How to Lower Your Heart Rate Before Public Speaking

There are two kinds of stress associated with public speaking. I have one,
but not the other.

The first one is really bad and it’s basically what people commonly refer to
as the fear of public speaking. This is the idea where you get super nervous
and even panicky the moment you think about being on stage.

I don’t have that problem, and I’ll talk about how I solved that in another
essay. But here I want to talk about the second kind, which is one that I
still have sometimes.

This is the kind where you love public speaking and actually enjoy being in
front of other people and talking about your ideas. But you still get
over-excited at the exact moment that it’s time to get on stage.

I consider this to be a healthy form of stress. I don’t even think about it
as stress; I consider it excitement.

Anyway, the problem is, if you are over-excited, and your heart is beating
extremely fast, you are likely to speak too quickly and not deliver at the
pace or in the tone that you wanted to. You could also have voice quavering
in the first couple of minutes, which sounds like nervousness and a lack of
confidence.

I don’t like those symptoms and I just recently found something in the last
year or so that has reduced them by 70-95%

The short version is: Wim Hoff breathing.

The longer version is one to three cycles of deep, fast breathing of around
30 repetitions (which used to be known as hyperventilating), followed by a
very long and deep exhale which you hold for as long as you can (safely of
course), and then followed by a super deep inhale, which you then hold for
as long as you can.

So:

• Like 20-30 super deep and fast hyperventilating breaths

• On the last one, hold the exhale as long as you can

• Then take a super deep breath and hold that as long as you can

That’s one cycle.

If you do one cycle of this, your heart rate massively comes down and you
feel a powerful sense of calm and control. Honestly, it works for any
situation in which you want a bit of extra peace and relaxation, but it’s
really good for public speaking.

If you can do 2-3 cycles of this in the 10 minutes leading up to your talk,
and if you have any response anything like mine, you’ll have an 80-95%
reduction in your early-talk-over-excitement.

That’s really it.

If you want to know how I handled the bigger, nastier, more common fear of
public speaking, let me know, and I’ll write that one shortly.