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The most important thing is that after 30 seconds or so, your body will start to calm down

This is so true. While I haven't given many speeches in my life yet, I've had some experience playing in public at concerts (max I had was 500 people probably so not a huge crowd, but still plenty).

Every time I would step on stage with my band, I'd feel like I locked up, unable to do anything other than just stare at the crowd. It's not really anxiety in my case, more like a "oh crap, what if I fuck up?". Thanks to practice with the other members and eventually having fun (once the music starts), you tend to forget it all and just get into action. The same happened during my graduation speech, once you start the only option left is to get to the end.

More often than not I got to the end of a concert thinking "that was all?" because time really flies when you put all of yourself into doing a very focused thing (and speeches aren't that different, at least in my experience).

Also, the best thing you can do to recover from stumbling is to just keep going. If you realize you have screwed up something, just keep going and everything will be fine. The thing you definitely don't want to do is to lock up and freeze. The moment you freeze you know you have failed. The worst experience to me was during an acoustic solo part when a string in my guitar broke, I was just there, standing in front of a crowd and then silence. We just laughed it off and kept playing (with a substitute guitar), but it felt terrible for those first couple of seconds.

ps: shameless plug if somebody cares, here's my band: http://www.youtube.com/user/HavenlostBand

> Also, the best thing you can do to recover from stumbling is to just keep going.

It can take a little practice and some preparation, but figuring out how to do this is really what leveled up my public speaking skills and mostly eliminated the worst parts of stage fright.

This is my experience as well, and I think alot of it might apply to speaking as well. I still have a tingle of anxiety almost every time I go on stage, but I've learned exactly how to manage it. A few things that helped me:

- Start out with something simple you could do in your sleep, and build your confidence from that. For me, I know the rest is going to work out fine once I hear myself playing the opening riff.

- Rehearsing is key. But don't try to re-enact your rehearsal, just keep it in the back of your mind as something to fall back on.

- Worrying about anxiety doesn't help at all. It sounds counterintuitive, but think as little as possible about what you're about to do. You've already prepared, there's absolutely no need for last minute checking and fiddling.

- Being on stage automatically makes you cool. People are going to judge you less harshly. They're looking to you for something to think or feel about, and if you are enjoying yourself, they are going to have a good time as well.

- Fuckups are going to happen. Only you will notice most of the time. If you know where you are going but not exactly how, just improvise. And if it's a temporary showstopper, embrace it. Nobody will mind as long as you show that you're not fazed. Get the audience laughing or tell an anecdote if you can.

Alcohol takes the edge off stress, but it also works the other way around. Fear sobers you up, so don't try to get a buzz going while you are panicking beforehand, or you'll risk being a bit more drunk than expected once you start relaxing.

Sweet I thought I was the only metalhead on HN.

I think there are plenty here.

Yep. Some of us are lurkers.

Beta-blockers and alcohol are a shim, they don't help you get better at it. It's scary, but you can use the adrenalin if you let yourself.

Yesterday I gave a talk - the first one I've ever given that wasn't a research talk. 30 minutes. I didn't pre-write it at all - just laid out the slides the day before. On the day of the talk I looked through the slides in the afternoon and thought about the main points I wanted to make and some funny stories and jokes I could slip in. Then I forgot about it until the evening, when I gave it. It was easily the best talk I've ever given, and people were coming up to me for the rest of the evening to thank me.

I did have a small drink before the talk, and that definitely helped with the first 30 seconds of fear. But apart from that, it was the adrenalin that drove me the whole way. It felt really good. I absolutely don't agree that you have to memorize lines.

Yeah, I don't need much help with public speaking anymore.

But, for many years, after one bad experience, I just couldn't shake the jitters. I needed a way to break the vicious cycle of one bad experience leading to more bad experiences. I needed a shim to break the cycle.

Now, like you, I actually look forward to the pre-talk adrenalin hit.

Also I should point out, that combining Beta-Blockers with Alcohol isn't good for your health[1][2], your blood pressure can drop dangerously low[2]. Also I should point out I'm not a doctor [3].

[1] https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/treatments/medications--...

[2] http://texasheart.org/HIC/Topics/Meds/betameds.cfm

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=valarauca1

Oops, yeah, certainly don't do both!

One is for less-formal speaking engagements, and one is for professional situations.

Alcohol only DECREASES the effects of beta blockers, right? That's not a bad thing.

Your idea for a Rift app sounds like an excellent idea! It'd be a lot of fun to try to create a realistic model of an audience. The small motions would make all the difference: that guy who suddenly looks up and stares at you, the person who sits stiffly with their arms crossed, the person who just can't sit still.

However, one big problem is that, currently, the Rift is designed to be used when sitting down. What you really want is some way to track your position and stance within a fixed area (the 'stage'). Then you'd be able to practice your whole stage presence, not just your spoken deliver. I'd love a program which could analyse your movements, and tell you that you look down too much, or that you're slouching, or that your hands shouldn't just be hanging limply.

In addition, it would be difficult for it to accurately show the crowd reacting to what you say.

In my experience/opinion, one of the more stressful things about public speaking is how the audience reacts.

Isn't there any voice recognition software able to detect stuttering, tone change (I'm a pro at that), irregular rhythm and the likes ?

That'd be a really interesting challenge to have to keep your speech in a fast paced yet balanced and clutter free fashion.

Things that help me with public speaking when I don't wanna:

1) Extra sleep (a nap an hour before the speaking opportunity kicks in just like medication)

2) Extra preparation (50% more material than I can address in the time allotted)

3) A conversation about any nervousness with my wife (but any close friend ought to work)

4) Calming music just before the event.

(BTW, all of the above would even apply to a simple bike ride, for someone with real social anxiety)

My dad used to give public speeches about two to three times each month. People were continually inviting him to speak more about his areas of interest. I asked him how he got over his nervousness. He said that the best way is to get yourself in a position where you have to get up and do it over and over again. That made me laugh. If you have to start in front of a class rather than a "real" audience, maybe that's more comfortable, but either way you've got to accumulate the experience.

Aw man, a nap right before speaking would screw me up so bad. Not even as in nervousness, but as in I'd stumble over my words and overall just do terrible. My brain just doesn't work right when I first wake up.

But your dad's right. I used to hate public speaking. One of the worst and best experiences of my life was spending a summer selling insurance door-to-door, where you have to make yourself do it or else you don't make money. It's really all just practice and getting used to it.

I say just man (or woman) up and accept the fact that you are nervous. After a few packed conference rooms or board rooms you'll find it gets easier. Skip the drugs.

It's valuable to realize why you are nervous.

If you were asked to get up in front of 200 people and stand there silently for 10 minutes you wouldn't think twice about it. You're nervous because you're trying to accomplish something: secure investment, win new business, impress people, etc. You're nervous because feedback is (often) immediate and you can be challenged directly. You're nervous because you're not completely comfortable with the subject matter.

You can deal with those things. Learn to (intelligently) say "I don't know but I'll get back to you". Learn to deal with rejection. Learn to not take yourself so seriously and make a joke if you screw up.

> I say just man (or woman) up and accept the fact that you are nervous. […] It's valuable to realize why you are nervous.

I can realise that I'm being nervous without it getting crippling (literally, with shakes and cold sweat). Which is what currently occurs because following a medical reaction a few years ago my body has apparently discovered the underpants gnome strategy of handling stress:

1. somewhat stressful situation

2. flood the whole system with adrenaline

3. ???

4. profit

> You're nervous because feedback is (often) immediate and you can be challenged directly. You're nervous because you're not completely comfortable with the subject matter.

Well you've got today's prize for the most condescending and least correct statement at least. Bravo, I guess.

That was the royal "you" and wasn't meant to be condescending. It used to scare the shit out of me as well.

The point I was making is that talking or being in front of a group of people aren't terrifying by themselves. You're likely to be worried about being judged in some unfavorable way. Don't be. Shit happens. Just get through it -- without drugs or Jedi mind tricks -- and you're realize it wasn't that big of a deal. Do it a few times and you'll be a natural.

I get where you're coming from, but what you don't understand is that phobias are not rational. They can't be reasoned away. If you've ever had one, you'd know.

Scared of heights? Man up and go bungee jumping. Agoraphobic? Just spend an hour locked in a box. Depressed? Man up and feel better...

During the few years in which I was stuck in a stage-fright mindset, I learned that phobias work in the unconscious mind. You can know your content well, you can tell yourself there is nothing to worry about, you can prepare perfectly... and you can still be overcome with adrenaline that can cause you to freeze up, shake, and get sweaty.

In a sense, you are right, the way to get over it is by facing it and doing it. However, you have to face it in a controlled, safe, incremental way, otherwise you run the risk of making the phobia worse.

Practicing is VERY under-rated. If I've practiced a speech 4 times, I've nailed it. Practicing with people who are willing to call me out on "Ummms" is great too. Having a hostile practice audience works wonders. It is painful to watch an unprepared speech or demo.

Be VERY careful on alcohol. The downside is enormous. Appearing drunk at a formal speech is a career killer. Even if you have only 1 beer, if someone sees you drinking and then sees you make a mistake, it could be a career killer too.

I'd add teaching. Nostromo is right that you calm down quickly after you start speaking, but the problem is most people only have experience of talking for a brief time. 2-5 min talks in front of the class at school is a common experience.

However if you teach a class for an hour or more, that period of nervousness is comparatively short and you quickly learn to be comfortable in front of others.

I support teaching as a great way to get comfortable with public speaking, and adapting to varied characters in a room. Holding people's attention, and actually making sure everyone grasps key concepts, for 1-2 hours, is not easy. Reacting and interacting with everyone at the same time is tough but, for me, very fun.

A second great way to improve was taught to me on a training course run by an acting school. Standing in a room, delivering an unprepared children's story to no one but to a full sized TV camera. Unexpectedly horrifying. A large lens does not react, does not smile, laugh or frown. After the first take, an actor would return to the room and we'd run over the video. It took a couple of days to get to something acceptable.

I highly recommend both methods.

You're advising medication mixed with alcohol to help people speak better in front of a crowd??

Isn't that how everyone prepares to give a presentation? I thought it was standard operating procedure.

LOL.

You don't have to mix them. In the past I have used alcohol alone to help with public speaking.

It doesn't take much for me, 1-1.5 beers is all it takes to stop the jitters if I have an under-prepared presentation to give. Not enough to even call tipsy (best to avoid that, for obvious reasons).

For the reference, Michael Bay comment about the incident is here: http://michaelbay.com/2014/01/06/ces/

Beta blockers really helped me when I started consulting and started having to pitch to a room full of people. I was very nervous and used to go red, get shaky and my voice would be unsteady. I went to the doctor and got some and they really helped.

I stopped taking them after about a year and have now found that I get much better feedback and higher likelihood of having bids accepted without! I think it's something to do with passion coming across a bit more without them.

I must say they really helped to start and helped me get the experience of pitching without feeling too out of control. It might also be that I get better feedback without them now as I've had more pitching experience but I do feel the adrenaline flutter you get if you don't take beta blockers is useful - as long as it isn't overwhelming.

He's not saying take them together. He's just spitballing ideas. Lordy.

Betablockers are for those who want a quick emergency fix (not judging, they have been good help to me as well). A 20-50 minute aerobic workout has the same net effect for many (healthily burning adrenaline instead of using high blood pressure medication to reduce anxiety).

Be sure to check Dr. Medina's brain rules for presenters: http://www.slideshare.net/garr/brain-rules-for-presenters

but working out before something like a speech where you can be nervous and have an elevated body temp is a bad idea because you will be much more prone to sweating. i've experienced this and it is terrible.

There's a very interesting TED talk related to this, by Amy Cuddy (title: Your body language shapes who you are) - http://on.ted.com/Cuddy

Basically you can manipulate yourself into being calm by taking on a relaxed and confident body language. Sitting up, stretching out, taking in a lot of space, ..

I tried this several times and it does help, of course it doesn't make your stress vanish entirely.

One thing that's extremely helpful is to care as little as possible about the opinions of other people. What do they matter, anyway?

I'm half joking, but not caring what people think really does let me be calm in public speaking. There's no reason to be nervous if the only possible negative consequence is a bad opinion you don't care about anyway.

Of course, this isn't something you can just turn on like a switch....

I did the drinking thing a couple of times. Once when making a pitch to an investor I stopped at a bar first for a quick beer. It worked. The other time I had to present in my non-native language (French). Stopped in the hotel bar for a glass of wine. That worked two. I've always been told I am more articulate when tipsy. Of course when I am too tipsy I speak in a Scottish accent for some reason.

About the Oculus Rift app, I saw some years ago a documentary about phobias, where some investigators used a VR headset to treat height phobia for example.

It was really primitive (doesn't had head motion sensors and the 3d rendering was nothing realistic) but they said it had positive effects.

These are more suggestions for anxiety than they are for public speaking. Reducing anxiety is just one (common but not ubiquitous) issue, and there are 100 other things that people work on to improve their public speaking- like storytelling, building rapport, body language etc.

About the app, these guys do something like that - http://cyberpsyc.com/

> Ask HN: I was thinking the other day, someone should make an Oculus Rift app that is just a giant conference room of people staring at you. People with stage fright could use this to practice public speaking and hopefully improve.

This is a brilliant idea.

Other interesting tips & phenomena from my small amount of experience:

- No one cares if you fuck up, seriously! A bit of self deprecating humor goes a long way here. "Ha-ha! I'm so terrible at this!" or even a more sincere "I'm terrified of public speaking so I forgot what I was going to say next!" usually elicits a laugh and sympathy. No one is natural at this, and most people don't practice it at all, and they don't want to. They get it.

- Following that, the only notes you should have are "checkpoints" as I like to call them. A 3 or 4 word phrase about what you're going to talk about in the next 30 seconds. If you forget, you fall back to the checkpoint, realize what you were talking about, keep going. An outline, if you will. Don't ever have "notes" that have exact wording in them. No! Disallow yourself to memorize wording, because that's how you lock up and forget. Instead, make sure you can explain each checkpoint yourself, to a friend. The wording will be different each time, and that's fine. You want that. It makes it more organic and gets you out of robot-recital-mode and puts you in ad-lib-i'm-good-at-this mode.

- While you're presenting, it feels like you're in warp speed. Things are happening so fast, and you're responding to them so fast. I suspect it's the adrenaline. Once in a while, you forget what you were going to say, or you think you're spending too much time thinking about an answer. Then you watch yourself on video and you realise it was only 2 seconds.

Even Michael Bay could have recovered from that by saying "wow, major brain fart!", and people would be commenting on how sincere he is. And if he hadn't memorized some impressive sounding bollocks word for word, and instead had a message to convey, he'd recover from that soon after.

If it's not just the presentation heebie-jeebies and you think you legitimately have crippling social / performance anxiety, you should try one of the many great programs out there that help you with that. In the Boston area, MGH has an entire center dedicated for that, I believe.

These basically help you develop those skills in a safe sandbox, until you get better and more confident, and let you go step by step.

There is no reason you can't try the same approach, if you think you can do it. Present at a small 10 person user group for your favorite obscure programming tool that you're passionate about. If there isn't one, start one! That way you can't avoid public speaking, and you know you're in good company.

Finally, re: Q&A: If you don't know the answer, say that you don't know! If you are thinking, think out loud so it's not boring and awkward for the audience. Both of these I see in tech presentations a lot.

also, prepare for cotton mouth. it's really hard to talk when your mouth is completely dry.

Awful advice.

The best thing to do IMO is to avoid eye contact if you are nervous. Look at foreheads.