I spent last week in SA running workshops for both Flinders University medical workforce and Limestone Coast Regional Development. My 3rd visit, and always so rewarding.

And one of the topics that came up again – for many different reasons – breathing! 

At the risk of banging on about this again – believe me, it bears repeating – we often don’t realise what a big deal taking enough breath can be when we speak.

There are so many benefits such as:

– Being able to think more clearly.

– Telegraphing control and authority.

– Life-force and energy: demonstrating this is a known winner for audiences. 

– Projecting more strongly.

– Keeping control of our speed.

– Allowing space for the audience to reflect on what we’ve just said. 

– A strong sense of presence, if you’re already a great speaker.

– Space!

Space is such an important part of public speaking and presenting, isn’t it? And it can so easily go missing when we don’t attend to our breath. Good public speaking always involves a sense of space and reflection time for the listener. And we need to bake it into the process if we don’t naturally feel it.

My tip this week is to breathe at every main punctuation mark: unless you have a lot of very short, choppy sentences, this will work! And if you practise it beforehand, you’ll have good anchoring to yourself, your content and your presence.