A Short Body Scan for Tension Before Speaking

A short body scan before speaking is a chance to notice how you feel without checking how you look. Spend a few moments with the support of the chair, the position of your shoulders, or the contact of your feet. Some tension might stay. That doesn’t have to stop you from speaking.

Keep the scan small

For example, imagine giving a brief update on a neighborhood planning call. Your notes are ready. You have five minutes before the call begins, and you’d like a quieter way to spend them than watching yourself in the camera preview.

Choose just a few places: feet, arms, shoulders, jaw. There’s no need to rush through a whole-body scan.

Try it once without a recording. Sit as comfortably as the chair allows and let your breath carry on at its usual pace. Notice the contact between your feet and the floor. That might feel quite clear, or there may be very little to notice. Stay there for a few moments, then move on.

Bring your attention to whatever supports your arms. Perhaps your hands are on the desk. Perhaps your elbows are resting against the chair. If a change of position would be welcome, make it.

At your shoulders, notice their position or the touch of your clothing. Resist the temptation to keep measuring whether they have dropped. At your jaw, notice how your mouth is resting. There’s no need to stretch it or search for something to release.

If either area makes you more self-conscious, skip it. Return to your feet, or look around the room.

To finish, find your notes and read the first point you intend to make. Your jaw may still feel tense when you join the call. You still know what you came to say.

Make it fit the few minutes you have

An instruction to lie down is irritating when you’re seated at a desk, ready for a call. Ask for a recording that fits where you’ll actually use it.

The personalized body scan guide explains how to choose the areas and ending. For this particular moment, a request to Manai could be as simple as:

Make a four-minute seated body scan before I give an update on a call. Start with my feet and the support under my arms, then briefly visit my shoulders and jaw. Leave quiet gaps and let me skip any area. Keep my breathing natural. Finish by looking around and finding my notes.

When you listen, pay attention to the gaps. Does the next cue arrive before you’ve had time to notice the current area? Ask for more silence between cues if the recording feels crowded. After revising the script, make new narration.

The scan doesn’t need to remove every sign of tension to be worth keeping. Maybe you simply prefer spending those few minutes with your eyes off the camera preview, before returning to the people on the call.

Get Manai to make a body scan with the areas, wording, and pauses you prefer.

For time to rehearse the words themselves, see guided meditation for speaking English when you freeze.

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