Presentation Nerves: Why ‘Calm Down’ Makes Things Worse – And What to Say Instead

Do you get nervous before you present? Use these three words.

You’re about to walk into the room. Presentation fear hijacks your body: heart hammering, stomach doing backflips. And the little voice in your head is doing precisely the wrong thing: “Calm down. Calm down. Oh god, calm down.”

It doesn’t work and here’s why: calm is a completely different physiological state from nervous. Getting from one to the other without pharmaceutical assistance is a tall order.

But there’s a three-word switch that science says actually works – and it’s not what most people expect.

Why “calm down” doesn’t work – and what does

When you’re nervous before a presentation, your body is doing a very specific set of things: heart rate up, cortisol up, adrenaline up, energy flooding your system. Psychologists call this high arousal. The body is preparing for action.

Here’s what’s interesting. Excitement does exactly the same thing.

Same racing heart. Same butterflies. Same cortisol spike. What psychologists call arousal congruent referring to the physical experience of anxiety and excitement being physiologically identical. The only difference is how your brain interprets it.

Which means the jump from nervous to excited is a side shuffle. The jump from nervous to calm is quite a leap as calm is a physiological state entirely: much harder to pull off. Trying to force it often just adds “failing to calm down” to your list of things to panic about.

The science: anxiety reappraisal

In her 2014 paper Get Excited: Reappraising Pre-Performance Anxiety as Excitement, Professor Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School ran a series of experiments involving public speaking, karaoke singing, and maths performance.

Participants were told to say either “I am calm” or “I am excited” before performing. Those who said “I am excited” spoke for longer, felt more excited, and were rated by observers as more persuasive, competent, confident, and persistent.

Crucially, this didn’t lower their heart rate. They were still pumped. They’d just reframed what that meant – hence in my video above I term ‘anxiety reappraisal’ as ‘reframing’.

Brooks argues that people in a positive emotional state are more likely to read a situation as an opportunity, while those in a negative state are more likely to read it as a threat. Excitement primes an opportunity mindset. Trying to calm down can actually keep you stuck in a threat one.

This mechanism redirects the same energy somewhere useful.

How to use it

It’s three words. You already know them.

Before your next presentation, meeting, pitch, or difficult conversation notice where the nerves are sitting in your body. That whirling in your stomach. The tightness across your chest. Register it.

Then say – in your head is fine, it works just as well as out loud – “I am excited.”

That’s it. You’re not suppressing the feeling. You’re reinterpreting it. Same adrenaline, different story.

If you need a bit more than three words

Brooks also found that if the mindset shift needs a little scaffolding, it helps to write down the ways the upcoming experience could benefit you. Who’s in that room? What’s possible if this goes well? What does getting this right open up?

You’re not cheerleading yourself into delusion but giving your brain something real to focus on instead of everything that could go wrong.

Your Action Steps:

Think of an upcoming presentation or any challenge you’re currently circling with a bit of dread.

1. Notice where the anxiety sits in your body.
2. Say to yourself: “I am excited.”
3. See what shifts.

It’ll switch that trepidation into readiness. Here are two more ways to deal with presentation nerves.

Want to Present With More Confidence?

Whether you’re a technical professional who freezes up before a big presentation, or an L&D leader, Head of Engineering, founder or manager looking to help your technical teams communicate with more impact — this is exactly what I do. Have a look here.

I work with organisations across pharma, software, finance, energy globally.

Book a free 15-minute Discovery Call here. No obligation – just a conversation to see if we’re a good fit.

Photo by Aliaksei Lepik on unsplash.com

This was originally published in September 2019 and updated in June 2026