It’s the tryptophan that does the trick - it’s an essential amino acid/precusor to seratonin, and has been found useful as a sleeping aid, as well as being touted as an effective anti-depressant. As well as bananas it’s present in oats, dried dates, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, red meat, eggs, fish, poultry, sesame, chickpeas, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, spirulina, peanuts and …. chocolate.

Recently (at one of our public presentation skills courses) a nutritionist who attended suggested it was particularly useful to eat a banana because a] there was lots of carbohydrate energy and b] it contained the precursors to seratonin (the feel-good hormone).

By blowing on a banana, you get control of your diaphragm, which helps calm you.

Don’t have a banana to blow? Relax, and blow your own thumb. Same result, more portable, and much less ridiculous.

Don’t have thumbs? Here’s an even less ridiculous option:

Just take a deep breath, man.

No bananas necessary!

(Stop laughing. This is serious! And by all means, don’t hyperventilate. And don’t blow your banana on stage!)