A dry mouth can really hinder a presentation or conversation. In part 1 I shared 4 dry mouth solution tips. Here are 5 more dry mouth tips to help you when conversing or speaking from the stage.

#5: Lightly bite your tongue.

By lightly biting your tongue, you’ll find your mouth starts producing more saliva. Here again it is important that your body be hydrated.

#6: Use Sugar Free Candy

Many famous people will keep candy or lozenge in their mouth if they have problems with a dry mouth. Check with your pharmacy if you wish for specially made ones. Lemon flavored often helps. Unless you have an extreme dry mouth, remove it before you stand up to speak.

#7: Sleep with a Humidifier

A humidifier puts water into the air. In the winter the air becomes drier and can irritate the throat and dry out the mouth. Breathing in this moist air at night can prepare you for the public speaking event.

#8: Learn how to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking and Social Anxiety

Think of a good speaker that you know. Likely at one time this person experience stage fright, fear of public speaking, and speaking anxiety. At one point they learned how to overcome this fear.

You can do the same. Take time to read and study how to overcome public speaking fear and anxiety. There are several good public speaking programs that can help you.

#9: Using breathing Exercises to relax and breath your nose.

Good breathing exercises will help you relax and thus it make it easier for your body to keep your mouth, tongue, and throat moist. Breath in for a count of 3, hold for a count of 3 and breathe out for a count of 6. Repeat.

Before you speak, seek to be breathing your nose as to not dry out your mouth.

Dry mouth affects nearly every speaker. Use these 9 dry mouth solutions and it will help you keep the saliva flowing so you can captivate the audience and speak with confidence.

Arlen Busenitz

Arlen Busenitz is an experienced speaker with over 650 presentations. He is Author of several books, CD's,and creator of Become a Better Speaker in One Evening™

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It’s your turn to talk, but suddenly your mouth has no saliva. Your tongue feels like a piece of wood in your mouth and its very tough to talk clearly. You are experienced symptoms of a dry mouth.

What Causes a Dry Mouth?

Generally, a dry mouth is caused by either a medical/physical condition or is a symptom of stage fright, social anxiety or fear of public speaking. Check with your doctor if you believe you have a medical or physical condition.

 If you only get a dry mouth when you are about to speak, likely its caused by speaking nervousness or anxiety. Suddenly we find our saliva glands are not working and our mouth feels dry.

Every speaker has gone through it at times. Experienced speakers know how to prevent a dry mouth and often use many of these 9 dry mouth tips.

Tip #1: Stay Re-hydrated 24 hrs before you have to speak.

Experts recommend drinking 8-12 glasses of water a day. If you are speaking at 4:00 on Tuesday, you want to make sure you are drinking plenty of water for 24 hrs prior to this time.

A voice coach told me that this is critical to keep your voice cords lubricated. Drinking during your speech is not good enough. You must be drinking leading up to the speech.

#2: Sip water before and during your speech.

Advanced speakers and musicians are constantly sipping water during the presentation. This is for their vocal cords, but also helps with a dry mouth. Have a bottle or glass of water handy during your speech.

Consider using the restroom minutes before you speak, so you don’t have an urge to go during the presentation.

#3: Prepare your presentation or talk well.

Good preparation can help you overcome public speaking fear and anxiety by 80%. If you are meeting your boss or another VIP, spend a large amount of time preparing. Know your speech well. Role play the meeting. Do this and you’ll have less speaking anxiety

#4: Visualize biting into a lemon.

Your 60 seconds away from starting your presentation and your moth is dryer than the Nevada Desert. No water in sight. What do you do? Visualize biting into a lemon. Think about a nice juicy lemon and mentally take a bite. Feel the sourness and juices. You’ll saliva glands will open up and the saliva will flow.

A dry mouth caused by speaking anxiety is pretty common. Use these  4 dry mouth tips and you’ll be able to speak with confidence.  In part 2 of you’ll learn 5 more dry mouth Solutions.
 

Arlen Busenitz

Arlen Busenitz is an experienced speaker with over 650 presentations. He is Author of several books, CD's,and creator of Become a Better Speaker in One Evening™

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Do you want to improve your public speaking skills fast with minimal effort? You can with this powerful public speaking tip.

Unfortunately, very few individuals use it, but those who do, improve very rapidly and become star presenters.

Here is the key:

Evaluate yourself after every talk.

Studies and experience have shown that if you just observe and evaluate an area of your life, you will automatically improve.

Just a week ago, I gave a 30 minute public speaking presentation. After the presentation, I applied these three steps:

Step #1: I asked three questions

What went well about the presentation?
What could I have done better?
How will I do better next time?

Notice how all three are stated in the positive. We get what we focus on. If we always dwell on the negative, it’s like running a race looking backwards. We want to acknowledge the weak points, but focus on the strengths and how to improve for our next speech.

Here were my answers (To start with I encourage you to just focus on a few suggestions in each category):
 

• I was prepared and had my speech written out.
• The introduction grabbed the audience’s attention.
• I had great vocal variety

• Pause more
• Have a stronger conclusion
• Improve my links between points

• I will pause more through the presentation
• I will practice my conclusion several times and make it strong.
• In my notes I will write a good link out word for word

Step #2: Record your presentation and listen to it.

This step works well with the first one. Just listening to or watching yourself on tape is powerful for personal growth. Darren Lacroix, 2001 world champion of public speaking said, “Listening to yourself is one of the most powerful methods for improvement.”

Is it painful? Yes! They had to listen to it, so should we.

Often we may think we did better than we actually did. Seeing or hearing ourselves corrects our thinking. Sometimes we may think we did worse than we actually did. Recording is very helpful.

There have been times I thought I failed miserably on stage. However, after watching I saw it went pretty well. However, the opposite has also been true!

I recommend listening to your talk twice. Does it take time? Yes! Is it worth it? Definitely!

Step #3: Ask for honest feedback

Do you watch American Idol? Have you noticed how some singers truly think they are great and have been told they are great all their life by friends and family? However, on the show they meet the sharp edge of reality hears the truth from the judges.

If only someone had been honest or they had sought honest feedback, they could have been prevented public embarrassment.

We need honest feedback. Ask your spouse or a respected individual in the audience for their thoughts. You want someone who can be blunt, but encouraging. I’ll often use two questions:

1.    What are a few things I did well?
2.    What can I improve on for next time?

This way they can be both positive and helpful. Sincerely thank them. What they tell you may prevent future public speaking embarrassment.

You can rapidly improve your public speaking skills. Evaluate yourself after every performance and you will steadily improve.

Arlen Busenitz

Arlen Busenitz is an experienced speaker with over 650 presentations. He is Author of several books, CD's,and creator of Become a Better Speaker in One Evening™

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Here is a good speech writing tip that will easily make your speeches and presentations higher quality. Your audience will likely notice a difference immediately.  

Most people do not use this speaking tip and thus miss out on the power.

Here it is:

Be ready to give your speech 4 days before the actual date.

In other words if you are speaking on Saturday, you want to be ready to give it on Tuesday. Have your notes ready and speech practiced. Will it take lots of self-discipline? Sure, but don’t overlook the power of this good speech writing technique.

Do you just ignore the speech during those four days? No glance through it a couple times and even do some editing. You’ll have some amazing tweeks come to mind during those four days. Your presentation will be more apt to captivate the crowd.

There are several benefits:
 

• We rarely get our best work done with a deadline looming. Sure speechwriting deadlines motivates, but the quality may not be the best.

• A presentation becomes much less stressful because we are adequately prepared. 

• We unlock the power of the subconscious mind. As your presentation bounces around in the back of your subconcious mind for a few days, brilliant thoughts and ideas will flash into your brain. Capture these and tweak the speech.

•  You’ll deliver an A+ presentation. Last minute speeches often sound like last minute speeches.

You may be thinking,  “This sounds great, but I could never do this.”

Yes you can. Move your deadline for having you speech done to four days before your speech. At first you may not always meet the deadline, but at least it will help you get more done.

Apply this good speech writing tip and you’ll take your presentations to a whole new level. It is actually one of the best presentation tips I can give you.

(C) Arlen Busenitz

Arlen Busenitz

Arlen Busenitz is an experienced speaker with over 650 presentations. He is Author of several books, CD's,and creator of Become a Better Speaker in One Evening™

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I was suffering from public speaking embarrassment. For 20 minutes I had walked around the room greeting people. I smiled, made small talk, and burned off some nervous energy.

Seven minutes before Showtime, I was slammed with an embarrassing realization.

My zipper was wide open. Have you been there? My mind raced back to the ten plus people I had talked to. How many had noticed? Why had no one said anything? Friends don’t let friends walk around with unknown wardrobe malfunctions!

If I had gone on stage with the blinds open, that could have been embarrassing. Thankfully, I caught it before I went up on stage. However, as speakers it’s very important to check our zippers, our buttons, and anything else that could be a distraction.

Not only will a wardrobe malfunction distract the audience but it can throw us off once we realize it. Every speaker has to recover from this, so don’t feel too bad.

What’s the solution? Do a full body mirror check before you walk into the room. Is your hair fine? Food on the face?

Next, as you are waiting your turn to speak make sure your zipper and buttons are OK. Tuck the shirt in. Consciously do this, so you don’t have to do this on stage. It is hard to speak and be checking your wardrobe at the same time.  

What if you are speaking and notice something is wrong? If you can discreetly fix it, do so. If the audience is well aware of it, make a joke out and keep on going. You could say, “My worst nightmare has come true. (pause for laughter)” Fix the problem and try and work it into your content.

Don’t be caught with your zipper down. Check your wardrobe before you go on stage and you’ll prevent public speaking embarrassment.

(C) Arlen Busenitz – Speakinginfo.com

Arlen Busenitz

Arlen Busenitz is an experienced speaker with over 650 presentations. He is Author of several books, CD's,and creator of Become a Better Speaker in One Evening™

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