That Neuroscience Guy - The Neuroscience of Public Speaking

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

In today's episode of That Neuroscience Guy, we discuss the neuroscience behind public speaking and its' associated emotions, finishing off with some tips for better public speaking.

Hi, my name is Olav Krogolson and I'm a neuroscientist at the University of Victoria. And in my spare time, I'm that neuroscience guy. Welcome to the podcast. So as I mentioned on the last podcast, I just came off my latest TEDx talk, the tug of war in the brain. It'll be up on YouTube soon. And I got asked a lot of questions. One of the, I dealt with some of the questions I got asked relating to talk content on the last episode.

But on this episode, the question I get a lot is like, you seem to be really good at public speaking and like, how do you do it? Like, do you get nervous? And I sort of stumbled through and say some things, but I started thinking about it a lot. And the reality is, I guess I'm an okay public speaker. I'd like to think so. But on today's podcast, the neuroscience of public speaking with some tips on how to be a better public speaker, especially if you're struggling with speaking in public.

So let's deal with the neuroscience bit first. Probably the biggest thing that comes to mind with public speaking and the biggest thing that people deal with is anxiety and stress, all right? so you have to give a talk to a group of people. You have to stand up and you have to do it. You're going to be up on a stage or in front of a room and you need to speak. It's stressful and it's anxious. So guess what? What part of the brain is that?

This is your quiz. If this was live, I'd make you shout it out. The amygdala. Basically, the amygdala is the emotional center of your brain. We've, like, I, you know, I sometimes kid we talk about it on every episode. I know we talk about it a lot, but the amygdala plays a massive role in our lives. So why does the amygdala have this negative role when you do these things? Basically, the reality is it ties to self-image, right? So we have this vision of ourselves, and a lot of people are a bit insecure about themselves, and they're worried they're going to screw up in front of other people.

This is perfectly normal behavior, alright? I'm not the biggest Freud fan in the world. I've read a lot of Freud and like a lot of people, I've had to come to the realization that a lot of it is flawed. Let's go with flawed. But Freud did have a lot of things right. And I think the biggest thing is his concepts on ego. Like we have a self-perception, and if we're standing in front of people,

that self-image that we have, it's open to the world, right? If we mispronounce a word, we're concerned about what people will think, right? If we get an idea wrong, we're concerned about what people will think, right? If we get an idea wrong, we're concerned about what people will think. And that's purely the amygdala, all right? That's your, the amygdala is going to enhance those emotions. So when we get to tips, one of the biggest things you have to do is think about how can you keep your amygdala in check? Like how can you calm down and get the amygdala under control?

What's interesting is the amygdala also has a positive role in public speaking, right? And that's, it gives you focus and energy. Like once you get into a confident place, the amygdala is gonna actually drive you along. And using TED Talks as an example, if you look at good TED Talks, the ones with millions of views versus the ones that don't have as many,

typically the ones that are really well viewed are the ones where there's this emotional connection, right? Like you have an emotional response. But more importantly, you can see that the speaker's emotionally engaged, right? And that's something that people connect to. You know, I know students respond to this as well. When I teach, I really like to throw myself into it for better or for worse, but if the students see

that you love what you're talking about, they can feed on that. So the amygdala causes that stress and anxiety, and I'm not gonna go into stress and anxiety. We've got podcast episodes on that, and you can hear all about cortisol and what to do about cortisol. But that's probably the biggest thing

that comes to mind with the neuroscience of public speaking. But there are a couple other brain regions that matter. Our old friend, the prefrontal cortex. Basically, what's the prefrontal cortex doing? Well, it's doing what the prefrontal cortex does, right? It keeps your talk on track. It's what helps you remember what you're supposed to say. It helps you stay organized.

It helps you stay on time. If you do slip up, the prefrontal cortex is the part that's gonna quickly allow you to adapt, right, and make a recovery. So the prefrontal cortex is going to be engaged during your talk. You definitely don't want to be an autopilot. Like when I was giving my talk the other day,

it's kind of a weird thing to be thinking, but as I was saying something, because it was so well memorized, my prefrontal cortex was already sort of looking for the next line going, what's the next thing I have to say? And that's what the prefrontal cortex does. The key thing is you want to make sure that the amygdala doesn't get in the way of the

prefrontal cortex. Of course, if you are incredibly stressed and anxious, it's going to help shut down the prefrontal cortex and then your talk won't go as well. And last but not least, there's Broca's area. Broca's area is a speech production area, left hemisphere, anterior temporal lobe, lower motor areas. Basically, you need this for speech production and articulation, right?

You need the Broca's area to engage and you need it to speak, right? So, why am I mentioning this? Because it's a motor thing? Well, guess what? Practice. You need to practice your speech so that Broca's area knows the message, right? So the more you practice your speech, the more Broca's area will be prepared to give the speech itself. Okay, so that's the neuroscience of public speaking. My TEDx tips. This is two TED talks. This does not make me an expert. My first one's got what, 120,000 views. Definitely didn't go viral. My second one, hopefully it goes a little bit better. But I've done a lot of public

speaking and I actually have a talk that I give to graduate students and professors at the University of Victoria about how to give a good talk. Now, I'm just going to go through some tips here for those of you that are listening that might have to speak to others. Number one, plan your talk. I used to be a big believer in going off the cuff, right? I would just stand up and speak. But when I started watching recordings of me with my off the cuff talks, and typically I ramble, I repeat myself, I say things that I may not wanna say, I forget to say things that I do wanna say.

So come up with a talk plan. You don't need to memorize it word for word, right? Which is what you do on a TEDx talk. That's a whole other story. But you want a talk plan. So plan out your talk. Number two, rehearse your talk. This is tied to number one. Don't go off the cuff. Say that talk multiple times. For the past two months, every morning I walk around, I was walking around Cabrow Bay where I live, and I was going over my talk again and again and again in my brain to make sure that I had it down cold. You need to rehearse your talk, right? Say it to

yourself, not once, not twice, try 20 to 30 times. Alright, the more you rehearse your talk, right? Say it to yourself, not once, not twice. Try 20 to 30 times, all right? The more you rehearse, the better will you be. It's that simple. People talk about, do I need to rehearse my talk? Have you ever heard of an Olympic athlete that didn't practice? All right, have you ever heard about an actor that didn't spend tons of time rehearsing their lines?

The more you rehearse your talk, the better your talk will be. Number three, take time with your slides. I'm always so disappointed when someone gets up and gives a talk and they're using black on white with no background, no colors, and they're using the generic bullet points and they just read your slides to you. I try to put no text on my slides, or as little text as possible. If you are reading your slides to someone,

you're not giving a talk. That's not a talk, that's called reading slides. You don't even need to be there. They can read the slides themselves. If you were gonna do that, I would send the slides in advance and stand up and say, hey, do you have any questions?

Because people don't need them to, they don't need them to read to you, right? It's just, you know, my son stopped needing me to read to him when he was about five, I think, long time ago. Hard to remember, but you get the idea. And take time, find good images, upgrade your images, find color schemes that pop and that work.

There are tons of internet resources about designing good things. And to be fair, with the AI built into PowerPoint and things like that, I actually use it all the time now. Some of it's garbage, but some of it's pretty good. Find a way to calm yourself down. This would be a good time to embrace mindfulness, especially if your amygdala is running amok and you have problems with stress and anxiety. Take up breathing, meditation, yoga, go for a walk, sit in a dark room, listen to music, whatever it is, find a way to calm

yourself down and be active about this. Don't do this right before the talk. As soon as you find out you have to give a talk, start figuring out what your calming down strategy is and master it. In day-to-day life, practice giving your talk to other people, right? Give it to your mother, your father, your friends, your bestie, your partner,

whoever you can get in front of. Give your talk before you give your talk, alright? I frequently do this to my son, and I give him my... He heard my TEDx talk so many times it wasn't even funny, and I end up giving it to random strangers, which is my next talk. Just practice talking. Like, if you're someone that isn't a naturally engaging start talking to people. All right.

When the TEDx talks for my session come up, there was an excellent one by my new friend Tony, who basically talked to a stranger every day for a year and it changed his life. Talk to strangers, engage the person at the supermarket, engage someone randomly at the gas station. Practice talking to people because you'll get better at talking. Once you are getting readier and readier, practice your body language. Film yourself giving a practice talk because the first time I did this my limbs were all over the place and now like when I make gestures they have a they have a

meaning to them like I'm gesturing for a reason like in my TEDx talk I just gave my left hand was the prefrontal cortex my right hand was the amygdala so people learn that if I was gesturing with my right hand I was talking about the amygdala if I was gesturing with my left hand I was talking about the amygdala, I was gesturing with my left hand. I was talking about the prefrontal cortex. Try to stay stationary. It's a TEDx thing to stand on the dot, but it actually, something that the coaches told me between the two of them is if you're walking around, it distracts people and they're not listening. So I used to be a walker. Now I sort of plant a bit more, But practice your body language. Have someone watch it and comment in it, film yourself.

It's upsetting, but you're there. Gain experience, all right? It's hard to do, but the more you talk, the better you talk. The reason I can get up and do these things is I've been teaching since 1994, was my first student teaching experience. So that's 31 years, oh gosh, I'm old. That's 31 years of teaching and lecturing experience. I've done everything from a live crowd of 5,000

to a small group of four. Get experience giving talks. The more you give talks, the better you get. So if you're in a position where you're gonna have to give talks, don't avoid them. Get out and give giving talks. The more you give talks, the better you get. So if you're in a position where you're gonna have to give talks, don't avoid them. Get out and give more talks. I'll leave you with two tips, and these are probably the two biggest ones I have.

If you get nothing else, use these two. Once you're on stage and you have to give your talk, or once you're in front of the crowd or the room, here's the pro tip that works. Find a person in the middle of the room, the direct center of the crowd, preferably someone you don't know, and have a conversation with them.

That's your talk. Look around a bit, but you're talking to that person. If you're stressed and anxious, you know, I used to be, I don't get stressed or anxious anymore because I've done it so many times, but just talk to that person. It's probably the best tip. It was given to me by someone else. Probably the best tip I ever got. If you struggle with giving talks, find a person in the middle of the crowd and have a conversation with them. Last, Olav, give a talk tip. Please, if you do nothing else,

make your talk relatable and understandable. So one of my claims to fame at the universities I've been a part of in my career, UBC for a postdoc, Dalhousie for a bit, now the University of Victoria, is I never go to seminar ever. The reason I never go to seminar isn't that I don't like neuroscience.

It's that a lot of people that speak at seminars shop talk from the minute they start to the minute they end. By slide number two, I have no idea what they're talking about and I'm gone. Make your talk relatable. Don't use big fancy words. You want everyone in the room to understand what you're talking about. Use examples. They understand you use language. They get.

All right. I call it talking to my son or talking to my mother. If my mother, she's passed now, but I still talk to her. Sometimes, uh, you get the idea. And I definitely still talk to my son. If they don't understand what I'm saying, then the professional audience that I'm addressing is definitely not going to understand it either. Alright, that's my working theory. It's the opposite of what you'd expect. So make your talk relatable. Anyway, hopefully some of that's useful

to you. It's a little bit about what's happening in your brain when you, when public speaking happens and some tips for giving better talks. This is of course inspired by my recent TEDx experience. Anyway, don't forget the website, That Neuroscience Guy. You got Tom, links to Patreon where you can support us, links to Etsy where we have new merch. There is of course, At That Neurosci Guy on Instagram, X and threads. Please tell us what you want to know about the neuroscience of daily life. And of course, last but not least, the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please subscribe. My name is Olav Krig Olsen and I'm that neuroscience guy. I'll see you soon for

another full episode of the podcast.