I've tried to follow the "One arm behind my back" adage when working around dangerous voltages, and I'm still around, so I guess it works. I don't think I've ever gotten a shock through my chest, but I've had some pretty good ones through one hand.
The "shock" I've never forgotten was received when I was doing TV repair as a kid and was schlepping a 19" B&W TV chassis down a flight of stairs from a customer's second floor apartment. I'd forgotten to discharge the multi KV high voltage stored in the capacitance of the CRT. Somehow, part of me got zapped by that voltage and the chassis flew out of my arms and down the stairs, with the CRT imploding en route. The boss had to buy the customer a new TV, and after that experience I always treated CRTs like they were running chainsaws.
But, I started playing with electricity back in the era when electronics were all vacuum toob stuff, where ac and dc voltages in the 150 to 1000 volt range abounded. Things got quite a bit "safer" when solid state circuits took over. Nowadays sticking your fingers into "live" stuff is more likely to damage the equipment (through static electric discharges) than hurt you.
Thanks for the mammaries...
Jeff