social anxiety please help me

Best stuff I ever read on this was by Albert Ellis.

 

Something that has helped me a lot in regards to feeling anxious is I will take an interest in other people. I find that when I'm feeling nervous or self-conscious, afraid, whatever it may be, it's because I'm too focused on myself. What do they think of me? How should I be? What should I say? Am I being cool? These thoughts all have one thing in common, they're thoughts about me! Shift the focus, think about other people in a way that doesn't come across as you wanting something from them. Ask them a question without placing any significance on their answer. Be completely indifferent to the way they respond. Don't be arrogant about it. Just feel good about the fact that you actually did something, as opposed to just thinking about doing something and not doing anything. Don't place expectations on the way they respond, just enjoy being around others. It's not all about you!

 

Exercise. The military like to make people run a lot (I overtake them sometimes on runs in the hills), speak to your PT guy about some beast run/bodyweight workouts. When I did my first sub 30 5k, I felt superhuman (in a good way, slowed down in the last mile to pace someone to the finish line - could have been 30s quicker).

Diet. Cook well, cook healthy, cook tasty. Cook for other people. Your body deserves it.

Appearance. Spruce yourself up a bit. Haircut's probably not going be an issue. But a freshly ironed shirt beats a tatty T shirt hands down in feelgood factor. When you're feeling good in yourself, negative thoughts about the way other people might view you ease off a bit.

Some people would say read this book or that book - I'd say try different, constructive, positive things in all areas of your life, do try things that scare you a little because you're not sure you can do them, and write your own book. Be interested to read it.

 

There is only one medicine for this. A medicine that I took and my anxiety disappeared. It works regardless of whether you are theist or atheist blah blah.
And its called meditation. Its addictive. The bliss you get from it is ever increasing.

What I need you to do is close your eyes and just be a witness and take calm controlled easy breaths. When I say be a witness, I mean be a witness to your thoughts and body. A watcher on the hills.
You are not your body. You are not your mind.
And once you get a taste of this new dimension inside you, it ll increase exponentially and you ll find thoughts to be just mood clouds and the physical urges manifesting on your body just something that happens to your body.
No matter how old you grow, your witnessing is forever young eternal and fresh.
Its probably uncomfortable at first and you ll get repetitive thoughts and weird thoughts but just be a witness and nothing else. Slowly you ll find yourself meditative in your everyday activities.
Try it. Be a watcher. DONT JUDGE or make judgements. None of that shit. Whatever the clouds of thoughts are, they ll quickly disappear.
I have cured my entire anxiety by meditation and all I ask you is to be regular.
You can be meditative while dancing singing writing driving etc.

 

People will tell you the goal of meditation is to be thoughtless and focus on breath and acknowledge thoughts.
My approach is be a witness and the thoughts will disappear and then calmly focus on breath.
And the most important thing is to be playful about meditation.
Seriousness is a disease of the soul.
Meditation is a very simple miraculous drug and it gets me high and intoxicated for the whole day on life but my suggestion is to expect nothing from it.
Try it buddy you will thank me for the rest of your life

 

Persian do you drink Caffeine? I found that Caffeine was a HUGE reason why I had social anxiety. I am now much better w/o it.

 

Persian,,, a way to overcome the fear of social interaction is to start slowly exposing yourself in social life. One step at a time. You do not have to force it in a great level. Start by doing something small to reach something big. Spend as much time as you can away from your PC. The less "click" the better it is. Some things that work for me is exercise, relaxing techniques, meditation. It is not bad to watch some TV. It is important to talk and ask for help because social anxiety is not only a P issue. See a therapist if you can afford it. You do not have anything to lose. Anyway good luck out there. i hope to help you.

 

Try eating every 3 hours with a good mix of proteins / fats / carbs each meal. This helped my anxiety greatly through regulating blood sugar levels I believe. Also exercise and quit caffeine as has already been mentioned. Meditation would be cool too but I have not had much success with it, I think my mind is too scattered.

 

I'm 42, and to my experience, the only thing that really helps is PRACTISING.

So expose yourself as often as possible.

Also, try to change your general attitude. Don't only "answer" and "follow", be someone who "asks" and "demands". In a hall with 1000 students, loudly yell a question!
Be more "pushy" in general. Learn to be a leader, make suggestions, go forward.

As for stage fright (I'm a musician myself): the stage fright comes from a fear of failures; you are a perfectionist and your are fearing criticism. Try to change your attitude. Practise a lot, but on stage, concentrate on the SOUND you want to create.
Forget about mistakes. Most people won't hear them, or if they appear - when the sound is great, people will ignore the mistakes. Yoiur audience want a GREAT PERFORMANCE, GREAT SOUND.


I once saw a nice performance of a student violinist, she played her own composition. It was very nice. Great sound, which is not that common on the violin. On the violin, sound is everything, and she was able to create that sound. Suddenly, she stops and says "failure!" -- that was totally unnecessary!! Nobody would have mentioned that, because it was her own composition anyway, but it destroyed the whole athmosphere. So from that I learned a lot.

Better to appear self-assured and play with energy. If you make "mistakes", then play them also with energy, like you "wanted" it that way.

I even found that stage fright can even give you an extreme positive boost, so try to give it a positive twist.