Fear presenting? Follow these 6 nursing presentation ideas

Giving presentations is a part of your Nursing career, like it or not! So, to help prepare you, Claire has taken time out to give you 6 Nursing Presentation Tips. Find out how to overcome self-doubt, relax and deliver a great presentation.

Topics covered in this video

0.00 Introduction

0.28 The fear of presentations!

0.59 Tip 1: Overcome self-doubt - No one is going to judge or mock you

02.32 Tip 2: Calm yourself down by naming things

04.16 Tip 3: Power pose before a presentation

05.05 Tip 4: Practice!

06.36 Tip 5: Practice in front of others in your class

07.11 Tip 6: Run through some Tongue Twisters

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0.00 Introduction

Hi everybody and welcome back to another Vlog.

My name is Claire Carmichael and I'm a third and final year student Nurse.

Welcome to my channel if you're new and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't subscribed yet. This Vlog is all about poster presentations or presenting in general. And just how to survive that because I know it's one that most people hate most people hate public speaking.

0.28 The fear of presentations

It's a common fear that we have students coming into Nursing and thinking "oh my God, I'm going to do presentations" because we are assessed on this at University.

Whether that's changing with the new standards, I'm not a hundred percent. But at the minute we do poster presentations at Birmingham City University and PowerPoint presentations.

So yeah, it is a requirement for us (unfortunately!)

So hopefully I can give you some tips and advice to survive it and it's not going to be too scary for you fingers crossed, but I shall do my best.

0.59 Tip 1: Overcome self-doubt - No one is going to judge or mock you

So my first tip I'm going to give you is a tip that I was given in a workshop that I went to and they said something that was actually quite obvious but I didn't really think of it until they mentioned it which is really strange

So I'm going to pass on this information to you because it really really helped me.

So what they said was when you yourself are going to watch somebody speak, so a conference for example, or even other poster presentations that you're sat watching… you as a person are not judging them on the way they're standing, or the way the speaking, you’re not mocking them you’re not doing anything like that.

You’re probably sat there thinking about your dinner, your workload, who you've got a message from, what emails you've got to send, what your girlfriend or boyfriend or kids are doing… your mind is elsewhere. It's not fully on the talk or conference or presentation.

And to be honest if your attention is fully on it, you're so intrigued in what they're saying, you're not thinking about anything else. You're just listening to the information they're giving, the PowerPoint slide...

You’re not judging them as a person. So why are you judging yourself, or thinking it, or over thinking that other people are judging you on this because they're not - no one's judging, you no one's going to mock you, no one’s going to laugh at you if you trip up.

In fact, some people won't even notice if you stutter.

So it's just quieting those voices, those judgmental voices you've got in your head but shouldn't be there. Completely erase them now! Take them away! Get rid of them!

02.32 Tip 2: Calm yourself down by naming things

My next tip is all about quieting those anxious voices that might be in your head telling you you're going to be rubbish, you’re going to fail, you’re going to stutter, your hearts going.

You're breathing's going, you're panicking, you’re sweating.

This is the big tip for you!

Again from a workshop that I went to something that was taught to was was to sort of take a minute before you get up there, before you stand there.

But it's sort of a tip that you can sort of do as you're standing there as well quietly in your own head.

So, first, you want to concentrate on your breathing. Slow it down. Breathe in, and breathe out. Just concentrate on that for a second. And then the next thing you want to do is start naming things.

Sometimes people named smells that they can smell. They're listening for sounds, so you listen for sounds and you’re naming those sound so I can hear a bird, I can hear some trucks, I can hear the wind, I can hear some rustling of paper.

Start naming things and whether that's what you can smell or what you can hear or what you can see (so maybe I can see a pencil, I can see a chair, I can see a table, there’s a clock) just start naming things.

That just helps you focus and sort of slow everything down and bring you back to the room and just help you calm down. That just, that really really helps me. It's something I do actually quite a bit when I feel anxious for exams, for example my first day on placement last week I did that all the way there because I was excited to start but at the same time really nervous because I didn’t know anyone, and I was getting anxious and could feel myself going.

So I started naming things as I was walking, and I was concentrating on my breathing. I was naming the cars and everything and it really did - a massive massive massive help for me.

I know it works for quite a few students out there. So hopefully fingers crossed this tip is going to help you.

04.16 Tip 3: Power pose before a presentation

My next tip is all about that strong power pose. So that by doing the power pose before a presentation or sometimes in the morning, if you're feeling a bit anxious maybe or unconfident, doing the power pose (so the, you know, like the Superman pose put your hands on your hips stand tall, head up, stand proud doing that sort of thing) apparently releases endorphins and just gives you that little bit of confidence.

So before you go on to your presentation, go into the toilet and do this (you don’t have to do it in front of everybody!) but going to the toilet do it looks off in a room somewhere alone stand there. Do your power pose. Say 'I am brilliant!' 'I’m going to smash this!' 'I'm going to do this!' I've got this! Talk to yourself.

Shout out loud if you want to, if it helps! Just do your power pose for a minute and just feel confident, feel good in your own skin and just smash it.

05.05 Tip 4: Practice!

And my next tip is probably an obvious one: practice. I know, it's sometimes hard to fit in, you're going to make excuses, you don't want to practice, you're going to do everything but practice...

But you really, really need to practice your poster presentation or your PowerPoint presentation or your talk or whatever you're going to do.

You need to practice.

So get your friends together. Get on FaceTime with people. Get on video. Stand in your room alone.

Go through it and thorough it into it until you know it inside out and you can recite it and you're dreaming about it! You can't sleep because you know it. All of those things.

Just practice daily until you've got it. Until you're comfortable with the words that you're speaking because I think that's sort of, sometimes, when we stutter is because we don't know what we're saying, we’re not confident about what we're saying, we're thinking about everybody else in the room.

And just with all of those tips in place that I've given you, as well as practicing, so you know what you're saying should hopefully ease it and it the words should just flow and you won't need to worry about it.

You won't be thinking about, “My God, what am I about to say?”

Another thing is, if you're going to use flashcards or a script use bullet points. I try and avoid scripts because it's too jumbled. I lose my place. I don't like it.

I like to, 1) wing it and 2) if it’s a script I'll bullet point and those bullet points just keep me right on track.

06.36 Tip 5: Practice in front of others in your class

Also with your practicing if you know that you're going to be doing a presentation in front of your class get a group of you together and practice in front of each other.

I think that's a really good way to do it as well.

So meet up at Uni find a room. See if there's any way you can go, if you've got a library, sometimes they have like the little quiet rooms that you can all go in, and just stand in front of each other and practice your presentation in front of each other.

Because the more you do that the more you're going to get used to it and you won't feel as bad when you're in the room in front of all these people.

I think that's a good tip. I hope and yeah, hopefully it'll help you out.

07.11 Tip 6: Run through some Tongue Twisters

And another thing. I know I said it was the end of the video. I've got just one more little thing just because I mentioned stuttering.

So this tip is for stuttering: apparently tongue twisters help with stuttering when you present. I don't know the facts and figures and research behind it. But apparently it does!

So try tongue twisters as well before you get up there and start talking. Apparently it just gets the muscles in your tongue going - something like that; and it just really helps with your speech.

So that is it from me.

I hope I've given you some help, some advice, some tips to survive your poster presentations! I know it's not nice. I know it can be really nerve-racking.

So I'm really hoping that these really help you. Good luck and you're going to smash it.

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