Use the silence – it’s ok to have a moment of quiet, in fact if you maintain your composure it could make you appear more confident and secure in yourself, not less.Get comfortable with telling people that your mind has gone blank.Make a joke of it – laugh at yourself and if you can play it off with a self-assured demeanour and move on to something else.While you may feel they’re front of mind when you’re waving your arm about, it’s worth doing anyway, just in case. Make a list – of the points you want to make.it’s ok if I don’t know right in this moment it will come to me). calling yourself an idiot won’t help) and a rapid change of expectations (e.g. Try to relax (easier said than done I know – it’s like telling someone to ‘just be more confident’) – use slow deep breaths, constructive self talk (i.e.Feeling overwhelmed – our brains are increadible but have a limited capacity for cognitive processing which can stop us from accessing those great points just when we need them.Anxiety – fight or flight can mean that our brain prioritises taking action such as fleeing from these people suddenly staring at us over having a rational debate.Tiredness – slows down and interferes with all brain functioning.Let’s start with why – there are many reasons but the most common are: In fact with the effects of long Covid and the associated brain fog hitting so many people, the frequency may increase for many of us. And I fear that with the double whammy of age and the looming ‘unspoken about’ menopause things will only get worse. It’s even happened a few times when I’ve been midway through giving a talk – I stand there (or sit since the zoom era) searching for what I was just saying, what I just said, without any clue. This happens to me frequently, too frequently. “Seven experiments provide evidence supporting the existence of the blank mind as a distinct mental state with a unique psychological signature.” (Ward & Wenger) When the room swivels to hear our point and we are left with nothing we can feel shame, an unbearable embarrassment, fear at the loss of credibility and humiliation with of course the added undertone of emotions we’d feel if we were with friends. While in front of family and friends drawing a blank may leave us feeling embarrassed, perhaps irritated, and frustrated in an environment of colleagues or strangers the emotions this can provoke are quite extreme. “This mental state-mind-blanking-may represent an extreme decoupling of perception and attention, one in which attention fails to bring any stimuli into conscious awareness.” (Ward & Wenger) Yet it most certainly leaves you feeling that way.

Interviewing people from the witty, quick minded Steven Fry to the equally fast thinking Dawn French and many, many more (even me) – it seems we really are definitely not alone. In fact it’s so common that my friends Giles Paley-Phillips and Jim Daly have hosted a whole podcast (and book) on the topic aptly called ‘The Blank’. Has that ever happened to you? Chances are it has. Like a prop in an illusionist’s sleight of hand, they seem to flit from place to place-now here, now there, now …nowhere.” (Ward & Wenger) I go from feverishly preparing to share my wisdom to feeling like I want the ground to open up and swallow me. Then finally, ‘yes, you’ says the person leading the discussion looking in my direction and the unimaginable happens – the worst – my mind goes completely blank. Beyond jabbing at the air like a crazed loon or waving my arm about I can’t do anything else but wait until I’m noticed. I raise my hand and wait impatiently to be seen. I’m in front of a crowded room and desperate to get my point across, I have a burning, passionate view on this topic and my ideas are something I think people need to hear.

Not a lot going on at the moment