How to stop shaking when presenting: steady what you can, hide the rest

You click to the first slide and notice the clicker trembling. Then the notes in your other hand start to rustle, faintly but audibly. Behind the lectern one knee has started doing something on its own. None of this was happening ten minutes ago in the corridor, and now that you've seen it you can't stop watching it. The talk is still going, but most of your attention has moved to your hands.

Most advice on shaking when presenting is a list of tricks: breathe, drink water, think positive, "use up the adrenaline" with push-ups. Some of it helps a little. Almost none of it explains what the shake actually is. That matters, because once you know, the fixes become obvious. Every hand trembles a little all the time. Adrenaline turns that up, but it doesn't create it. And the things that make a shake visible to a room, like holding paper, aiming a laser pointer or standing frozen with locked knees, are mostly choices you can change before you start.

This guide sits under how to speak with confidence, which covers the wider habits that make you look steady in front of a room. It is a sibling of how to stop your voice from shaking when speaking and how to stop blushing when speaking, which deal with the other two physical tells people dread. If the shaking is one part of a broader dread of speaking, start with how to overcome the fear of public speaking and come back here for the specific fix.

Here is the sequence:

1. Understand the shake: a normal tremor everyone has, turned up by adrenaline acting on your muscles.
2. Know that the room sees much less of it than you feel.
3. Remove the amplifiers: loose paper, laser pointers, a full glass, and hands held still in mid-air.
4. Give your hands a job: rest them on something, hold one solid object, and gesture with purpose.
5. Unlock your knees and plant both feet so your legs aren't holding a rigid pose.
6. Set up the hour before: your usual caffeine (not extra), something to eat, warm hands, light movement, and "I'm excited" instead of "calm down".
7. If it starts mid-talk, put the object down, exhale, move, and keep going without announcing it.
8. Know when shaking isn't just nerves, and when a doctor is worth seeing.

Why do your hands shake when you present?

Your hands shake when you present because adrenaline amplifies a tremor you already have. Every healthy person has a fine, fast physiological tremor of about 8 to 12 beats per second. Normally it's too small to notice. Under stress, adrenaline acts on beta-2 receptors in your muscles and turns that tremor up until you can see it.

Neurologists call this enhanced physiological tremor. A 2017 review in Tremor and Other Hyperkinetic Movements lists the usual triggers: anxiety, low blood sugar, fever, being cold, an overactive thyroid and alcohol withdrawal. It describes adrenaline as acting mostly in the muscle itself, with beta-2 receptors on the muscle fibres and their stretch sensors thought to make the whole system twitchier (Morgan and colleagues, Tremor and Other Hyperkinetic Movements, 2017).

The clearest demonstration is old and quite elegant. In a 1975 study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers infused isoproterenol, a drug that stimulates the same beta receptors adrenaline does, into the artery of just one arm. Tremor rose in that arm only, to an average of 2.74 times baseline. A beta blocker shut the effect down quickly (Young, Growdon and Shahani, NEJM, 1975). Your brain did not decide to shake that arm. The drug simply reached the muscles.

2.74×

Source: Young, Growdon and Shahani, NEJM, 1975

That is the useful part. A presentation shake is not a sign that you're falling apart, and it isn't something you can think your way out of mid-sentence. It is a chemical turning up the gain on an ordinary tremor. So the levers are physical: what your muscles are doing, what they're holding, and how much extra stimulation you add. Two of those levers are surprisingly strong:

• Load and fatigue. Holding something up raises tremor. In a 1999 lab study, finger tremor grew as the weight held increased from nothing to 200 grams, and kept growing as the muscles tired during a ten-minute hold (Arihara and Sakamoto, Electromyography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 1999). Fatigue enhances physiological tremor in healthy people more generally, too (Young and Hagbarth, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 1980).
• Mental load. In a 2022 study of 25 adults, doing mental arithmetic raised the tremor of a hand held out still by 29 percent. It did not change the tremor during a hand movement aimed at a target (Budini and colleagues, European Journal of Applied Physiology, 2022). Thinking hard while holding a pose is exactly what presenting is. Purposeful movement was the condition the extra load didn't touch.

Can the audience actually see you shaking?

Much less than you think. In Savitsky and Gilovich's 2003 study, people giving impromptu speeches rated themselves as looking clearly more nervous than their listeners thought they looked. Two out of three speakers overestimated it. You feel your tremor from the inside, at full strength. The room only sees whatever reaches the surface, from several metres away.

The study is worth knowing in detail, because it was designed around exactly this fear. Forty Cornell students were paired up and each gave a three-minute speech on a topic they hadn't prepared. On a 0 to 10 scale, speakers felt nervous at about 6. They believed they looked nervous at 6.55. Their partners, watching from a few feet away, put them at 5.25. Twenty-seven of the forty speakers thought they looked more nervous than their partner said (Savitsky and Gilovich, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2003). The authors note in the paper that one of the things anxious speakers fear most is that they will tremble or shake visibly.

A fine tremor in your fingers is one of the hardest things for an audience to see. They are looking at your face and your slides, and an 8 to 12 Hz flutter of a few millimetres simply doesn't carry across a room. What does carry is anything that magnifies it. That is good news, because magnifiers can be removed.

The same study had a second part, covered in more detail in the blushing guide. Speakers who were simply told that nerves show less than people think were rated as more composed and gave better speeches than speakers who weren't told. Knowing the gap is smaller than it feels is itself part of the fix.

What makes a shake visible: paper, pointers and frozen poses

A shake becomes visible when something magnifies it. A sheet of paper turns a tremor into a flutter and a rustle the front row can hear. A laser pointer turns a tiny wrist movement into a dot dancing across the screen. A full glass ripples. And a hand held still in mid-air, with no support, shows the tremor at its largest.

Laser pointers deserve special mention because the maths is so unforgiving. The dot moves by roughly the distance to the screen multiplied by the angle your wrist wobbles. Half a degree of wobble is far too small to see in your hand. At five metres it moves the dot about 4.4 centimetres, and at ten metres about 8.7. Every bit of tremor is multiplied and projected onto the brightest thing in the room, the thing everyone is looking at.

Paper works the same way on a smaller scale. A single A4 sheet held at one corner is a thin, light lever, and the far edge moves more than your fingers do. It also makes noise. A full glass of water lifted in front of the room shows a tremor on its surface that nobody would see in your hand alone. None of these mean your shake got worse. They are just very good at displaying it.

Stillness is the last amplifier, and the least obvious one. Physiological tremor is an action tremor: it lives in muscles that are working to hold a position. A hand held out in front of you, frozen in a "confident" pose, is doing exactly that, and so are legs locked rigid behind a lectern. A hand resting on a surface with its muscles relaxed is not, which is why your hands look steady on a desk and shaky in the air. Add the 2022 finding that thinking hard raises postural tremor but not tremor during purposeful movement, and the advice writes itself: rest or move, but don't hover.

How to stop shaking when presenting: what to do with your hands

Give your hands support or a job, never a hover. Rest them on the lectern or the table, hold one solid object instead of loose paper, use a clicker instead of a laser pointer, and gesture with purpose rather than freezing. Movement with intent hides tremor; stillness in mid-air shows it.

Here is the full set, roughly in order of how much difference each makes:

• Rest your hands on something. Lay them lightly on the sides of the lectern, or rest your forearms on the table if you're seated. The point is support, not grip. A white-knuckle hold on the edge is another sustained contraction and brings the tremor straight back. Our guide to what to do with your hands when public speaking covers lectern, microphone and seated positions in detail.
• Put the paper down. If you need notes, lay them flat on the lectern or use a few stiff index cards rather than A4 sheets. Cards are short, rigid and barely flutter. Better still, rehearse enough that you need only a handful of keywords.
• Ditch the laser pointer. Use a clicker to advance slides and build emphasis into the slides themselves: highlight the number, animate the arrow, grey out everything else. If you must point, walk to the screen and gesture with an open hand from close up, where a tremor is invisible.
• Hold one solid object, or none. A clicker or a single card gives restless hands somewhere to be. Two objects, or a pen you click, give a tremor more to show and more to rattle.
• Gesture with purpose. A deliberate gesture on a key line, like counting three points on your fingers or showing a size with your hands, uses the muscles through movement, which is the condition where tremor is least visible. Then let the hands come back to rest. The body language for public speaking guide has the gestures worth using on purpose.
• Use a bottle, not a glass. A capped bottle on the lectern can be sipped at a natural pause without a visible ripple, and without the risk of spilling.
• Ask for a lapel or stand microphone. A handheld mic is another object held up at arm's length for the whole talk. If you're offered a choice, take the one that leaves your hands free.

Why do your legs and knees shake when you speak?

Your legs shake for the same reason your hands do: adrenaline amplifies tremor in muscles that are holding a position, and standing still in front of a room means your thighs and calves are holding a rigid posture for minutes at a time. Locked knees make it worse and can make you feel unsteady. Soft knees, both feet planted and occasional movement fix most of it.

Leg shake tends to arrive later than hand shake. It's common to feel fine for the first minute, then notice a knee trembling or one leg bouncing behind the lectern. That's partly fatigue: muscles held in the same static contraction get tired, and tired muscles tremble more. It is also why leg shake is rarely visible to the audience. Trousers, a lectern or a table hide most of it.

What helps:

• Unlock your knees. Stand with a very slight bend, as if you were about to step off. Locked straight legs are a rigid pose held by tension, the exact condition that shows tremor most.
• Plant both feet, hip-width apart. Weight evenly on both feet stops you sinking into one hip, which loads one leg and gives it more to shake about.
• Move on purpose. Take a step or two at a transition between points, then plant again. Moving with your content changes which muscles are working and looks deliberate. It's the leg equivalent of a purposeful gesture.
• Press your feet into the floor. If a knee starts going, push both feet down for a few seconds while you keep talking, then release. It gives the muscles something active to do and often settles the bounce.
• Sit if the format allows. On a panel or in a meeting there's no prize for standing. Seated, with forearms on the table, almost nothing visible is left to shake.

Some people also shake after the talk is over, sometimes harder than during it. That's the adrenaline still in your system once the pressure is gone. It passes within minutes, and it's a sign your body was doing its job.

What to do in the hour before you present

Set your body up so there's less adrenaline gain to amplify. Have your normal amount of caffeine, not extra. Eat something in the few hours before. Keep your hands warm. Move lightly rather than exhausting yourself. And tell yourself "I'm excited", not "calm down". Each of these is small; together they make a noticeable difference.

Caffeine: keep your usual, don't add. The evidence here is more mixed than "avoid coffee" suggests. One controlled study found arm tremor rose at 3 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight but not at 1 mg/kg (Miller, Lombardo and Fowler, Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology and Physiology, 1998). For a 70 kg adult, 3 mg/kg is about 210 mg, roughly two strong coffees. Another found a single 325 mg dose did not raise tremor in normal subjects (Koller, Cone and Herbster, Neurology, 1987). The honest reading: your usual morning cup is fine, but a nervous extra double espresso before you go on is a bet against yourself.

Eat something. Low blood sugar is one of the listed causes of enhanced tremor in the 2017 review. In a small 1985 study, normal caffeine intake didn't raise finger tremor on a normal diet, but caffeine combined with fasting did (Wharrad and colleagues, European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 1985). Skipping lunch because your stomach is in knots and then drinking coffee to stay sharp is the combination most likely to show up in your hands.

Keep your hands warm. Cold is another trigger for enhanced tremor, and air-conditioned conference rooms are cold. Hold a warm drink before you start, keep your hands in your pockets in the corridor, or run them under warm water in the bathroom.

Deal with the other corridor symptom too. A mouth that goes sticky in the second minute is the same adrenaline at work on a different gland, and the fix is just as mechanical: sugar-free gum until the door, nose breathing in the corridor, water within reach of your free hand. Our guide on how to stop dry mouth when public speaking has the hour-before routine and the five-second mid-talk reset. If it is damp palms on the clicker or a shine on your forehead, the same burst is reaching your sweat glands; our guide on how to stop sweating when presenting covers the bedtime antiperspirant rule and the cold-water trick for your hands.

Move lightly, don't exhaust yourself. "Burn off the adrenaline" is popular advice. A brisk walk or a few minutes of light movement can take the edge off. A meta-analysis of 36 trials found a single bout of exercise lowers state anxiety, but only by a small amount (Ensari and colleagues, Depression and Anxiety, 2015). Hard exertion is a different matter. Fatigue raises tremor, and a 2026 study of 34 swimmers found leg tremor increased after a 30-second all-out swim (Kuliś and colleagues, BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, 2026). So walk the corridor, roll your shoulders and shake your hands out. Skip the wall push-ups that leave your arms burning.

Say "I'm excited", not "calm down". This one sounds like a slogan, but it's one of the better-tested ideas in performance anxiety. In a 2014 study, 140 people prepared a two-minute speech and were randomly told to say either "I am excited" or "I am calm" before giving it on camera. Blind raters judged the "excited" group as more persuasive, more confident and more competent, and those speakers talked for longer: 167 seconds against 132 (Brooks, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014). Notably, the two groups felt equally anxious. The physical arousal didn't go away. It got pointed at the talk.

A 2012 study in a stressful speech task found something similar in the body. People told that their arousal was helping them showed a healthier cardiovascular response, with blood vessels more relaxed and the heart pumping more efficiently, than people given no instruction or told to ignore it (Jamieson, Nock and Mendes, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2012). Neither study measured tremor directly. But both point the same way: fighting the arousal doesn't help, and reframing it does. For breathing techniques to use in the same window, see breathing exercises for public speaking.

What to do if the shaking starts mid-talk

Don't fight it in place. Put down whatever you're holding, rest your hands, take one slow exhale at the next pause, then move: a step, a purposeful gesture, a turn to the slide. Keep talking. Don't apologise for it or mention it. The shake usually settles within a minute once your attention goes back to the content.

The worst thing you can do mid-talk is try to hold your hands perfectly still by force. That's a sustained contraction, which is the condition that shows tremor most, and it puts your attention on your hands instead of your next sentence. A short sequence works better:

1. Put it down. Clicker, card or mic stand: set it down at the end of the sentence. Hands empty.
2. Support. Rest your hands on the lectern or table, or let them hang loosely at your sides.
3. Exhale. One long, slow breath out at the next natural pause. A pause reads to the room as someone choosing their next point.
4. Move. Take a step to the next spot, or make one deliberate gesture on your next key line.
5. Find one face. Talk to one person for the next sentence or two. It moves your attention outward, which is where it needs to be.

What not to do: don't announce it. "Sorry, I'm a bit shaky today" turns something most of the room hadn't noticed into the thing they're all now watching. It also confirms the fear you were trying to get ahead of, and it keeps your own attention on your hands. The same rule appears in the how to calm presentation nerves guide: a recovery move beats an apology every time.

If your voice starts to wobble at the same time, the breath-and-pace reset in how to stop your voice from shaking when speaking works alongside these steps.

Do beta blockers stop shaking when presenting?

Often, yes, for the physical shake. Beta blockers such as propranolol block the receptors adrenaline uses to amplify tremor, and trials in performing musicians found reduced physical symptoms and better-rated performances. They don't touch the fear itself, and the evidence for treating anxiety disorders with them is weak. It's a prescription decision for a doctor, not a pre-talk tip.

The performance research is mostly on musicians, where trembling hands can end a career. In a 1977 double-blind crossover trial, 24 musicians took 40 mg of oxprenolol or a placebo before performing. Professional assessors rated the beta-blocker performances better, with the biggest gains on the first performance and in the most nervous players (James and colleagues, The Lancet, 1977). In two double-blind trials with 29 musicians in total, propranolol removed the physical effects of stage fright and critics rated performances significantly better. In the same research, a drug that stimulates beta receptors made stage fright worse (Brantigan, Brantigan and Joseph, American Journal of Medicine, 1982).

They are widely used. In a 2024 survey of 311 musicians, 57 percent said they took beta blockers for auditions and 51 percent for performances (Kuwabara and colleagues, Medical Problems of Performing Artists, 2024).

The limits matter as much as the benefits:

• They work on the body, not the mind. A 2016 systematic review of propranolol for anxiety disorders found the evidence "insufficient to support the routine use" of the drug for those conditions, including the one small trial in social phobia (Steenen and colleagues, Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2016). Steady hands and an intact dread is a common result.
• They aren't for everyone. Beta blockers lower heart rate and blood pressure and aren't suitable for people with asthma and some heart conditions, among others. Only a doctor who knows your history can say whether they're safe for you.
• Borrowing them is a bad idea. A friend's prescription, an unfamiliar dose and an important talk is the wrong time to find out how your body reacts. If you and your doctor decide to try one, try it first on a low-stakes practice run.

For a shake that shows up at a few big presentations a year, the hand and leg fixes above, plus practice, are usually enough. Medication is worth discussing with a doctor if shaking is stopping you from taking on talks, interviews or roles you want.

When is shaking not just nerves?

When it shows up without pressure. Nerve-driven shake appears in front of an audience and fades once the talk is over. Shaking that happens when you're calm and alone, that's getting steadily worse, that affects one side only, or that comes with weight loss, palpitations or heat intolerance is worth checking with a doctor.

A quick self-check: hold your arms out in front of you at home, relaxed, with nothing at stake. Most people will see a tiny flutter if they look closely, and that's normal physiological tremor. What's not typical is a clearly visible rhythmic shake in that calm situation, a tremor in your hands while they're resting in your lap, or a shake that interferes with everyday things like writing, drinking from a cup or using your phone.

Several triggers on the 2017 review's list are medical, not psychological, such as an overactive thyroid and low blood sugar. Some medications raise tremor too, including the asthma relievers that work by stimulating beta receptors. Essential tremor, a common neurological condition, causes a rhythmic shake during action that is present whether or not you're nervous, and it often runs in families. None of these are things to diagnose from a blog post. If the shake is new, getting worse, or there even when you're relaxed, mention it to your GP.

Will the shaking ever stop for good?

For most people it shrinks a lot with repetition. Adrenaline on stage is a response to a situation your body reads as threatening, and repeated, survivable exposure is how that reading changes. The tremor won't disappear entirely, but after enough practice talks it stops being big enough to see and stops taking your attention.

What changes first is usually not the shake but how much it matters to you. Once you've seen that the audience can't see a fine tremor, removed the paper and the pointer, and given your hands somewhere to rest, the shake that's left is small, and you stop watching it. That alone lowers the arousal that drives it. The how to practice public speaking guide covers how to set up repetitions that actually build tolerance rather than just rehearsing the words.

A useful habit is to record your practice runs and real talks and watch them back. Most people are surprised: the shake that felt obvious is invisible on video, or shows only when they were holding notes. Orator helps with this. It records your practice runs and flags flow breaks and filler with timestamps, so you can see whether the moments you felt shaky actually changed your delivery. Usually they didn't.

Track three numbers out of ten after each talk: how much you dreaded shaking beforehand, how much it took your attention during, and how visible it really was when you checked the recording. Those numbers fall with practice, even on days when your hands still tremble a little. That's the progress that counts.

Key takeaways

• Every healthy person has a fine 8 to 12 Hz physiological tremor. Adrenaline acts on beta-2 receptors in your muscles and turns it up. It is not a sign that something is wrong.
• The audience sees much less than you feel. Speakers in Savitsky and Gilovich's 2003 study thought they looked more nervous (6.55 out of 10) than their partners saw (5.25).
• Shake becomes visible through amplifiers: loose paper, laser pointers, full glasses and hands held still in mid-air. Remove those first.
• Rest your hands on something, hold one solid object, use a clicker and gesture with purpose. Movement hides tremor; hovering shows it.
• For leg shake, unlock your knees, plant both feet, and move on purpose at transitions.
• Before the talk: usual caffeine (not extra), eat something, warm hands, light movement rather than exhausting exercise, and "I'm excited" rather than "calm down".
• Beta blockers reduce the physical shake in trials with musicians, but they are a prescription decision and don't treat the fear.
• Shaking when you're calm and alone, or a shake that keeps getting worse, is worth checking with a doctor.

Frequently asked questions

How do I stop shaking when presenting?

Rest your hands on the lectern or table instead of holding them up, put down loose paper and the laser pointer, hold one solid object at most, and gesture with purpose. Unlock your knees and plant both feet. Before the talk, keep to your usual caffeine, eat something and keep your hands warm. If it starts mid-talk, put things down, exhale and move.

Why do my hands shake when I present?

Everyone has a small physiological tremor of about 8 to 12 beats per second. When you present, adrenaline acts on beta-2 receptors in your muscles and amplifies it until it's visible. Holding a pose, holding weight, tired muscles, caffeine, cold and low blood sugar all make it bigger. It is a normal stress response, not a sign of a problem.

How do I stop my hands shaking when public speaking?

Give your hands support or a job. Rest them lightly on the lectern, use stiff index cards instead of paper, swap the laser pointer for a clicker and on-slide highlights, and use a capped bottle instead of a glass. Make deliberate gestures on key lines, then return your hands to rest. Rehearse with the same objects you'll use on the day.

Why do my legs shake when I speak in front of people?

Standing still means your leg muscles hold a static contraction for minutes, and adrenaline amplifies tremor in muscles doing exactly that. Locked knees and weight sunk into one hip make it worse. Stand with soft knees and both feet planted hip-width apart, take a step at transitions, and press your feet into the floor for a few seconds if a knee starts to bounce.

Can the audience see my hands shaking?

Usually much less than you think. In a 2003 study, speakers rated themselves as looking more nervous than their listeners said they looked, and two out of three overestimated it. A fine finger tremor rarely carries across a room. What makes it visible is an amplifier, such as paper that flutters, a laser dot or a glass of water, so remove those.

Do beta blockers stop shaking when presenting?

They often reduce the physical shake. Trials in performing musicians found propranolol and oxprenolol reduced physical symptoms and improved how performances were rated. They don't treat the underlying fear, they aren't safe for everyone, including many people with asthma, and they need a prescription from a doctor who knows your history. Never borrow someone else's.

Conclusion

You can't switch off a tremor every healthy body has, and you don't need to. What makes a shake visible is mostly what you hold and how you stand, and what makes it feel huge is watching it. Before your next talk, rehearse once with your real clicker and cards, hands resting on a surface and knees soft, and record it. Then watch how little of the shake actually shows.