Robert Zajonc (pronounced ZYE-unts) was an American social scientist who explored the interplay between feeling and thought—between emotion and cognition.

He was interested in determining which influenced the other more strongly.  On balance, he came down on the side of emotion.

In one widely reported study, he found that smiling or frowning can alter blood flow to the brain as facial muscles relax or contract.

This in turn affects the parts of the brain that regulate feelings, helping induce happy or sad emotional states.

Could smiling help speakers with stage fright?  I think so.

The Buddha is depicted most often with a slight smile on his face—and he had true inner peace.   Little Orphan Annie knew that, “You’re never fully dressed without a smile,” and now we have the work of a renowned scientist to confirm the fact—on balance, it’s better for us when we smile.

I attended a great seminar this weekend at the Integral Yoga Institute in New York City. The teacher was Boris Pisman.

Boris teaches Yoga philosophy, and described one aspect of Yoga as the ability to learn how to handle anxious thoughts.

He said that Yoga makes an assumption that there is a natural state of mind in which human beings are free from anxiety.

Boris, who is a wide reader, mentioned a study called the White Bear Study (Schneider and Wegner, 1987, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.)

The paper documented the fact that, “people can, but only for brief periods of time, suppress thoughts of white bears,” Schneider said. “But on removal of suppression instructions, people are typically flooded with the thoughts they were supposed to suppress.”

“These observations suggest that attempted thought suppression has paradoxical effects as a self-control strategy, perhaps even producing the very obsession or preoccupation that it is directed against.”

Consider a person who is fearful of public speaking being encouraged not to think about the terror of facing an audience.  The White Bear Study suggests that thought avoidance, or suppression, is a poor choice for such a person.

Further studies point to the “remarkable health effects” of disclosing a thought rather than suppressing it, and the negative effects of depressed people trying to suppress self-critical thoughts.

It seems we are better off entering  into dialogue with a thought than we are chasing it away.

In fact, concentrated thinking about the negative thought, along with writing down descriptions of what you fear about it, and reading aloud the description, have been proven to be highly effective ways of curing anxiety disorders.

As Boris was careful to point out, these findings are not cure-alls for everyone, but they have worked for many people if the therapy is sustained for a certain length of time.

Stage fright can be a chronic anxiety for even highly successful people.  These methods may prove to be helpful to those seeking to gain mastery over their fear of speaking.

Sims Wyeth is a private speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in executive speech coaching and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.