Damiana is great! But I think passion flower is about 100 times better (and st johns wort is like neither of them, its a totally useless herb if you want my real opinion lol). And one more thing about herbs like damiana, passion flower, kanna, etc. Lots of people have opinions on these herbs and I notice the larger deal of people tend to not take them seriously.
And this is because there are TONS of sellers selling shit product, either old (alkaloids wear off) or immature (alkaloids never even started growing in the plant) or its just a shit strain or the wrong strain of the plant all together. You tend to get this more with kanna and passion flower though as damiana as a very specific appearance to it. But Kanna is easily replaced with weaker strains that look like kanna, but don't have the effects of kanna, similar to passion flower.
However let me note, I have taken true quality passion flower before, and the feeling was NOTHING like I ever expected from an herb. Same with kanna too. Although damiana I never got shit from in tea form it was prob just bad leaf (although smoked is a different story). But that cup of passion flower tea felt like I took 4 valiums, I obviously took too much. I was sedated as fuck, relaxed beyond belief and kanna had an even stronger feeling once I found a good place to get it. Theres just way too many scammers trying to sell these leaves which is unfortunate. Because I tend to rank something like quality kanna leaf above any shit ssri I've ever took, and any benzo I've ever taken. It has a feeling like "clear headed extacy" its so hard to explain. It comes over your body and its immediate and intense, but its social in nature. It makes you talk, gives you energy, relaxes the fuck out of you and its so hard to explain but the feeling but its amazing.
And the best thing about these herbs and they are known to have no side effects at all. Thats at least untill you venture over to herbs like kratom which have their own withdrawal syndromes.
Still, if you want a good example of what a synergistic mix of quality herbs can do to your body, get a bottle of psychotropin. Its not cheap, but one of the most reliable OTC supplements an anxious person can possibly take, and theres NO placebo effect involved. The herbs I'm talking about are the types you FEEL, unlike something like kava kava which even the best brands around are still weak as fuck.
Also, what PEGASUS said is very important. You can NOT tell yourself that these fears are "irrational". They may be irrational in a conscious state, but our bodies are evolutionary designed to handle stress this way. No longer to we have the panic stricken states of running away from a lion thats trying to eat us, BUT our bodies still haven't evolved in a world where theres no real danger (or at least the danger that there use to be). Because of this our bodies are always looking for ways to trigger our "flight or flight" mode. Its a mechanism that exists within us that has very little use like it use to millions of years ago. So this system in humans is outdated, and imo very unstable in some people.
For some people very small things that don't seem to pose danger, can trigger off the feeling like a gun is in our face, or like a lion is chasing us. It IS rational maybe not to you but to your body it is. Because now in days everything is done socially in sophisticated ways. Instead of getting abolished from your tribe, and fending in the wilderness till you get eaten, we have stuck up friends that ignore us, ostracize us if we look like a fool giving a speech, and people begin to assume you are weak. You can lose friends to shit like this as I've already went through it. Thats the survival part of this whole process, social acceptance. Your body responds that way because a part of it senses on some very core level that if you are not accepted in society (by giving a good speech) that society may abolish you and you may be left to fend in this world w/out friends or anyone that accepts you. Reading that in this forum in this setting, SURE it seems irrational, but I can pose many circumstances to validate why its really not irrational at all in terms of how our bodies percieve it.
Your body works both on a very primalistic level and a very sophisticated one. The fear you feel during a speech is the reptile side of your brain saying "if you mess this up there will be great social consequence later in life" (maybe you can't get a job and can't afford to eat because your fear of people is so extreme that you grow incapable of being around people) its an exageration sure, but just because the chance actually exists, your body is wired to make you aware that that chance exists.
What I'm saying might be a bit confusing, but there is some site in the UK (I'm in the US) dedicated to panic disorder, has done more for panic disorder than any US sites I've ever seen, and I wanna try and find it for you. It goes deep into the evolutionary reasons why so many people have problems giving speeches. And it really explains it in such a clear way that you will understand finally "this fear is totally rational". It is more than rational. Humans have had this wiring in their brains for millions upon millions of years, just that in certain people its exagerated.
Anyway although its good to have an attitude of "I'm gonna conquer this no matter what" I'm not going to try telling you this is something you can fix just by thinking your way through it. Because if thats something that could actually work you would have already succeeded by now. Although I do believe you need to learn more about your body, your family history (any history of hypertension or highblood pressure or heart disease in your family?) and yourself in general. It took me a few years to solve my own problems with this and let me tell you when I was going through it this is something that completely consumed my life every day I was alive. I was always thinking about it, always obsessing, and yeh to one degree it made it worse, but if I didn't have that type of attitude in the first place, I don't think I would have ever overcame my own situation and be in the position I am, where you can now call me to give a speech any time any day and I simply do NOT give a fuck anymore.
Thats where I am now when only 5 years ago I laid in a hospital bed nearly dying after one situation went as bad as it possibly could have. So when your body is reacting that way its trying to tell you something, and that something is "I really need to figure out how to overcome this". That involves experimenting with meds, different mixtures, different meds altogether, trying behavoir therapies like systematic desensitization (can you give a speech in front of 1 person? then 2 people?... then 3 people?.. etc) read about NLP, browse the web, and be diligent in your efforts. But DO NOT and I really mean this DO NOT force yourself into situations if you genuinely feel like you can't handle them.
There is absolutely no need to be in that type of situation in the first place. Communicate with school that when you tell them you have an issue giving speeches YOU HAVE AN ISSUE GIVING SPEECHES. I never had to give speeches if I didn't feel I was ready and I'm personally very pissed off that your school can actually try to force you into doing something like that. If the disablities deparment is trying to "compromise" by saying "Ok we're gonna help you but you still have to give the speech", thats NOT a compromise at all. Thats them not listening to you. If anything like that ever happens in the future you go to the HEAD or the DEAN of your school and you tell them "I am paying good money to go to this school and I expect to be treated like a fucking human being". Ok well don't curse but my point is when I started to stick up for myself, and accept the fact that I had a legitimate problem, and not just some common bs anxiety, thats also when I started to make leaps and bounds in improving my situation. Like "yes! people are finally listening to me because they can tell that I know myself better than they ever fucking will". Don't settle for anything less than that.
You CAN get through this problem. It may be very hard, you may need to be very persistent, but you CAN absolutely do it if you believe in yourself and you set clear tiny goals for yourself. I also use to go to toastmasters meetings in my area, I could never give a speech at them, but I told them I had panic disorder and asked if it would be possible just to sit in their meetings and get tips about how to give a good speech.
And although I never gave a speech when I was going there, I DID learn a TON about body language, how to handle anxiety, and how to handle your thoughts in the high stress environment that speeches are.
Dedicate yourself. Respect yourself, and you CAN get past this problem. You still just have a lot to learn about yourself but I do believe in you and I do believe you can do this one day. Maybe not tommorow, or next week, but if you take it slow, and go about it intelligently, you can absolutely succeed.
G/luck! - Bo
Also, hand gestures convey a lot of confidence and are fun to throw in.
. Must use together.