Social anxiety can be described as a fear of interacting with other people due to an overly self-conscious mindset, one that is rooted in a insecurity of being negatively judged by others.

As a yoga teacher with a background in psychology, I’m going to combine my knowledge on these two areas to provide you with the four methods below.

Breathe properly

When you’re starting to feel antsy, and your heart rate and body temperature goes up, if you take this moment to reflect on your breathing pattern, you’ll notice that your breathe has become short and erratic, you’ve developed this quick “in & out rhythm”. What happens here, is that your rapid breathing pattern is sending signals to your body that you’re in a “fight or flight” situation and your body is responding by producing stress hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline. This amps your heart rate and body temperature up! So what happens when you breathe slowly and deeply? The exact opposite – you dampen your body’s production of stress hormones AND you relax your nervous system. Think of it this way, your breath influences your physiology, which in turn influences your emotions, so control your breathing!

If you’d like to understand more on how breath influences physiology and what kind of breathing exercises you could practice, click the link here “Dealing With Anxiety Through Meditation”.

Focus your attention on the other person

When people get nervous in social situations, their attention is directed inwards – towards themselves and how they are being perceived. What does this demonstrate? That’s social anxiety is a form of self-absorption! You become so enamored with your feelings of self consciousness that you’re no longer mentally present in the moment, your attention is on yourself – not the other person (or people).
If you’re not mentally present in the social interaction, then you cannot properly contribute to the discussion. You simply won’t be in sync with the theme of the chat.

So listen intently, to what the other person is saying. Look at how they communicate with their body language and facial expressions. Become consumed in what they’re saying, because once your attention is shifted away from your own self-conscious thoughts, towards the other person, your mind won’t get the chance to indulge in its anxious thinking.

Stand up straight and make eye contact

Don’t stand in a way that makes you look and feel weak. How you carry yourself – your body language has a strong influence on your hormone levels, which again affects your mood. Standing in a typical alpha male stance (see below) causes your body to produce testosterone, which in turn impacts your confidence levels whilst dampening your body’s production of stress hormones. Confident body language also influences your body’s levels of serotonin, a hormone that regulates positive emotion (serotonin levels are high in naturally dominant personality types).

Standing or sitting in a way that makes you look small, whilst avoiding eye contact conveys weakness. Think of it this way, you don’t want to communicate your insecurities via your body language, so make the conscious effort to stand/sit up straight and make proper eye contact.

Adopt a “care less” attitude

Probably the hardest yet most effective method of tackling social anxiety. If you’re not self conscious of what other people think of you in a social interaction, what is the likelihood of you getting nervous in the first place? This doesn’t mean you stop caring completely about how you conduct yourself in social situations, you can still want to improve your social skills yet hold a level of detachment to how people perceive you. There will always be people out there that take a disliking or disinterest towards you, even when you present yourself in your best form, so don’t take every knock back personally. Develop thicker skin, and just think “fuck it”. Identify where you might have gone wrong and improve yourself in that area with practice. Don’t get caught up in how you wish something went, you can’t change that – you can only try and improve your character through trial and error.

Summary

The best way to overcome social anxiety is to practice socially interacting, practice it to the point you gradually become desensitized to the act. Reflect on what frightens you the most, whether it’s large group settings, speaking to someone you’re attracted to or the opposite sex – then expose yourself to those scenarios repeatedly, practicing the methods above (this is how your character grows). However much that idea frightens you, the short term consequences of feeling awkward certainly out weigh the long term consequences of growing old with poor social skills. The older you get, the less cute it gets – that’s the harsh truth of it. Trying to ween out social anxiety from your personality will be one of the most rewarding things you can do, because it’s not a characteristic that is going to enhance your life in anyway.

Practice makes perfect, so try and have fun whilst you practice. You’re not going to bash out an ingrained behavior overnight. Keep pushing forward nonetheless!