Navigating Stress Before Presenting: 5 Takeaways from Presenting at a 1-day Retreat

I. LOVE. Food. I KNOW nutrition and I KNOW stress. Me and stress, we go way back. I have seen, visited, toured through, and lived in every stop along the way in Stressopolis. For a while there, I think I may have even been Mayor. One of the biggest learnings I’ve taken with me from allll of my nutrition education and applied to my life (and my clients’) is that stress is a spectrum: The opposite of chronic stress is NOT no stress. There is a certain amount of good stress (eustress) that we need to thrive. Finding the balance that’s optimal and unique to each of us is the real feat.

I knew this long before I started down the nutrition path. I thrive in a certain amount of chaos. If given two tasks—one easy and the other a little challenging—I will do better with the challenge than the easy one. I’ve seen this as an actual test result during cognition testing. It’s also how I know that between speed and precision, I choose precision … I’d rather do it accurately, than do it fast. What that says about me? We’ll save that for another article.

Before I could start to understand the impact and influence nutrition has on the body, I had to understand the systems and processes of the body. Having spent a great deal of my corporate career working with stressed out people in high-stress environments, and having been immersed in it myself, the mechanisms of stress and its far-reaching impacts on the body fascinated me from the start. The more I learned about the mechanisms of stress and the more I understood the biochemical impacts and changes to the body, the more I wanted to learn.

Impacts to

thyroid hormones ✅ … tell me more

reproductive hormones ✅ yup, seen it—in so many clients

neurotransmitters and mental health ✅ … goes without saying

sleep ✅ … who hasn’t been there?

gastrointestinal effects ✅

cardiovascular ✅

And the list goes on and on ….

This slide drives the point home.

This past Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of leading a session at a one day retreat with my podcast co-host Mike Krause, friend of the podcast Chelsea Totah, and the RebuildU by MFactor Meetings team. I created that slide above as part of my session addressing how to use food as a way to improve or enhance wellbeing. There was a lot of focus on stress and the role of neurotransmitters and hormones. (As an aside: I don’t love the term “biohack,” but it drove home a certain point.)

Getting to speak to a group of engaged attendees and nerd out on how food IS function—how it provides data and instructions to the body and how we can use it to influence (not control) the body’s response to stress—was a joy. When I made the decision to step away from the traditional corporate space, it came with a lot of uncertainty and fear (which, again, will be a whole different article). This was a moment where all the knowledge I’ve accumulated and all of the passion that I have for food, nutrition and stress got to come together. And, my session dove-tailed perfectly into Mike’s session on mindset—it’s funny how often that happens.

I have presented on various topics hundreds, if not thousands, of times to audiences of all sizes over my 20+ years in the corporate space, but this session was special: It was my first as a Doctor of Clinical Nutrition.

With that first came excitement, of course, but also some nervousness, some self-doubt, needing to balance wanting to share a lot of great info and data with not overwhelming attendees, wanting to make sure I provide new information and value, telling a compelling story, and hopefully not just bore attendees. I think my assistant, Franklin, the poseable skeleton in the main image, helped with that—at least in helping to provide a visual for my primer on digestion.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. To some extent, it was the same as it always was: Preparation and more preparation. I don’t like relying on notes, and I really don’t like when speakers simply read slides, that drives me nuts. So, I spent time rehearsing. See below ⬇️ for some prep tips and my takeaways.

I felt some of the common stress responses start about 45 minutes before my session—sweaty palms, butterflies in my stomach, racing mind. But, lucky for me, I was able to sit in on the beginning of Chelsea’s yoga class, and I got to center myself, slow my breathing, visualize my desired outcome, and just get grounded. I was able to maintain that feeling by finding various areas of the property to sit and enjoy the nature, listen to the soothing sounds of water, and stay off my phone (and away from content that could pull me back into a sympathetic nervous system state).

And, when it came down to it, my unique stress response came through like it always does: I’m usually nervous leading up to the BIG thing, then there’s a moment when all of that falls away, and I get simultaneously really calm and PUMPED and feel the thrill of the moment. Epinephrine has its benefits 😉. My ballet instructor wonders if this comes from years of performing ... sounds like a solid hypothesis to me.

Key Takeaways and Learnings

1. Channel your inner Soloist

This analogy leans into my previous life as a dancer, so bear with me. When you’re on a stage all alone and it’s just you and the choreography, the audience doesn’t know what your performance is, so don’t feel like you're bound to what you’ve rehearsed (so not what a choreographer wants to hear!). If you flub something, roll with it, instead of calling it out; they won’t likely know or realize it didn’t go the way you planned.

2. Pivot and adapt in real time to your audience's needs

Often we go into a presentation or speaking engagement with a perspective of who we think our audience may be. The message you come with, the level of detail you have, or the number of slides you have, simply may not be a fit. I didn’t get through all of the slides, we never quite made it to the putting-the-knowledge-to-action slides, but that was absolutely okay, especially because the reason we didn’t get there was that I had a lot of really good questions from attendees along the way. Having their engagement with questions and discussions was far better than needing to plow through to the activities at the end.

3. Know your content, not just your subject matter

Being able to pivot and adapt on-the-fly comes from knowing your content—as you’ve put it together for the presentation—not just the subject matter. Letting things evolve organically is different from just winging it; most people are not as good at winging it as they want to be. To get to this space, I like to review and rehearse my presentation out of slide/topic order. This helps me not get tripped up if something goes sideways:

• I’ll start my presentation at a random spot

• I’ll start and then skip ahead a few slides

• I’ll choose one slide randomly and speak out loud to it

4. Speak it out loud and hear yourself say it

Sometimes things sound GREAT in my head, and then sound rough when I say it out loud. A good rule of thumb: If you’re tripping over your words when you review it out loud, find another way to say it. Sometimes changing sentence structure, cadence, or timing just makes things flow a little easier. You want no barriers to making it as easy on yourself as possible.

5. Get some mental distance

Take some time to get some distance away from your presentation before you go “on.” I try not to do any last minute cramming right before I present. There is such a thing as being over-prepared … at some point it’s just diminishing returns, if it just serves to get you caught up in your head. I’ll review the night before, but stop early enough to have some wind-down time and get good sleep. I might take a look in the morning, but then I give myself (and the diffuse part of the brain/memory) time to settle in. I take time to do the things I need to feel grounded; sometimes that’s doing some breathing or meditation, sometimes it’s taking a really hard run before showering and getting ready.

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Originally posted as a LinkedIn Article on October 23, 2024.