The reason why you speak so fast and loud may be rooted in fear, nervousness, or a lack of self-confidence. To get over these feelings, start by identifying the aspects of your speech that make you nervous. Once you have identified what it is that makes you nervous about speaking too fast, practice in social settings.
Nervousness
If you are nervous, you might talk too fast or too loud. Even if you’re naturally quiet, social anxiety can make you overly talkative. This can hide your true feelings and present a false persona. Your words may come out before you’ve finished thinking them and you may be interrupted before you finish speaking. As a result, you may find yourself feeling embarrassed.
A simple solution is to slow down your speech and speak slowly. Slow down your speech by pronouncing words clearly and keeping sentences short. In addition, speaking slow will help you remember your vocabulary better, which can be difficult when you’re anxious.
Identifying aspects of speaking too fast that make you nervous
The first step to overcome your fear of speaking too fast is to identify the aspects of your speech that make you nervous. Many people have a tendency to ramble and speak too fast, especially when they feel nervous. It can affect their clarity, diction, and coherence, which can hinder their ability to effectively communicate. Other people speak too quickly out of nervousness or anxiety, and this can lead to mumbling and jumbled speech.
Tips to create natural pauses in speech
A pause in your speech is a valuable way to convey information to your audience. Many people use pauses to remember a place or phrase, to make a point, and to change topics. If you’d like to incorporate natural pauses into your speech, follow these tips.
Pauses are an important way to express emotion, as well as to control the overall pace of your speech. Pauses also give you a chance to match the capacity of your audience, allowing you to slow your speech rate to suit them. Researchers Estelle Campione and Jean Veronis observed that spontaneous speech tends to have medium-length pauses, while read speech tends to have short pauses.
If you want to improve your public speaking, practice creating pauses. A typical pause should last one to three seconds, but you can also use a longer pause lasting up to six seconds. Creating longer pauses helps you make a powerful impact and gives your audience enough time to process the information you’re trying to convey. Just remember to time your pauses well, so that your listeners won’t be distracted by your long pauses.
