[nostromo]

"There’s one mistake I consistently see made by speakers both novice and experienced: they’re not excited about their talk."

I'm a nervous presenter. The way I used to combat this was with a poker face. No smiles, no laughing, no gestures, monotone voice... I'd do anything not to clue them in to my nervousness.

This is a flawed approach for me. People are very forgiving of humanizing nerves and foibles. People aren't so forgiving of boring, monotone talks.

What I try to do now, with some success, is to embrace (not suppress) the nervous energy. To 'feel' the same way I do before a challenging ski slope. I'm in my 30s and I don't get adrenaline spikes very often like I did in my 20s (like say, when flirting with someone new that I really like). So I'm teaching myself to seek out places to present, so I can get and enjoy that intense energy spike.

Adrenaline is the best, cheapest, healthiest, and most legal drug available to you; don't shy away from it. And give some of that energy back to your audience.

[esrauch]

This is a bit off topic, but according to wikipedia; "Adverse reactions to adrenaline include palpitations, tachycardia, arrhythmia, anxiety, headache, tremor, hypertension, and acute pulmonary edema."

I've always thought that a true straight-edge person wouldn't deliberately trigger adrenaline releases. The fact that your body produces it given a particular stimulus doesn't seem to really be relevant to the "goodness" of the substance. If your body produced cocaine when you get in a mosh pit is that different than just taking cocaine?

[corin_]

Adrenaline doesn't have any long-term health risks, unlike cocaine. If cocaine was safe in the long run, and I found that I didn't get negative side-effects and it helped me do <x>, I'm not sure what the downside would be in me using cocaine.

When I used to be a singer I personally found adrenaline would only come with more important performances (bigger concerts, live radio), never with smaller concerts on recording sessions - I never experienced any downsides, and it helped me do better. If I could have found a way to get an adrenaline rush all the time, I definitely would have grabbed it with both hands.

edit: Given the topic of this actual thread, an interesting side-note is that despite never having problems with music, I'm pretty terrible at public speaking.