Most of us struggle with this anxiety and fear of public speaking in our life. Every six out of 10 people in a group around us gets nervous when they are asked to say something in front of a crowd or a group of people. When asked why do they feel so nervous to speak? The answer is always that they do not like being eyed on or do not like being on the spotlight.

When these people are being asked to speak in front of a crowd or are supposed to address a group of people, most of them avoid making eye contact with the audience so that they cope with their fear and anxiety. But this is where they make the mistake that further makes them even more nervous.For many people, their physical response to public speaking resemble how to physical signs of danger like shaking, face turning red or even shortness of breathe. People who constantly feel eyes watching them, they feel painfully visible and as if they are under attack. So to protect themselves from this attack they start building walls between them and the attack from where it is coming from.

However, there is always a solution to every kind of problem and issues. Many studies have shown that showing kindness and generosity to other people around you calms you down and fight the fear inside your inner self. When we as human beings behave with our fellows with kindness, the response is always calmness and less stress. And this must be admitted that is solution is hard to do but not an impossible task.

Here are five greatly effective tips that one can definitely try so that they can overcome their anxiety of speaking in front of crowd or their fear of public speaking and reduce the stress.

1. Do Not Try To Calm Yourself Down: Yes, you might think that this is definitely not an effective tip to fight fear of public speaking. But Harvard Professor Alison Wood Brooks through her research found out that trying to calm down yourself ends up making you feel more nervous. This results in delivery of speech that lacks persuasiveness and confidence. When one fears the fear of speaking up building in them, instead of fighting the reasons to stop, one must focus on the reasons to let it go. As Richard Branson rightfully noted, "There are only two types of speakers in the world: 1. The nervous and 2. Liars." A person becomes the most nervous right before speaking and this is the moment when one must not feel nervous about what they are going to say, rather refocus one's mind and remind themselves that they are suppose to create an impression on the audience. This is the time when one needs to remind themselves that they are in that position to help the audience.

2.Practice Speaking In Front Of An Audience: Always practice speaking at your home in front of your family members or a group of friends you're comfortable being around. According to classic studies by the late Stanford psychologist Robert Zajonc, the mere presence of people raises arousal in us that helps us to speak. If you are practicing to speak alone or in front of the mirror, you will not have a chance to adjust to that arousal. Try to create a situation that resembles the performance as much as possible. So that when you start to speak with that in mind, you get to discover that practicing your speech in front of a small group of people actually helps you to deliver better in front of a bigger crowd. If you really want to prepare your speech under maximal anxiety, you must always practice in front of a small group.

3. Always Start With a Question Or a Puzzle: Many successful and speaking coaches across the globe believes that it's always the best decision to open up a speech in front of a crowd or gathering with a puzzle or asking the audience a question to receive a response from them and engage them in your speech rather than feeling attacked by their constant stare. Asking the audience a question or giving them a puzzle gets the audience to think instead of being judgemental about the speech you are delivering. Many speakers also starts their speech with a short story. This as a result absorbs the attention of the audience in the narrative and they ends up focusing on the plot and characters in the story rather than focusing on the storyteller.

4.While Speaking, Make Eye-Contact:The biggest mistake people make whole speaking to a crowd or a group of people is that we feel it's necessary for us to look at each one of our audience while we are speaking to them, which results in making us more nervous and avoiding to make eye contact with our audience. As a result, we end up connecting with not a single person in the crowd. So the best way to always connect to our audience and make sense to them is to speak to them as individuals. Now, how do we do so? The answer is to make a sustained eye contact with one individual per thought or per point you make through your speech. Practically, it's not possible to make eye contact to each of the individuals in a crowd, which is why making eye contact with everyone clearly visible to your eyes is considered as "all". When you focus at one person at a time, this makes the people listening to you feel as if you are talking just to them. But we all know that making direct eye contact with a group of strangers can feel really uncomfortable at the beginning. However, with the passage of time when one practise speaking more, it eventually makes them less nervous. According to communication researches, it is far more easy and effective to have number of one to one conversation with the audience present than to speak to all at once (during your initial stage of being the speaker in crowd).

5.Prepare a Script But Never Memorize It:While addressing a big gathering or a group of people, people are mostly afraid of forgetting what to say in front of the large group. Very successful and notable public speakers in history have also used scripts in fear of forgetting what they were going to say. They have also in their life experienced panic situations. Public speaking can really seem to be very daunting at first and it will therefore increase the anxiety in you just thinking of what to speak without a proper script. However, always remember that even if you prepare a script to deliver a speech, you must never memorize it. Because if you do so, you will end up trying to remember what to say and what not to say to your audience resulting in losing your connection with the crowd. The best approach is always to make your script into a series of points that you can explain in your own words to the audience, or even a list of themes can be helpful. This will make you seem less rehearsed and more authentic.

With time, one becomes more experienced, and when one becomes more experienced, they become more comfortable. To completely throw away your fear of public speaking, one need to stand up and take the challenge. One need to start speaking in front of public even if they don't do very well in the initial stage. So, volunteer and start speaking, practice before your family or friends or try out these tips. I am very sure you will soon end your fear and speaking anxiety.