Physio Presentations... Tips to Reduce Nerves & Improve Confidence with Presenting
- Physioing
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 20 hours ago
There's no getting around it, physiotherapy is a career where you need to be able to present. At university it's solo presentations, group presentations and placement presentations. Interviews often require presentations, especially for more senior roles. At work it's in service training and training sessions, or perhaps you're presenting your research or lecturing.
It's surprising how many fantastic physio lecturers or presenters you meet who will tell you they used to be terrified of presentations and you'd honestly have no idea. So don't let the idea of regular presenting put you off any future career progressions or aspirations.
Whether you're new to the world of physio and feeling anxious about just how many presentations await you in your future. Newly qualified and dreading your turn at in service training, or a more experienced physio who still dreads presenting. Here are some of our favourite tried and tested top tips for physiotherapists and physio students for reducing nerves and improving your confidence with presentations:
Practise presenting to the dog, the wall, whilst walking, exercising, cooking...
Mental imagery & neuroplasticity - practise in your head & imagine it going well.
Right before a presentation take a movement break - reduce nervous energy.
Incorporate exercise or practical work in the presentation - boost endorphins.
Add in a quiz - involve your audience or bring out competitive sides with teams.
Add humour - just make sure it's appropriate for the setting.
Practise presenting to the dog, the wall, whilst walking, exercising, cooking...
The weirder the better! The aim is to completely desensitise yourself to presenting and make it easier for you to remember what to say under pressure. Have your script or prompts as needed and talk to whatever is around you (in an empty house or warn others first what you're doing). Ideally when we're presenting we want to be breathing normally, so try to practise this too. However, when we're nervous it can impact our breathing, so practising speaking whilst exercising and a bit out of breath can help make it easier to talk when we're feeling under pressure.
Mental imagery & neuroplasticity - practise in your head & imagine it going well:
Use neuroplasticity to your advantage. Playing specific scenarios or scripts in your head, or mental imagery, is a fantastic treatment option in neuro rehab and also a method utilised by athletes and successful professionals to improve their performance. The act of neural rehearsing can strengthen or create new neural pathways and it's simple to do. Play through your script in your mind and imagine yourself presenting and it's going well. Repetition is key here, so aim to repeat several times before your presentation. We'd also recommend mental imagery techniques for exam nerves, revision, remembering ABG values, myotomes, cranial nerves, the list goes on. If you're new to mental imagery this article from neuroscientist Dr Sarah McKay explains some of the theory and associated research.
Right before a presentation take a movement break - reduce nervous energy:
Getting rid of some of that nervous energy with a bit of jumping round on the spot, star jumps, fast walking, arm swings, Tai Chi or whatever you fancy can be a sneaky way to benefit from the relaxing effect of endorphins and reduce some of that nervous energy. If you fancy including everyone, it can also be a way to start your presentation with a quick movement break to wake everyone up. If you'd rather not have an audience a quick trip to the bathroom/staffroom/equipment cupboard to do a couple of star jumps or doing a bit of fast walking up and down a corridor will work too.
Incorporate exercise or practical work into the presentation - boost endorphins:
Using the same principle as the above (utilising a movement break to boost endorphins) could you include exercise or practical work into your presentation? Not only does this encourage your audience to feel more energised and engaged, it's also one of the best ways to learn a new skill or technique if you're doing it yourself. As a bonus point it also means your audience aren't spending the whole time fully focussing on you if they're engaged in an activity.
Use handouts - so people will look at those more than you:
Handouts are really useful for audience members who like to take notes or have a paper CPD folder. Plus, if people are looking at handouts there's less focus on you talking! If you're concerned about printer/paper usage it doesn't need to be your whole presentation, consider snippets, key slides, an infographic or research abstracts.
Add in a quiz - involve your audience, or bring out competitive sides with teams:
Adding a quiz element can add some interest and make things less passive by involving your audience. Never underestimate how competitive health professionals can get, especially if you have teams of different professions going against one another.
Add humour - just make sure it's appropriate to the setting:
If you naturally use humour in your day-to-day practice or conversations, don't shy away from using this in your presentations. Although it goes without saying please consider the appropriateness of the setting and audience first, if you're not sure then it's probably better not to say it! A bit of humour can help settle your nerves if people laugh or smile and if they don't, making fun of the lack of laughter usually gets a good response and dissolves any tension.
The more you do, the easier it becomes!
Sometimes it's not until we look back and reflect on how far we've come that you truly realise how much you've progressed. With this in mind, although it might be tempting to avoid situations where you need to do a presentation, try not to specifically avoid them at the risk of missing out on future opportunities. As with most things in physio, the more experience and practise you have the easier it becomes. If you've seen any great presentations recently, consider what it was that made it that way and if you can incorporate any of those approaches to your own presentations.
In Conclusion...
If you're feeling anxious or lacking confidence with your presentations hopefully some of these tips will help. Whilst presentations are a necessary part of a physiotherapist's role, like any other skill, it can take time and practise to develop your own techniques and style. Don't let it hold you back from progressing or trying out new opportunities.
Promotions & Affiliations: Please note whilst it is free to appear in the directory, this site includes some promoted products, services & sponsored articles which are clearly labelled. As an Amazon Affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases.
References:
