Habituation

In the book the definition of habituation is "fearing a situation less as it becomes more familiar with repetition". I think this is an important topic to address because with our first speech coming up everyone will be getting nervous. In order to make habituation work it is important to practice your speech out loud and with others around if possible. Also tie in visualization to get the full feel for what speech day will be like and get more comfortable. Though the practice is what will make you feel more comfortable this time the more speeches you present the less scary it will be. Just remember habituation the more times you repeat an act the more familiar it is and the less scary getting up in front of an audience will be. Along with visualization use all the other tools the book presents; such as, being prepared, relabeling those negative feelings, and listening to the audiences reaction physically and verbally. I think if this is all put together each speech habituation will succeed.

Speech Buddy Videos

2.1
In this video they covered techniques to use to overcome that speech anxiety that we all get. Visualization is the first technique where you go to a quiet place, use all your senses, and imagine the speech going well from beginning to the end. Relabeling is when you use positive words for negative words. The example used in this video was "turning nervous energy into enthusiasm". Relaxation techniques include deep breathing which is diaphragm breathing, meditation breathing where you focus on thinking of nothing, but your breathing, and releasing tension breathing which occurs when you take a diaphragm breath and as you exhale focus on getting rid of the tension in a specific location; such as, your back.
2.2 This video talks about narrowing in on what you are personally most nervous for. In the guys case it was the location so he visited the location and used visualization. The girl seemed to be most worried about her content so she made sure to choose a topic that interested her and do in-depth research to cover all her basis.
Jessica's Intro was very interesting and a few things caught my attention; such as, she used the same line "when one door closes another door opens" in her introduction and conclusion.
From these videos I realized that the more passionate you are about your topic the smoother your speech will go, to use the techniques that have been discussed in the book and the videos, and that if prepared correctly by using speech anxiety techniques and being prepared public speaking may not be so bad.

My nightmare of public speaking

Reading through the chapters I realize not only do I have almost every single speech anxiety listed; such as my voice quivers, my whole body shakes not just one part, I talk fast, and my hands get sweaty, but I am also scared that I will not be able to organize my speech correctly. There are so many steps to fallow and so many different out looks. We have Cicero's view as the five arts, but then there are different ways to organize your invention, and then you have to take into consideration the different elements to public speaking. Reading the different uncertainties and all the ways of organization made me a little more scared for speech day. As the book states the anxiety just makes me want to put my speech together now and start practicing. Trying to figure out how I am going to get through this class without feeling like I am falling into a nightmare I read through the building confidence and to be honest I do not know that it will work; however I am willing to give it a shot, so over the next week it looks like I will be doing a lot of visualization and relabeling my anxiety as excitement.

Introduction

Hi all! I am Gabriell, but I go by Brie. I am taking an online class because I work seven days a week. Part time as a server and hostess and the other part as a receptionist. This is my class at sierra until I can transfer to either Sac state or another location to complete my B/A in social work and then hopefully move on to my masters. My dream career is to be a counselor for children. I love kids. I look forward to finishing this class so I am one step closer to my goal. Good luck to all.