Our mind and body follow each other when public speaking, and tightly controlling your body will mean that your mind also contracts. You want to move to be able to think!

Do you ever shrink-wrap yourself when you’re speaking?

Our mind follows our body and vice versa.

And if you are nervous, or focused very hard on controlling your message…or indeed remembering your message, it’s quite possible that you’ll start to tighten.

And if your body is tightening, your mind will also contract and you won’t have that free flow of thinking that we need so strongly.

It’s therefore very important to think:

“Okay. What do I need to be doing?”

And while you don’t want to be flailing, you certainly might want to think about small gestures or even squeezing your toes if you don’t want to be gesturing in particular. Any of these small movements.

Just this sense that energy is flowing through your system is going to make a difference to your capacity to think clearly.