10 ways to hack nervousness & become high on life while doing it | David JP Philipps | TEDxLausanne

[Music] [Applause] imagine if there was one skill one single skill that could make you double three times as good the next time you present something double three times as good the next time you have a chat with a friend with your partner or in a meeting imagine if there was such a skill I've been in this profession for 20 years and I didn't know it existed at first and it took me a long while until I found it now this skill I would argue is the most important skill of all skills in public speaking and

maybe in life because thanks to me finding it I was so close to losing both my family and my life before I found it and that's the skill I want to share with you today so what is it exactly well have a look at this these are my three previous tedex talks and as he mentioned how to avoid Death by PowerPoint how many in here have been killed by a PowerPoint right followup question how many of you have killed somebody else with your PowerPoint come on second one I did was the magical science of Storytelling

and the third one I did did was the 110 steps of excellent communication do you know what all of these have in common they're about external communication they're about how you use body language how you use voice in order to reach out to another person they lack that very important skill which is internal communication what you say to yourself before going up on stage while on stage and then leaving stage is way more important than those because I believe that most of you have been in this situation right you built this present ation you built

the slides o and they were nice slides and then you added a couple of neat stories into it you practice some voice some body language changes and you were good to go you know you went into the room you started to deliver your talk and then suddenly it didn't go according to plans how many in here has had a talk has had a presentation when nervousness got in the way and kind of destroyed it and it's practically every single one so what I want to give you today is 10 scientifically evidencebased tools on how you

can harness nervousness to make it your friend but that is just step number one step number two which I find so much more interesting with this talk is how can you learn to harness your emotions on command to choose if you want to be funny if you want to be present if you want to be assertive imagine the power of that skill and I've seen so many people easily double triple their ability to present by just doing this and you don't even have to practice it you just have to apply it so the first skill

I want to give you or the first tool I want to give you see to that you have pens and papers because as I said for me this was lifechanging and I know it'll be in your presentations as well so tool number one is the following you have something called a somatic nervous system that every time you will power do something with your body you then have something autonomic the autonomic nervous system and that is usually the nervous system that goes wild when you're nervous right so what we want to learn is how can we

use our somatic nervous system to control our autonomic nervous system okay that's what we want to know so this is what the somatic nervous system looks like I choose to jump after about 10 15 seconds my heart starts to be faster that's my autonomic nervous system so if we can learn how to harness the autonomic nervous system that is tool number one and we're going to do a throwback to my third ttic talk which is this one I studied 5,000 speakers it took me seven years to find every skill that we use when we communicate

quite a bunch right there's one of these skills which is more interesting than others when it comes to this first tool and it's skill number 45 skill number 45 is you using your hands to describe something from a fun functional point of view So when you say let's underline that that's a functional gesture that's skill 45 when you say it's going to go up it's going to go down it's five of them all of this is functional gestures a lot of people are stuck in Tumble dryers right have you seen these people they go over

and over and over again now the trick with this is if you use functional gestures you calm yourself down but it's also the way you do them so I want to practice something with you put your hand out like this and the other hand like this this then we're going to do the kind of gesture that most people do fairly small one and a fairly sloppy one we're going to go q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 now try to make that bigger q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 now make it more distinct q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 and now make

it slow q1 Q2 Q3 no no no Q4 as soon as you take control over your own gestures by doing them slower more distinct and larger you cool down your autonomic nervous system because you kind of tell it that we're cool it's all right let's take it easy so that's tool number one tool number two is oxytocin oxytocin is a neuropeptide which we all humans have it is known for being the chemical that allows us to connect with other human beings oxytocin is also released when we feel stress so as soon as you feel stress

oxytocin will be released automatically in small numbers what's beautiful though is that you can increase it by Will for instance you can make out with people you can well not randomly you know but when you kiss when you hug when you caress oxytocin is released and obviously you could do that you could bring a partner with you to every presentation you have in the future and you go like we're just got to Snug a bit but I've got a better idea for you I want to show you a video of a boy and his name

is Jonathan he has never seen color before and he has been given by his class a pair of glasses which allows him to see color for the first time or at least a version of color I want you to look at that and see what that makes you feel because Studies have shown that videos which makes us feel empathy can increase our oxytocin levels so let's have a look at Jonathan they're all yours okay they're all yours let's see what see what it [Applause] does so what do you think there look pretty cool crying that's

awesome hey come here come here dude oh I'm happy for you Mom you better get in there too that is so awesome I told you it's going to be a little emotional hey now that just tell tell you how beautiful the world you have God and I got to see it for the first time right so be happy be appreciative of it all right that is so cool now what does that make you feel warmer caring more present yes nodding away I see some tears here and there which is lovely within 53 seconds you were

moved out of your current mental state into a different mental state and you become more present and caring so when I was walking in on this stage I've been doing this for quite a while am I nervous yes I'm nervous but I want to move myself into the state that I want to be for you so I stood out there and I looked at photos of my daughter when she was seven she's running through the grass and I look at this and I tear up and that makes me move into what is most probably more

oxytocin and it makes me more human for you compare that to being stressed and nervous where you're only thinking about the script you're only thinking about the outcome and the performance of what you're doing so please for your own sake go on to YouTube for instance and do what you do in your music playlist create a playlist for oxytocin so whenever you want to feel this sensation play that playlist oh oh I assure you this if you come home to your family High on cortisol are you thinking about the problems that You' have had at

work what the problems you got in the future you won't see their hug you won't feel their eye contact and you won't hear the answer to the question how was your day but if you just took one minute before going into your family and you fuel up on oxytocin for instance by looking at a video like this you will see their eye contact you will feel their hug and you will give a very different hug and you will listen to the question that you asked how was your day so oxytocin has a tremendous power over

us when it comes to feeling connected with other human beings ways to produce this is by sharing things that allow you to be vulnerable so in your talk share something that is personal to you as soon as you do that you connect with another human being have you ever been in a dinner and you're talking about weather and wind and you're not connecting at all with the other person but as soon as you share something personal you connect yeah same thing with an audience like this what more can you do well be generous generous has

also shown to be connected to oxytocin so be kind to people before your talk open the door for somebody treat somebody to water be smiling be nice and perhaps also you refuel that mental state of presence and caring let's move on to our second substance which is Gaba so the best way to explain what Garba does to your nervousness and your brain is this if you're driving your car at 100 kilometers an hour but you're going how do you stop it by pressing the brake and you'll stop it now what is the break for the

brain well in the break for the brain is Gaba the accelerator is glutamate when inducing Gaba we literally slow down if you've ever meditated it's enough for just five minutes and it's scientifically proven that increases your Garber levels and you feel like the world slowed down so what is beautiful to do just before a talk or a presentation is to do exactly that a 5 minute meditation will put you in a state of slowing down your brain so that you can focus on what is important so the tools are meditation slow breathing using your eyes

can also affect Gaba and the parasympathetic nervous system so I want to try something super cool with your eyes all right so follow my instructions number one there'll be three steps to this number one look all over the place erratically with your eyes like you're being hunted for something more or less so you go like this and then suddenly Focus boom and then allow you to watch just the peripheral view relax and eyes out here and suddenly you can almost feel your shoulders drop let's do it again eyes all over the place boom boom boom

boom boom boom boom Focus peripheral View and again that has the potential to indirectly produce Garba and by so slow down your brain let's move on to endorphins our natural painkiller closely related to Morphin or not maybe closely but fairly related it has the power to also reduce the tension of nervousness so how do you produce endorphins well the best way to do it is you can hit your toe you know walking over onto another place in the room yeah have you been doing that that's an intense pain maybe that's not the best way to

do it but laughing laughing can produce endorphins and in quite large amounts as well so the trick to this is this if you feel that oo I need to calm down I need to become happier I need to become more open which is usually then connected to endorphins go to the bathroom before your talk close the door sit down on the toilet and laugh hysterically for one minute you will come in as one person and come out as a different person you won't even recognize yourself but what you did is you took control over your

own nervousness and your own emotions the tools are laughter and certain kinds of smiles particular genuine smile can produce a little bit of endorphins even if laughter is way way way more powerful moving into dopamine and this will be our last substance in relation to this so dopamine has many features in us but one of the features it has is it makes us go like this oh I can't wait it's soon Friday oh my God it's soon Monday soon that thing is going to come that I purchased it's going to come you keep tracking it

you're longing for things the anticipation of reward there we can find dopamin and what Studies have shown over and over again is and it's interesting it's been done on people who sing people who do karaoke people who do math tests people who do public speaking if they simply reframe from going I don't want to do this this is this is going to be I'm going to do that presentation I don't feel like it and your nerves are all over the place if you only reframe that too I am excited I'm excited I'm excited I look

forward to that I look forward to that I look forward to that I'm excited I'm excited I'm excited they sing better they perform better tests and they're better public speakers because you choose who you want to be when you want to be it because at the end of the day the quality of your emotions Define the quality of decisions which Define the quality of your life so it all begins by harnessing your emotions to choose how to inject oxytocin when you need to dopamine when you need to endorphins when you need to I'm excited as

one of the dopamine tools I want to give you one more every time you say okay I'm going to go in there and I'm going to launch all these slides and I'm going to do my very best you're in a performance State and the closest cussing to a performance date is anxiety as soon as you feel that you're not performing anxiety builds up have you ever been in that situation of course you have if you look at top Elite athletes what do they say when they being into interviewed and they're going on in to a

match do they say yeah I'm going to score I'm going to score I'm going to score no no no what they say is I'm going to go in there and I'm going to have fun I'm going to go in there and I'm going to enjoy myself because they have learned that in that state of enjoying themselves consciously looking forward to whatever is going to happen has a bigger chance of producing the essence of dopamine instead of cortisol which can be closer to Performance not saying that is the case but it's definitely closer if you're looking

for performance and you're not achieving performance so the next time you um go in on stage have fun next meeting have more fun when you're even when you're saying hello and shaking somebody's hand have more fun have more fun in life not a bad idea don't you think this is me from Sweden I took a little bit of a bath before I came here I just wanted to show you that hey tedex this is David JP Phillips from the cold Swedish Lake cold exposure has been proven to increase your natural levels of dopamine uh the

key is to go in control your breathing and spend at least a minute in the cold water you will naturally feel a high and an increase in your natural motivation levels as you leave the water wow Isn't that cool this is a great tool to increase dopamine levels so it's been shown in two studies that it has the opportunity of increasing your dopamine levels by 250% there's also a substance called norer andolin which allows you to focus more easily and it can increase that by up to 350% so you can before a talk or before

any activity in life you can literally feel like this I don't want to do that I can't focus I don't want to do that I can't focus but you get into that cold bath two minutes later you come out of it and you go like I want to do that I want to do that I'm so focused so these are the tools that I have given to you you must be warned if you stack these two tight together you'll actually lose the very essence of life somebody challenged me and asked me what is the um

what is the thing that you're most scared of and I said uh jumping a parachute and I did all of that I jumped the parachute I came down I didn't feel anything not fun no stress no fear so these tools are so powerful and to end it off all I just want to say this that about 8 years ago I realized that I was depressed and the reason I was depressed was because my internal communication was just not functioning my self-regulation was bad I learned about self-regulation internal communication and it has changed my life it's

given me my life and my family and it's a richer life so I hope I've inspired you to take control of your nervousness and harness your emotions before your future talks communication and life thank you very much