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Oral Communication · Chapter 11

The Anxiety Stack

Speech anxiety is ordinary sympathetic arousal, and it is front-loaded: it climbs before you start, peaks in the first minute of speaking, then falls. Toggle techniques on and off and watch the curve move — including the three pieces of advice that deserve retirement. Then drag the marker to any moment and see what your body is doing and what to do about it.
Your toolkit · toggle what you will actually do
Advice that deserves retirement
Rewrite one sentence · catch it, name the error, replace it
Pick a replacement you could actually say in a hallway
Arousal across the whole event
T−30 minStart+4 minEnd
--Peak arousal
--Performance readiness
The evidence ledger