It happens to plenty of speakers and it may be happening to you. You might be a novice, experienced or even an expert public speaker.

Perhaps you are having a public speaking course or a presentation skills work shop. You could even be a member of Toastmasters.

The secret I am talking about is breathing - particularly, breathing with the support of your diaphragm. One good reason people contact me is mainly because of breathlessness when addressing an audience.

This is a big problem in speaking, primarily because lots of people wait to breathe in until they are totally spent. The outcome is a Catch 22. You can't appear to obtain sufficient air and when you do inhale, you feel even more pressure or panic.

Not just do I want you breathing throughout your speech or presentation, but I want you breathing in the way all the other mammals breathe in - diaphragmatically. Unfortunately, it is only the most intelligent of the animals that stops this practice sometime during early childhood development. The outcome is upper chest breathing which is also recognized as shallow or lazy breathing.

Why is breathing so important?

Without breath, there's no voice. If you wait to breathe in till you are entirely deflated, you might not have sufficient air left to complete your thoughts with enough volume. This is when the audience misses the last half of your sentences.

If you lack air, you will likely talk quicker. If you talk faster and faster, you might also find the pitch of your voice rising.

Breathlessness is typically caused by nervousness. The much less air you've got, the more tense you become.

Shallow or lazy breathing increases your panic because your body is struggling to discharge the toxins in your blood. If you do not take in air, you'll look and appear nervous.