Chapter 1: The Speech Communication Process
Finally, what about your personal life? Can you imagine a situation where your skill as a speaker might impact your social and private life? What if you had to speak to a zoning committee before you could convert a warehouse into the perfect loft for yourself? Knowing how to research and organize your ideas so that you sound knowledgeable and informed is just one of the skills you’ll learn as a public speaker. Or perhaps you are a finalist for a fantastic job -your dream job, the only hitch? Your final interview is in front of a panel of interviewers. As a practiced public speaker you’ll find yourself answering each question clearly and calmly.Or maybe you meet the perfect girl (or guy) at a party and you’re dying to ask her/him out on a date. Can you do that in front of all of her/his friends? Whew! Talk about pressure! But you’ll know how to manage any signs of anxiety so that you appear confident, cool, and collected. Public speaking can help you feel at ease in all of these situations, whether your audience is one or many.
In fact, a study in 2004 found that short-term stresses -such as speaking in public -are actually thought to boost your immune system. The researchers found that these types of tasks “tended to mobilize (the subjects’) fast-acting Immune response -the body’s all-purpose defense system for fending off infection and healing wounds “(Song 1). It’s a small stress that teaches your body to handle the bigger stressors of life. So speaking in public is good for you in many ways.