10 Simple Ways to Beat Social Anxiety

Does being in social situations make you feel nervous and uncomfortable?

Is your social anxiety holding you back from living your best life?

Your brain has distorted thinking habits that are causing your social anxiety. Those brain habits can be changed.

Here’s what you can do:

Intentional deep breathing

Slow, deliberate “belly” breathing will help your body’s nervous system calm down. Either with your eyes closed or open and focusing on a specific spot, feel your breath as you inhale deeply and exhale slowly.

It’s best if you extend your exhale twice as long as your inhale, to reduce your heart rate and blood pressure. For instance, inhale for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, and then exhale for eight seconds. This 4–7–8 breathing technique is a quick way to help you calm down.

Sensory regulation

When feeling anxious, it’s best to attune to the needs of the sensory part of your brain processing your anxiety. Calming your senses through music. aroma, pleasant imagery, warm soft touch and more will help ease your anxious brain.

You can listen to some calming music, rub your hands with lotion, chew gum, enjoy the aroma of essential oils, or drink cold water and your brain will be calmed by the sensory attention.

Counter automatic negative thoughts with evidence

Anxiety can overwhelm your thoughts in a split second and magnify into panic and terror. You need to counter your distorted thoughts with actual factual evidence to use your thinking brain to overcome your emotionally-hijacked brain.

Once your thoughts start to become distorted and fear-based, you can factually recite to yourself what you actually see, hear or are experiencing to take control of the negative thoughts before they magnify into more anxiety.

Reframe thinking with positive self talk

Try forming simple “mantras,” that you can easily remember and recall when feeling stressed. These simple phrases (“I can handle this” or “I am in control of this,” as examples) should be specific to your in the moment challenge. Those short and powerful phrases can reframe and redirect your thoughts from becoming more toxic.

Practice gratitude

Practicing gratitude will energize and electrify the parts of your brain that will help you have more positive regard and focus, reducing your anxiety. Find one or two things and one or two people to be grateful for.

Gratitude is paying attention to what you have rather than focusing on what you don’t have. Gratitude is more than being thankful. It also includes deeper understanding, respect, and appreciation for someone or something.

Become more mindful of staying in the moment

Mindfulness is a key tool in beating your social anxiety. It’s vital to not allow your automatic negative thoughts to take over and control your emotions in the moment. By being mindful, your thoughts won’t ruminate and sour your emotions.

Practicing mindfulness will help you train your brain to be in the moment, which is usually safer for you than anxious thoughts of past or future. Get “Mindfulness in 7 Easy Steps” here.

Daily Journaling

Expressing your thoughts and feelings through daily journaling can be a powerful tool to beat your social anxiety. Whether it’s sentences, phrases, pictures or doodling, free-form journaling can help you process through what may be making you feel anxious.

Journaling empowers you and gives you a sense of control to work out your anxious feelings. It will help you track and notice triggering emotions and provide you the power to process through some problem-solving strategies.

Yoga and progressive muscle relaxation

Anxious thoughts will cause tension in your body. Any type of movement or stretching will help release tension and bathe your brain in pleasurable neurochemicals. Yoga and progressive muscle relaxation can increase your mind-body awareness and reduce your anxiety.

You can develop a sequence of steps to tighten and then relax different muscle groups in your body. You will become more aware of your tension, learn how to let go of it, and to recognize what it feels like for you to be relaxed.

Develop a personal stress plan

Having some pre-planned in-the-moment strategies for when you feel your thoughts becoming anxious can help you quickly get to a calmer place in your brain. Your personal stress plan can include breathing and other sensory regulation, as well as more active strategies like drinking cold water or chewing gum.

Start small to help with success

Your social anxiety is probably based on distorted thinking from your emotional brain and you can help change your paradigm by starting with small challenges in social situations. Your brain has habits and it will take consistent positive focus to change into new thinking patterns. Starting small will help change your brain habits. You can build up to bigger social activities as you get more comfortable.

Get your FREE Personal Stress Plan here.

Change your stress, change your life. Begin with your FREE Daily Stress Log.

Brain Strength Coach Marty Wolner is a certified and licensed stress and trauma educator, peak performance specialist, and executive coach, empowering those who want to manage their stress more effectively.

Change your stress, change your life! Let’s talk — Marty@mybrain.tools

Originally published at http://www.mybrain.tools on October 15, 2020.