Overcoming Meeting Anxiety in 5 Steps

Do you find yourself losing sleep over the mere thought of presenting at a work meeting? Is the idea of expressing your thoughts in a team setting or even when dealing with difficult personalities within your team enough to make your heart race and your words stumble? Perhaps you've experienced that uneasy feeling when all eyes seem to be on you during a simple update at a team meeting. If you nodded along to any of these scenarios, you're not alone. Welcome to the realm of meeting anxiety. The downside? Left unaddressed, this anxiety can significantly impact your work performance – a concerning reality highlighted by a survey from the Anxiety & Depression Association of America, revealing that 43% of employees with an anxiety disorder avoid participating in meetings altogether. But here's the silver lining: meeting anxiety is conquerable. In this article, we'll explore the nuances of meeting anxiety, its potential repercussions, and most importantly, five effective strategies to overcome it. It's time to transform your apprehension into confidence and leverage the true benefits that effective meetings can bring to your professional life. 

What is meeting anxiety?

Meeting anxiety falls under the umbrella of social anxiety, manifesting as nervousness specifically in corporate settings, often preceding scheduled meetings. Individuals grappling with meeting anxiety may also encounter unease in various social scenarios and exhibit anxiety related to public speaking. It is a type of social anxiety that manifests as excessive worry and discomfort before, during, and after work meetings. Common triggers for meeting anxiety include significant presentations and discussions pertaining to promotions and salary negotiations.

How meeting anxiety impacts your mental health?

Meeting anxiety disrupts individuals' capacity to stay fully engaged and attentive during meetings. Excessive worry and an overpowering sense of discomfort not only affect performance but also alter one's overall demeanor throughout a meeting. Furthermore, the lingering feeling of exhaustion can persist for hours after the meeting concludes.

Individuals grappling with meeting anxiety commonly exhibit various physical symptoms, including:

• Shaking and trembling

• Blushing

• Rapid heartbeat

• Sweating

• Nausea

• Dizziness or lightheadedness

In addition to these physical manifestations, meeting anxiety triggers several distressing emotions and thoughts, such as:

• Feelings of incompetence or inadequacy

• Concerns about one's appearance or presentation skills during meetings

• Embarrassment about blushing or trembling

• Apprehension about judgment from others

• Self-consciousness about asking questions or contributing in a meeting

• Worries about appearing unprepared

• Post-meeting feelings of exhaustion

If you identify with these symptoms in your regular work meeting routine, meeting anxiety may be a challenge you're facing. Despite the initial inclination to avoid meetings altogether, there are more constructive approaches to manage and ultimately overcome meeting anxiety.

What are the reasons for meeting anxiety?

Before delving into the solutions to overcome meeting anxiety, it is crucial to understand why it occurs. Every personality is unique, so identifying the cause of your meeting anxiety may differ from that of your colleague. Uncovering the root cause constitutes 50% of the work; the remaining half involves applying a solution to help overcome that cause. Here is a list of common reasons for meeting anxiety:

1. Social anxiety: Meeting anxiety is a form of social anxiety. If you often find yourself more concerned about how others perceive you than the actual conversation in the meeting, or if social situations make you feel overly uncomfortable, leading to worries before, during, and after these situations, chances are work meetings will evoke similar reactions.

2. Public speaking anxiety: Sometimes, you might feel uncomfortable when speaking in front of a group, whereas you feel calm in one-on-one settings. Catherine Pittman, the author of the book "Rewire Your Anxious Brain," correlates meeting anxiety with the fear of public speaking.

3. Insufficient preparation: Not spending enough time preparing for a meeting, being late to a meeting, last-minute meeting invites, and back-to-back meetings fall under this category. All of these reasons can make you feel out of control of the situation or the discussion topic, spiking your anxiety.

4. Unclear expectations: Lack of clarity or insufficient information about the meeting's purpose or a lack of a clear meeting agenda can contribute to meeting anxiety as well.

5. Limited communication skills: Low confidence in your communication skills can lead to fears such as not meeting expectations, being unable to convey your message clearly, or being misunderstood or judged by people in the meeting, elevating your meeting anxiety.

6. Low self-esteem: Struggling with healthy self-esteem can make you overly self-critical about how you sound and look in a professional meeting setting. You might also feel like a fraud or not good enough for your role or to solve the discussed problem, all of which can significantly contribute to meeting anxiety.

7. Negative past experiences: Previous negative experiences in work meetings, such as difficult conversations, dealing with challenging personalities in the team, or facing harsh criticism, can be the root cause of meeting anxiety. Especially when you don't know how to process the emotions afterward, you may fear that the same experiences could happen again.

5 Tips to cope with meeting anxiety

1- Plan for things that you can control:

- Prepare: if you can start by blocking a time to prepare for the meeting even if that is a very short time slot to review some material or take some notes. 

- Practice: Practice different techniques on public speaking and ways to improve your self-esteem. 

- Rehearse: If you can script the sentences you want to say in the meeting and practice those lines as much as you can. Another option would be to turn your phone’s camera on and record yourself. 

2- Imagine the worst- Venting

Acknowledge your feelings and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Start by journaling all of your dark and negative thoughts before the meeting and imagine the worst scenarios. Venting is a proven technique to reduce anxiety and fear of facing a difficult situation. 

3- Take care of yourself before, during and after the meeting

- Go on a walk or do some stretches

- Drink water: a sip of water in the middle of a difficult conversation or meeting gives you a short break to collect your thoughts, hydrates your brain and helps your voice. Avoid carinated drinks such as coffee or tea as those they are too stimulating.  

- Breathe and meditate: deep breathing techniques as small as 3 deep breaths can reduce your anxiety and lowers your heart rate quickly. 

- Speak slowly if your anxiety kicked in. it gives you a chance to pause and collect your thoughts.

4- Learn and improve

If the root cause of your meeting anxiety is public speaking sign yourself up for a public speaking class. There is no better way of learning public speaking by practicing that. Take small steps to get started such as telling stories at group of friend gatherings to improve your communication skills. Participating in online communication courses or taking acting classes are other good options. Also, study more on the topic of your meetings and get up to date and speed with recent developments.

5- Smile

Practice good body posture and smiling in difficult situations. It not only make you look more confident but also keeps your nerves down.