Benzos How should I handle my public speaking presentation tomorrow? (ANXIETY, BENZOS)

[romnation]

I have a 10 minute presentation tomorrow for university. I currently take 0.25mg of Clonazepam twice per day for anxiety. This kills most of my general anxiety but I still feel anxious with public speaking. Was possibly considering upping the dose.

I have access to plenty of Xanax and Klonopin. What is the best way to handle my situation? Should I take my normal K-pin dose, then maybe take 0.5-0.75mg of xanax before the presentation? Should I forego the Kpins and just take a certain amount of xanax instead? I have no clue what my Xanax tolerance would be since I've been on 0.25mg of k-pins twice a day for 2 months now, but 0.75mg of xanax was usually a good amount to kill all the anxiety and not make me act stupid.

It would be a lot easier though if I could just increase my K-pin dosage (maybe take 0.5mg or 1mg at once?) But I'm afraid the K-pins might not be enough, I have never used them in this situation. What are your thoughts? Please don't reccomend any other solutions besides K-pins or Xanax. Thank you!

edit: presentation is actually tuesday.

 

[VegasFulham]

I have a script for Klonopin. It depends on your weight and such. I am big so have to take 1mg and feel better after doing so. If you up your dose, you shouldn't care as much. You're always going to have to fight some anxiety though, but it's manageable.

 

[BlueHues]

If you're just doing a factual presentation, with no humor or funny anecdotes or any artistic aspect to it, maybe you could up the benzo dose a little bit....Are you worried about freezing up or forgetting what you're saying mid-sentence?

IME, if you do take benzos and manage to have an anxiety attack during something like that anyway, it won't help you all that much, hopefully the benzos are able to block anything like that from manifesting in the first place, in which case, mission accomplished! If you're completely in mortal fear of failure anyway, it could actually make it worse....at least that's my experience, but I'm mainly basing it off musical performance....playing and singing...there's actually a lot more that can go wrong with that though, because you have to keep time, stay on key, play the correct chords etc....

Once you start the presentation and get by the first part, it will probably just flow.....You're not discussing anything about yourself most likely so you should just put any fear of judgement out of your mind.....the worst that could happen is you just completely blank out, but for a university presentation that probably wouldn't happen....You're not doing a state of the union address or giving an acceptance speech or anything, just remember it's not THAT big of a deal....

I'd say just double the dose of Klonopin, if anything....You're not famil.iar with how the xanax will affect you, so that's your best bet IMO...

 

[laCster]

clonidine or propanolol are better for public anxieties IME. they seriously stop ALL physical anxiety symptoms such as shakes/tremors, voice trembles, sweats, butterfly stomach, ect...

 

[smokemctoke420]

god i used to hate having to do presentations in high school and the short time i was in college. i used to get shakey and all that and never got benzos for anything cuz i dont always have anxiety.

i did find that 1 day i did a presentation in college for computer class and we had to do a powerpoint and we put it up on what of the projecters so we had to dim the lights. i think what helped about that was not having to see everyone staring at me.

i think thats what produced my anxiety in that dept, everyone looking. maybe you could explain the situation to your teacher and put a rough copy up (in microsoft powerpoint), put it on the projector so you gotta dim the lights.

on top of that i would take maybe 0.50-1mg of kpins

 

[auckland]

Well, firstly having been in this situation myself quite a few times over the last years, the best advice i have to give is when you're called, just to pop out of your chair like you own the place and like everyone's your friend so you've almost already got peoples attention for no reason. Secondly make it as conversational as possible. The more informal you make it the easier it is, really. I'd always get real anxious too but what always made it work is to have this attitude like this innocent, "you guys know i'm just doing what I have to do for the grade..", not disrespectfully in any way but more playfully.

As far as the benzos go i'd maybe pop a 1mg xanax an hour before so it kicks in quickly but also so that you're sharp enough to not have to stare at your notes and such. But you know your dosages better than I so maybe less maybe more.

But really just remember how big the world is and how much of an insignificant detail this really is in life and just try to own it in your own personal style!

 

[chch]

If you're completely in mortal fear of failure anyway, it could actually make it worse....at least that's my experience,

insignificant detail this really is in life

I recommend doing the presentation in ANGER. You will find that if you feel prepared to shout accuse and violently attack you audience, that your anxiety will go down. It's good to have some blunt objects just in case.

You'll find that you'll fuck up your presentation anyway, so no point worrying about that. It'll be crap. Trust me. Unless you've got a PR firm writing it, and have years of public speaking experience. Even then it'll be crap.

If that frame of mind doesn't work for you, you can try instead to make sexually inappropriate comments during the presentation to take the edge off.

 

[neversickanymore]

.5 xanax 30 min before should be fine to make you feel a little better for the speech.. be confident going in, practice and preparation will make a bigger difference. Best of luck.

 

[Boupstarnm]

Just do the presentation aloud, while timing it about 10x between now and your class. Then take maybe a little bit of xanax about an hour before the presentation.

I had crippling fear of public speaking but I had to take a course in it for my major. The main thing is just repeating that shit over and over and over. And realizing that everyone else in the class has to do it too so they're not going to judge harshly.

 

[BlueHues]

^^I think almost every human being on the planet can relate to your fear of this, it's just such a common thing, like having a dream that you're naked in front of a bunch of people! Just know....lot's have people have been absolutely terrified and ended up doing just fine!

what the posters aboove me said for the last two posts is great advice, I feel......

The more you have it planned and know exactly what you're gonna say, the less chance of fucking it up! Practice.....

also, the professor is gonna be looking for quality of content above presantation, most likely....

Maybe ask someone that you're living with to let you do a practice run in front of them......You'll be fine! Everyone faces a situation like this from time to time in their lives! It will give you practice for the next time!

 

[chch]

realizing that everyone else in the class has to do it too so they're not going to judge harshly.

Horrible advice

-wiggi

 

[romnation]

.5 xanax 30 min before should be fine to make you feel a little better for the speech.. be confident going in, practice and preparation will make a bigger difference. Best of luck.

this is what I'm thinking. Should I continue to take my 0.25mg k-pin dose as normal though?

 

[RobotRipping]

sorry kinda skimmed the thread but not the OP. I've done presentations on 10mg of etizolam and 10mg of valium at once and i still had shakes, stumbled over my words and was nervous. Other people say that my hand was shaking and i didn't even notice. I know benzos work to calm your anxiety but they can certainly make your presentation skills worse or not have much of an effect. Beta blockers are known to stop the physical response of anxiety, while of course benzos stop the mental. In a presentation you need a bit of both. But here is some real advice, don't worry about it, everyone else is just as nervous as you and the only way to get better at presenting is to have confidence and you get that by doing it over and over again, one day, it'll just be like you are talking to people (which of course is all a presentation is).

good luck and hope it works out fine. I'd say double your regular dose of benzos and throw in .5 xanax 20 minutes before the presentation if you have a decent tolerance for that dose. If u have propranolol throw that in there too and you'll be fine. I find stimulants work better than benzos, yeah you're gonna be nervous still maybe but you'll be spun enough not to care and so focused on talking that the presentation may even be fun, of course u don't want to get too spun, something like 10 mg dextroamphetamine would be a reasonable dose for this situation (non-tolerant user).