Speaking in public, whether in a presentation, an interview or a verbal examination (viva voce), can be a nerve racking experience.  It needn’t be.  As the age old military adage has it, “train hard, fight easy”.  Your creative imagination is an amazing tool you can use to overcome anxiety and adversity.  Imagine yourself delivering your presentation or talking at interview while feeling completely confident, and then practising presenting alone or with friends with that same confidence over and again.  It is sure to make the real experience a whole lot easier.

Links to helpful resources

• Why not share a group study room and practice in the University Library?
• ASK also offer advice and training in developing and giving presentations.
• This website also offers tips on public speaking and presenting.

The vast majority of people believe they need things to be happy, including loved ones, respect, perhaps admiration, money, a career, material possessions (ranging from a comfortable bed, through the latest games console to a car and, depending on which family you were born into, possibly a private island).  We look to these things for comfort, reassurance, and to a very real extent they come to define us.  To a very large extent, we become what we do, the role we hold in society, and the people and things we have in our lives.

We are therefore attached (in many different ways) to many different things.  We therefore have many different vulnerabilities.  Taking away any of the things to which we are attached causes alarm, fear and distress.  We have come to depend on all those things to which we have attached ourselves in order to be happy, and as life goes on, psychologists have noticed that we extend the list of things that we believe we need to be happy, such that most people are continually striving after a moving goal called happiness that they are forever pushing further away throughout their lives, even as they chase after it. Read more ›

In life, many things cannot be changed.  We might work to influence some of them, object loudly to others and even spend our lives dedicated fighting certain social causes but fighting the world is tiring.  As a matter of self-preservation, we have to pick our fights with care.  The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca observed that we become angry at the smallest things because reality disappoints our expectations.  We expect our pen to not run out of ink, for our drink bottle not to leak, and for our favourite study space to be available every time we want it.

Feeling frustration and upset when our expectations are not met wastes energy.  It is more useful to ask of each hiccup, challenge and disaster life throws at us, “how can I use this?”  There is a lesson to learn in every mishap and problem encountered – either that there is a better way of carrying on or simply reminders that we do best in life when we accept and make the most of bad situations we cannot change rather than cursing cruel fate for not being better and easier. Read more ›

Mealtimes and snack breaks are also a great opportunity to chat to your friends, share your worries and talk about things totally different from what you have been thinking about.  This is also important.  We are all social beings and not talking to others for long periods makes us feel bad.  Take any excuse between work sessions to make contact with your friends.

Listening to the different problems other people have without trying to solve them for them, just showing them you are listening and understand, often takes a huge weight off them while showing you that you are not alone in facing challenges.  It’s good to talk, even better to listen and understand what others are saying.  We should all do it more often.  It would make us all feel a lot better.

And if you ever feel unable to share your problems with others, there are counsellors in Wellbeing who are here to listen and support you.