full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Mikael Cho: The science of stage fright (and how to overcome it)

Unscramble the Blue Letters


pmlas sweaty, heart racing, sacomth in knots. You can't cry for help. Not only is your throat too tight to breathe, but it'd be so embarrassing. No, you aren't being stalked by a monster, you're speaking in public, a fate some deem worse than daeth.

See, when you're dead, you feel nothing; at a podium, you feel sgate fright. But at some point we've all had to caiumnctome in front of people, so you have to try and overcome it.

To start, understand what stage fright is. Humans, social animals that we are, are wried to worry about riopetuatn. pbluic speaking can threaten it. Before a speech, you fret, "What if people think I'm awful and I'm an idiot?" That fear of being seen as an awful idiot is a threat reaction from a primitive part of your brain that's very hard to control. It's the fight or flghit rospsnee, a self-protective process seen in a range of animals, most of which don't give speeches.

Open Cloze


_____ sweaty, heart racing, _______ in knots. You can't cry for help. Not only is your throat too tight to breathe, but it'd be so embarrassing. No, you aren't being stalked by a monster, you're speaking in public, a fate some deem worse than _____.

See, when you're dead, you feel nothing; at a podium, you feel _____ fright. But at some point we've all had to ___________ in front of people, so you have to try and overcome it.

To start, understand what stage fright is. Humans, social animals that we are, are _____ to worry about __________. ______ speaking can threaten it. Before a speech, you fret, "What if people think I'm awful and I'm an idiot?" That fear of being seen as an awful idiot is a threat reaction from a primitive part of your brain that's very hard to control. It's the fight or ______ ________, a self-protective process seen in a range of animals, most of which don't give speeches.

Solution


  1. palms
  2. wired
  3. flight
  4. response
  5. reputation
  6. death
  7. public
  8. stomach
  9. communicate
  10. stage

Original Text


Palms sweaty, heart racing, stomach in knots. You can't cry for help. Not only is your throat too tight to breathe, but it'd be so embarrassing. No, you aren't being stalked by a monster, you're speaking in public, a fate some deem worse than death.

See, when you're dead, you feel nothing; at a podium, you feel stage fright. But at some point we've all had to communicate in front of people, so you have to try and overcome it.

To start, understand what stage fright is. Humans, social animals that we are, are wired to worry about reputation. Public speaking can threaten it. Before a speech, you fret, "What if people think I'm awful and I'm an idiot?" That fear of being seen as an awful idiot is a threat reaction from a primitive part of your brain that's very hard to control. It's the fight or flight response, a self-protective process seen in a range of animals, most of which don't give speeches.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
stage fright 5


Important Words


  1. animals
  2. awful
  3. brain
  4. breathe
  5. communicate
  6. control
  7. cry
  8. dead
  9. death
  10. deem
  11. embarrassing
  12. fate
  13. fear
  14. feel
  15. fight
  16. flight
  17. fret
  18. fright
  19. front
  20. give
  21. hard
  22. heart
  23. humans
  24. idiot
  25. knots
  26. monster
  27. overcome
  28. palms
  29. part
  30. people
  31. podium
  32. point
  33. primitive
  34. process
  35. public
  36. racing
  37. range
  38. reaction
  39. reputation
  40. response
  41. social
  42. speaking
  43. speech
  44. speeches
  45. stage
  46. stalked
  47. start
  48. stomach
  49. sweaty
  50. threat
  51. threaten
  52. throat
  53. tight
  54. understand
  55. wired
  56. worry
  57. worse