For many of us, public speaking is like a form of torture or bondage. If you have found yourself presenting to an audience it’s likely that throughout the presentation you found yourself in a state of heightened stress and awareness. While I have never taken part in bondage, as I understand it you should choose a safe word to use when things become uncomfortable for you. The same happens when we are public speaking or presenting. As we find ourselves in these stressed situations we often overuse our safe words. We rely on them to bring our brains back to a more comfortable and familiar state while we think of what to say next. Unlike potential bondage safe words such as butterscotch, safe words in presenting are words or phrases such as actually, in reality, umm, like or you know along with many other variations our brains get attached to. The trick is to ensure that you don’t overuse your safe words when presenting, because using them too often in a short period of time will spoil the moment and distract your audience.