Comment by Morgawr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Morgawr | Hacker News Reader

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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

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.

> 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.

Sweet I thought I was the only metalhead on HN.

I think there are plenty here.

Yep. Some of us are lurkers.

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