Robert Summa (YouTube, Apr 14, 2022) explains why public speaking produces intense anxiety by describing an "amygdala hijack": the amygdala (fast, powerful, fear center) can shut down the slower, logical prefrontal cortex and trigger fight-or-flight. He states fear is stored much more strongly than reward ("nine to 35 times stronger"), so modern psychological stressors (e.g., being asked to present) can create false alarms that feel like physical danger. The presenter frames public speaking anxiety as reversible and promotes a course that teaches how to rewire the brain to stop treating speaking as a threat.
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Hey, guys. So today I want to go over public speaking phobia, and on top of that, anxiety and panic attack, right? And why we have this fear, and why do we have such intense anxiety when it comes to public speaking? And it all comes down to something called the amygdala hijack so to go over really quickly the three parts of the brain so we understand what the amygdala is in the first place is we have the prefrontal cortex, and that's the logical part of the brain, right? And that's really large in humans, and that's why we are, you know, such intelligent human beings. The prefrontal cortex is a logical part of the brain. It's smart, but very weak and slow. Then in the limbic system part of the brain, we have something called the amygdala. And the amygdala is really powerful and fast. And the amygdala is what is responsible for the fear response. It is what really actually creates the fight or flight response. So if we're in danger, you know, it sets up. So if you're walking down a path, there's a bear, you have two choices. You can either run away or fight the bear off, or if there's a snake there, you back off from the snake. So that's what sets off the danger triggers. So the fear response is nine to 35 times stronger. Bias on fear versus reward. So basically, if we were to touch a fire and burn ourselves, we're like, whoa. We learn never to touch a fire again, right? And that stores in the amygdala really strong, much more than your reward. If somebody said, hey, you look nice in that blue dress, or you look nice in that shirt. One month now, you're not going to even remember somebody told you or complimented you. You might kind of remember, but it's not really stored in the amygdala like fear Is, which is nine to 35 times more stronger and keeps you safe. It's all there to keep you safe from. From things that are really dangerous for you. So in today's world, we have stressors now that are actually triggering a false alarm. And basically, the false alarm is that a psychological stressor is tricking the amygdala as if it's a physical danger or threat, like that snake, like that bear. So now we have what's called the amygdala hijack. So say your boss walks in and says, hey, I want you to do a presentation. You. You go into that oh moment, right? In that oh moment is the amygdala looking at that, you know, emotional stressor as something that is a physical danger or threat. And when the amygdala takes over, it shuts down the prefrontal cortex, because now you're going to that fight or flight response, and it starts triggering off all those adrenaline rushes. And basically you can go into high anxiety, even panic attack, or you just want to completely avoidance, right? Fight or flight? Think about flight. Flight is run, right? Complete avoidance of public speaking. So that is what an amygdala hijack is. It's basically your. Your fight or flight response shutting down the prefrontal cortex so that you go into that fight or flight response, which is really just a false alarm. So we need to reverse the brain to no longer see public speaking as a real physical danger or threat. Right? We have to get over that stressor, that it's nothing to be feared, it's just a false alarm. And that is what my course teaches how to do, how to rewire the brain and no longer see these emotional stressors as a real threat. So I hope that makes a lot of sense. And of course, if you have any questions, you can always reach out to me.
