Melbourne

My late bloke was an excellent after dinner speaker, but got horribly nervous beforehand. To the point of vomiting with nerves. He eventually figured out how to manage his anxiety by playing cats cradle while he was waiting to be introduced to the audience. The simple repetition of the hand movements helped him through those awful minutes before he started to speak. He was fine once he got going. Zillions of vidjos on youtube on how to do it. He liked doing the apache door more than the eiffel tower or witches broom one as it was more complex and required more attention. And the evidence could be stowed in a pocket quickly when he stepped up to perform. Pre-performance anxiety is very real and can be very debilitating, but tends to evaporate once the performance starts. Hope this helps a bit.

You're nervous because you know you are good and don't want to disappoint. And you're nervous because you're doing a good thing that you want to do. So being nervous isn't such a bad thing. The adrenaline helps with performance too.

So many hugs. You can do this. We're so proud of you. 🌞😘🌞😘🌞

I like to get there early so I have time for a last stress poo. Acute stress goes to my bowels, sorry. And to check out the venue and stuff.

Also you can overheat a bit when you're in a stressful situation, and that feeling of being too hot makes the stress worse. If you can lose a layer or two it can help.

You'll be awesome.