TwitchCon: A gamers guide to handling Stress and Anxiety in a Crowd

When you are a streamer or gamer and spend most your time with friends online, it can be a little overwhelming entering a huge social gathering like twitch-con. You may be so excited about meeting your twitch community irl, but you may also find yourself getting stressed, overwhelmed or anxious. I was feeling anxious myself and worried about how I was going to fit everything in so I came up with these tips. I hope they help you because they are helping me .

Twitch con anxiety tips:

1. Most important is having the right mindset: you are here first and foremost to make friends and enjoy yourself. Yes, you are here for building relationships and learning what new things are coming to streaming. You are here to learn. That’s good! But you also may be feeling too much pressure to do EVERYTHING ! Tell yourself it’s OK to miss some things. Choose just 3-5 things that are absolutely necessary to attend and then tell yourself if you don’t get to the rest it’s ok. I promise nothing here is going to be the one thing that makes or breaks your streaming career. Many things will help, but if you miss something your stream will remain the same. If you can’t get to that event your community wanted to see you at, it’s ok. They’ll still love you. 
2. Practice deep breathing. Do this while walking the crowds, while in line or even on the toilet! (4 breaths in 4 hold and 4 out OR try 4 in 4 hold 8 out) .
3. Take breaks - get to a quiet place (tip: twitchglitch theater mezzanine corner) . Sit and take 6 deep breaths. Listen to a calming song if you have headphones. If you don’t get some headphones from the “Get Paid to Play” streamgenie.tv booth #notsponsored
4. Live irl and take a social media break. Ironically I’m posting this on social media so I clearly need to take my own advice. But if you are trying to capture every picture, post everything to social and stay in touch with your twitch community while you are exploring crowds, you will get a brain overload and your gonna have a bad time. Give yourself at least 1 social media free hour where your phone is turned off and you aren’t allowed to do anything except live irl.
5. Take it easy on the free energy drinks. There are tons of tables offering free energy drinks and even energy gummies. Now usually I say if it’s free it’s me, but in this case SLOW DOWN! Those drinks are powerful! If you try a sample of every flavor from every booth and you haven’t eaten anything except the free popcorn from the #pearlabyss booth then your going to be bouncing off walls in an uncomfortable anxiety ridden way. 
6. Water & Mindfulness ritual. Instead of all the energy drinks look for water and make a little ritual . Everytime you take a drink of water you are going to stop time. Close your eyes , drink slowly, laser focus your mind on the feeling of refreshment you are getting from the water. If it’s that free water from #blackdesert then focus on the light notes of cucumber. Think of how grateful you are for this water and this moment.