Anxiety and the physical environment

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Anxiety and the physical environment

• Jane Ly

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Anxiety

• Two types of communication anxiety
  situational and trait
• Times where anxiety may occur
• -expressing ideas to colleague
• -participating in a group discussion
• -interviewing or being interviewed
• -giving a presentation
• -selling a product to a client
• -approaching a banker for a loan

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Under Anxiety
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Situational Anxiety

• Often referred as state anxiety
• This anxiety is caused by factors in a specific
  situation, such as speaking for the first time
  before an audience, speaking in front of the
  boss, and being critiqued while speaking.

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Situational Anxiety

• Symptoms 1. nervous
• 2. butterfly-in-the-stomach
• What happens?
• - the bodys nervous system prepares a big shot
  of adrenaline, which accelerates the heart rate,
  sends oxygen to the central nervous system,
  heart, and muscles dilates the eyes raises the
  blood sugar level and causes perspiration
• Even very experienced speakers like Katie Couric
  of the Today Show experiences speaker anxiety.

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Advice to help control the butterflies created by
situational anxiety

• 1. Prepare and Practice! Nothing will make you
  more nervous than knowing you are not adequately
  prepared. After all, the real nervousness is
  making mistakes and humiliating yourself.
• 2. Warm Up! Prior to giving you presentation,
  warm up your neck and arm muscles and your voice.
  Warm-up helps the speaker relax and ensure that
  they are ready to perform their best.
• 3. Use Deep Breathing! This is a quick way to
  calm your butterflies. As you exhale feel your
  stress and tension slowly draining down all parts
  of the body.

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Advice to help control the butterflies created by
situational anxiety continue

• 4. Use an introduction that will relax you! Most
  speakers find that once the get a favorable
  audience reaction, they relax. This is one reason
  why so many a speakers start with humor.
• 5. Concentrate on communicating your meaning!
  Instead of worrying about how you look or how
  you sound, center your energy on getting your
  meaning across to your listeners.
• 6. Use visual aids! Some speakers dont know
  what to do with their hands, so using visual aids
  will help keep the hands busy so there is no time
  to worry.

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Trait Anxiety

• Fewer people experience trait anxiety.
• Trait anxiety, or communication apprehension, is
  a personal, internal feeling about communication.
• These people feel that they are different from
  other speakers, have a history of negative
  speaking experiences, and consider themselves
  inferior to others.
• Speakers with this anxiety should be aware that
  most nervousness is internal and is rarely
  obvious.

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How to manage trait anxiety

• There are many techniques that can be used to
  manage this but most require professional
  assistance.
• A successful technique is the positive imagery,
  or visualization.
• Research has found positive imagery to have a
  long-term effect and to be easy to use.

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How to manage trait anxiety continue

• Positive Imagery requires
• - imagination
• -instead of thinking the bad, create a detailed
  positive and vivid mental image of yourself
  confidently preparing for and giving a successful
  presentation.
• INSTEAD OF IMAGINING FAILURE, IMAGINE SUCCESS
• Quote No amount of encouragement or practice
  will make us confident professional speaker as
  long as deep down we believe ourselves to be an
  ineffective speaker.

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Successful Equation

• Words vivid mental pictures
• feelings CONFIDENCE

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The Physical Environment

• Have you ever noticed how some rooms and offices
  seem friendly and inviting, while other rooms (or
  buildings) seem cold and unfriendly and seem to
  create a feeling of stress? Do you feel
  uncomfortable talking to your boss (or
  instructor) in his or her office? Your reaction
  may be caused by the room itself!

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The Physical EnvironmentPhysical environment
reveals characteristics of the owner of the
territory they also affect how people
communicate.

• UGLY ROOMS
• they experience
• -monotony
• -fatigue
• -headache
• -discontent
• -sleepiness
• -irritability
• -hostility

• ATTRACTIVE ROOMS they experience
• -feelings of pleasure
• -comfort
• -enjoyment
• -importance
• -energy
• -desire

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Colors

• Color is a also affects our emotional response
  and is a determining factor in whether an
  environment is judged as attractive or not.
• EX students in schoolrooms painted yellow, rose,
  blue, or green showed more improvement than
  students in a room painted buff or white.

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Lighting

• Another environmental factor that affects
  communication is lighting.
• Soft lighting causes people to speak softly and
  sit closer together than in brightly lit rooms.
• Most offices are generally overlit with twice as
  much light as needed.

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Room Size

• The amount of available space can also affect the
  success of a meeting.
• Large rooms tend to inhibit relaxed discussions.
• Smaller rooms seem to encourage discussion.
• Room size also affects listener attitudes toward
  the event or speaker.

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Odor and others

• Odor also communicates nonverbally.
• Odors from spray and chemicals can communicate
  uncomfortable associations, perhaps stir up
  unpleasant memories, and increase already
  existing anxiety.
• Noise level, heat, ventilation, lack of windows,
  and furniture arrangements are other
  environmental factors that can nonverbally affect
  communication.