, which she imparts to the audience. After describing him as a positive "hair dryer" just blowing his positive energy around, Josh asks, "What's the best pep talk he's given you?" Haley answers, "Social anxiety tends to be something that people talk about a lot at the moment. It seems to be quite a buzzword of conversation."

They both agree that everyone has some version of anxiety, whether it's in a big group of people, a new work environment, or even just around a small group of friends. She confesses, "For me, I start to retreat into myself and overthink. 'Do I look weird? Do I seem awkward?' I'm not speaking, I'm just muffling my words or I need something to numb me from this.'"

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Luckily, Cruise has quite a simple way to combat these feelings. "The pep talk he gave me helps, which is that if you walk into a room and feel the anxieties coming, try doing the opposite. Try to look OUT and look around the room and go, 'Where is it? Where is the thing I have attached to my insecurity?'"

The idea is to pinpoint the place where her (or any of our) anxiety might be rooted. "Is it that person over there who reminds me of my high school bully? Is it that person over there who didn't give me a job once?" Once the source is recognized, if possible, Cruise suggests asking yourself, "Where does it live outside of me, and where do I feel like the source might be coming from?"

Haley emphasizes that examining her fear, which Cruise encourages, truly helps the anxiety subside. She continues, "If I look at it for long enough, the anxiety then can have a name. It can have a label and be contained, instead of free-floating, where I'm just in a total struggle internally with my own anxiety." Seeing through this prism, she shares, "If I’m scared of something, if I keep looking at it long enough, it tends to not be the monster under the bed anymore."


Actress, Hayley Atwell, social anxiety, mental health, acting File:Hayley Atwell.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org

Naming the emotion, whether it's jealousy, loneliness, etc., can help you outwardly address it so that it doesn't fester in your mind. She reiterates Cruise's words: "If you're scared of something, just keep looking at it. Try not to look away, and it will often give you information about how to overcome it."

Cruise's advice isn't all that different from many professional therapists. In the blog post, "How to overcome social anxiety: 8 tips and strategies" (clinically reviewed by Dr. Chris Mosunic, PhD, RD, MBA, for Calm.com,) ideas on how to overcome social anxiety are given and number one on the list could have been written by Cruise himself: "Identify your triggers," they write, explaining, "The first step to managing social anxiety is understanding what sparks it. Triggers can be unique to each person. Some might find large gatherings intimidating, while for others, it might be public speaking. To identify your triggers, keep a journal of your feelings and the situations that make you anxious. Recognizing these triggers is a crucial step in managing your reactions to them."


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They also suggest, among other ideas, breathing techniques such as the 4-7-8 method: breathing in for 4 seconds, holding for 7, and breathing out for 8. They also advise "challenging negative thought patterns." They explain, "Practice challenging these thoughts. Ask yourself: 'Is this thought based on facts or feelings? What's the best thing that could happen?' Replacing negative thoughts with positive ones can help reduce feelings of anxiety."

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