How to Stop Being Socially Awkward and Weird?

 

CLICK HERE to Find Out How to Overcome Your Social Phobia

6 Ways to Stop Being Socially Awkward & Weird

Most people can’t define what makes someone socially awkward, weird or socially inept. But they can usually recognize it instantly. In other words, you know one when you see one.

However, what can be harder is analyzing yourself to figure out: “Am I socially awkward?”

That’s why I’ve written this article showing you 10 sure signs to watch out for. Then at the end you’ll learn what advice truly works (and what doesn’t) to overcome this problem.

By the way, even if you score a perfect 10/10, please don’t dig a hole in the ground to live in yet! You are not alone and there is plenty of hope for you!

The reason why I know all these signs so well is because I used to be the most socially awkward guy in the world. Now not only are my own social skills above average (heck, I have my own Youtube channel), but I’ve also helped thousands of people over the internet, and I can help you too.

10 Signs to Know If You Are Socially Awkward

1. Feeling nervous, uncomfortable or weird in social situations. How you feel on the inside usually comes out on the outside. They say the feeling of enthusiasm is contagious, well so is the feeling of awkwardness.

• Trying hard to avoid breaking all the social rules. Oh, and you don’t really know what most of them are, so you’d better be extra careful. Was there a class in school called Social Skills 101 that you missed out on?

• Feeling self-conscious of every little thing you do. This goes together with the whole idea of not wanting to break any social rules. Will people see you standing there alone? Did you dress too fancy for this party? Too casual?

• Not knowing the ‘right’ thing to say. Funny how you’re never at a loss for words when you talk to your closest friend. You only run out of things to say in uncomfortable situations like meeting new people or talking to someone you like.

• Being hesitant and timid. You hold yourself back from saying the comment that popped into your mind, or going to talk to that person. You wonder if it’s the right moment. Then you’ve waited too long and it’s too late. The conversation has moved on, or the person went to the bathroom.

• Bad conversational flow. When you do talk, your thoughts stumble out of your mouth sounding confused and disorganized.

• Saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Also known as putting your foot in your mouth, which Urban Dictionary defines as: “When one accidentally says something offensive or stupid.”

• When you say things people often ignore your comment or look at you funny. Worse, they roll their eyes at each other. When you’re socially awkward people may start treating you like a child, and not taking you seriously. They may even avoid you altogether and run off to talk to the confident popular people.

• You just know you’re doing something wrong to turn people off in social situations. The problem is you don’t know exactly what it is, or how to fix it! And last, but not least…

1. Constantly replaying that embarrassing moment or awkward silence in your head. As if burning the mistake into your memory is going to stop it from happening in the future.

Well that about sums it up. The more of these traits you have, the more socially awkward you are. 

What Advice DOESN’T Work for Social Awkwardness?

Before I get to my tips, first I need to quickly point out some very common advice you’ll read in articles online that basically never works. Usually this is advice written by people who have never actually struggled with poor conversation skills, low social confidence or a lack of friends. They’re just writing an article to make a few bucks on the side, without actually knowing what they’re talking about.

1. “Everybody Feels Awkward Sometimes!”

Similar to telling an obese person that “everyone overeats sometimes, even supermodels”… this doesn’t actually solve the problem of being awkward.

People who are only a bit awkward sometimes would NOT be reading an article like this one about it anyway. It’s people who are often very awkward and find it painful that seek out advice.

2. “People Aren’t Looking at You Anyways Silly!”

This advice really grinds my gears. The problem is that it sounds like it should help a socially awkward person, but in reality it doesn’t. Yes, it’s true that believing that other people are watching and judging you is part of your problem. But that doesn’t mean directly telling you to “just stop it” is gonna fix it.

It’s like telling a fat person to “just put down the fork dummy.” Without giving them any advice about overcoming an emotional addiction to eating, changing old habits or good nutrition.

So What Advice Does Work?

Okay, so now let’s get to the tips that can actually help you become less socially awkward.

1. “Tune” Your Social Skills

Have you ever heard someone play a guitar that was out of tune? It ain’t fun to listen to. An out-of-tune guitar can grate like nails on a chalkboard, so it’s important to adjust the strings regularly.

If a guitar isn’t tuned properly, then the guitar player can try all he wants to hit the right strings, but what actually comes out will always sound strange and weird.

This applies to your social skills as well.

Does it ever feel like you are trying hard to say the right thing but what you are saying is “off”? Maybe you tell a joke and nobody finds it funny. Or you make a comment that just doesn’t fit into the conversation so people ignore it.

The solution is to tune your social skills. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut here. You do this by simply talking to people more often. The best way to stop being weird is to push through the weirdness until you aren’t weird any more. (Try saying that ten times fast.)

I know this first tip is a bit obvious but so many people forget this foundation while they are looking for a “magic shortcut” to social skills.

The people who are the least “weird” and socially awkward are simply the ones who spend the most time talking to people. Think of the coolest, most outgoing person you’ve ever seen. Chances are, they spend hours a day talking to people.

When you spend a lot of time talking to people, you start to develop a feeling or intuition of what you should say next. You don’t even have to think about it, because you’ve done it for so long. The words just pop out of your mouth.

It’s like your first time playing a new video game or learning how to type. At first you felt awkward and slow doing it, but over time you become able to play automatically. It’s like your fingers move themselves. Muscle memory. This is how really social people talk. Their mouths move themselves based on the feelings they have in their body. That’s why they don’t have to think ahead to what they are going to say next in casual conversations, they just talk spontaneously.

Make sure you get out of the house regularly. Even a ‘normal’ person would probably feel a bit awkward stepping into a social situation if they’ve spent all day on the computer. If you are an introvert then you’ll need to make even more effort to be outgoing since you’re naturally comfortable being alone a lot.

You can also ‘tune’ your mind quickly by ‘warming up’ before challenging social situations. What do I mean? If you have to go to a party, date or interview later today, then do something simple beforehand like asking a couple strangers for directions to get your mind into more of a social flow.

And the second step to stop coming across as weird is to…

2. Treat People As Mirrors (aka Improve Your Own Self Esteem & Confidence)

The more I’ve overcome my own social anxiety, the more I’ve come to realize that people are basically mirrors. They are reflections of you. Let me explain…

Back when I always felt really anxious and tense around people, I found that they always became more cautious and defensive around me. This caused me to tense up even more because I felt rejected. It was a vicious cycle that made it difficult to get any close friends.

On the other hand, when I started to become more relaxed and comfortable around people internally, they opened up as well.

People are mirrors. However, you feel inside will be reflected back to you in how other people treat you.

This is why it’s so important to learn practical techniques (such as being very relaxed and deep breathing through your belly) for lowering your social anxiety when around people. 

If you’re feeling anxious, nervous, tense, insecure, depressed and sad inside while you’re talking to someone, they will feel it. They will actually feel your insecurity coming off of you and become repelled by it.

In fact, science has proved that people actually have “mirror neurons” in their brains that help them connect and relate to other people. This means that when you talk to someone, they will start to feel how you feel.

And if you feel negative and insecure about yourself, the other person will often feel like running away without them even knowing why. (Probably why people never ever came up to me in school to start conversations.)

You can’t feel bad inside and hope to “cover it up” somehow. You actually have to feel relaxed and at ease on the inside if you want to give off a good vibe. If you try to act happy and confident on the outside when you feel shitty, then people will sense that you’re putting on a false front, and this will make them think you’re weird.

3. Radiate Warmth and Positive Emotions

So if people are a mirror to you, then how can you change yourself? How can you change the emotions you feel inside so that other people aren’t automatically turned off? How can you actually stop feeling weird, uncomfortable, insecure, etc?

Well, I’m not a fan of so-called positive thinking and science has proven that affirmations are mostly bullshit.  However, there are some proven ways you can improve your overall mood even if you do often feel bad about yourself now.

I’ve recorded a video that goes into the detailed steps here:

To Make Anyone Like You, Do This

4. It’s Not What You Did That Matters, It’s How You Dealt with It

Everybody has awkward moments where they think:

“Did I really just say that?”

“Shit, nobody laughed at my joke.”

“Oh god I don’t know what to say next. I need to fill this silence somehow!”

The difference between socially awkward and socially confident people is NOT an absence of awkward moments. It’s just that the confident people do not call attention to the socially awkward moment either externally or internally, which allows it to pass and be forgotten quickly.

This means you need to stop the habit of dwelling on an awkward thing you may have said. Whether it happened 10 seconds, 10 days, 10 months or 10 years ago… the past is the past. There’s no way to change it. Life flows on.

The fact is, other people actually aren’t sitting around right now steaming about that time you accidentally insulted their country or their mother… well probably not.

5. Learn to Apologize and Empathize When You Make a Social Mistake

Socially awkward people are very careful to not violate any invisible social rules. We don’t really know what these rules are, but I think we believe that once we break a rule or say the wrong thing, we’re screwed. People won’t ever like us. Future job interviewers will laugh in our faces. We’ll all die virgins. And so on.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Paradoxically, being overly hesitant, timid and careful not to offend people is what makes you awkward and turns people off. So here’s how to fix this problem…

What do people do when they make a social mistake? They apologize and empathize. If you say something weird or offensive to someone you are not yet doomed. Just say “Oh sorry, that didn’t come out the way I intended!” and then change the subject to something else.

With experience you’ll learn that you can handle making the occasional mistake or faux pas. Which will give you more confidence. You’ll feel less scared about embarrassing yourself by saying something too boring, dumb or offensive.

Which will make you speak up more easily and more often. This doesn’t happen overnight — it’s a learning process.

6. Allow Yourself to Be Imperfect

If you are a guy that feels too scared of rejection to strike up a few conversations with cute girls walking down the street, in a bar or wherever, then here’s an interesting exercise I recommend:

Instead of trying to “do well”… see how badly you can mess up. See how socially awkward of a situation you can get into. Give yourself the challenge to embarrass yourself as spectacularly as possible.

I’ve done this exercise myself countless times, and so have many of my students. You know what happens? When someone no longer feels the pressure to “perform well” and is given permission to be awkward and embarrassed and then laugh about it… they actually do much better.

I’ve seen guys who used to be frozen in place at even the thought of talking to a cute girl, now walk over to her easily. Guys who could only say “Hi” to a girl in a shy and timid way now approach them with more boldness and confidence. Because they’re okay with looking bad. They don’t have to be so careful anymore.

Funny how that works, huh?

Watch this video – To Make Anyone Like You, Do This

Conclusion

If you follow these 6 steps, you will be well on your way to becoming a LOT less socially awkward. It’s not an overnight transformation, but trust me… it’s worth it.

You’ll be able to keep conversations going better, you’ll feel less scared before going into big groups of people, and best of all you’ll feel free to be YOU when you talk with people.

Leading to more connections. More friendships. More self-esteem.

You’re not alone in this.

I know you can do it.

P.S. If you want to read something funny, check this out: Anxiety Ridden Man Rightly Ashamed of Every Single Thing He Does

By Sean W Cooper, the author of The Shyness and Social Anxiety System, is an ex-sufferer from social anxiety and shyness. This program is a compilation of his research and effort in overcoming shyness and anxiety.

Sean W Cooper’s Shyness and Anxiety system is a step by step audio course broken down into modules that are easy to access. It teaches you ways to start overcoming your social anxiety and self-doubt. The system utilises cognitive behavioural therapy which explores how feelings and thoughts can drive behaviour. 

The Shyness and Social Anxiety system is endorsed by professionals and praised by psychologists due to the way it provides the relevant skills to manage issues of shyness and social anxiety.

To find out more, click on Get Over Shyness – How to be More Confident When Meeting Strangers

How to Get Over Shyness – The One Mistake Most Shy People Make

 

CLICK HERE to Find Out How to Overcome Your Social Phobia

Do you really want to know how to get rid of shyness? Are you prepared to forget everything you thought you knew about being less shy and replace it with the truth? Then read on.

The one biggest mistake I see shy people making is being controlled by their emotions. Nearly all shy people make this basic mistake.

If you avoid people who make you feel shy, then you are being controlled by your emotions.

If you avoid public speaking because it makes you feel anxious, you are being controlled by your emotions.

If you don’t do something just because it makes you feel nervous or afraid, then you are being controlled by your emotions.

I hate to repeat myself, but this is an absolutely essential point. In order to get over your shyness, you have to become less controlled by your emotions. This doesn’t mean to suppress your emotions, it simply means to act in spite of them. Mark Twain was the one who said “Courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of it.”

That is the ability you need to build if you want to overcome your shyness. You have to have the ability to act in spite of feeling a certain emotion. This means that if you feel afraid to do something, you do it anyway. Act in spite of fear.

• If you raise your hand in class even though it makes you nervous, you are acting in spite of fear.

• If you talk to people even though they make you feel shy, then you’re no longer being controlled by your emotions.

• If you talk to groups and make public presentations, then you are the one in charge now, not your fear.

Once you start acting in spite of fear, you will become more relaxed and easygoing in situations which used to make you nervous and shy. When you stop avoiding your fears, you allow your mind to desensitize to them. In psychology, this is also called habituation.

This approach is very common for therapists to use on someone with social anxiety. In cognitive-behavioral therapy, the “behavioral” part is acting in spite of fear. Of course, many shy people can’t or are not able to simply “face their fears.”

This is why changes to your thinking are also a necessary part of getting over shyness. That’s the cognitive part of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

“Am I Shy?”… These 4 Shyness Tests Will Show You

Are you not really sure if you are shy? Are you looking for an online shyness test or shyness quiz? Then you’ve come to the right place.

Here, I’ve found the top shyness tests online and reviewed them to see how effective they are. I found many quizzes online that were not accurate or just put up as a joke, so this post will save you a lot of time and effort when it comes to answering the question, “Am I shy?”

The first two tests were developed by people who have official credentials — licensed psychologists in the area of shyness. The third test has to do with love-shyness, a special form of extreme shyness that applies only to men around the opposite sex. The last one is a fun short quiz that I found happened to give weirdly accurate results.

1. The Henderson/Zimbardo Shyness Questionnaire

This test was developed in part by Philip Zimbardo, who has been a psychology professor at Stanford University and written several bestselling books on shyness.

http://www.shyness.com/qa2.html

2. Carducci Shyness Test

Bernardo Carducci is another psychology professor and Director of the Shyness Research Institute. He has written 3 books on shyness, including “Shyness: A Bold New Approach.”

http://tinyurl.com/m7vyme

3. The Gilmartin Love-Shyness Test

This test was developed by a famous author, Dr. Brian Gilmartin. Be warned, this test is only for guys to find if they have “love-shyness,” which is an extreme case of shyness around women.

http://www.okcupid.com/tests/the-gilmartin-love-shyness-test

4. Quiztron: Are You Shy? How Shy?

This quiz is short and fun. It’s not scientific, but for some reason it’s scarily accurate.

http://tinyurl.com/6ktahw2

For more tips to get over shyness, watch this video – 13 Things Confident People DON’T Do

Overcome Shyness – Two Easy Ways to Get Rid of Nervousness

 

CLICK HERE to Find Out How to Overcome Your Social Phobia

In our modern culture, everyone is focused on becoming more social, popular, and liked–since all of these personality traits come with many benefits. Extroverted people generally have more friends, fun and success than introverts. They also tend to suffer from loneliness and depression less.

Becoming more outgoing and social is about living life to the fullest, unafraid to express yourself or go after what you want in life. Since being extroverted has so many benefits to it, it makes sense to want to get rid of your shyness.

Getting your conversation skills up to speed is one quick and easy way to start becoming less introverted. In particular, you want to start becoming more impulsive in what you say.

While there are some situations, like job interviews, where you want to be very careful about what you say, in most you should focus on talking more often and more spontaneously. This is going to sound bad, but try not to think too much before you speak in informal social situations.

If you put too much effort into everything you say, you’ll come across as a try-hard. By being spontaneous and just letting the words flow, you become easy-going, which is what people like.

In some situation, you can probably already talk to people easily and spontaneously. It could be around your family, your niece or nephew, or talking to a close friend.

However, when around people you don’t know well or are intimidated of, you aren’t able to act the same way. Your shyness gets in the way. A lot of the time, this issue can fix itself through gradual exposure.

An intimidating stranger soon become a close friend if you hang around him several times. By spending more time with people you’ll start to get the hang of talking to strangers.

Believe it or not, how well you make conversation is not a talent you were born with, but a skill set. Just like riding a bicycle, the more you practice this skill set the better you will become and the easier you’ll find it to be relaxed around new people.

In lowering your levels of nervousness when talking to people, there are many useful techniques to help you relax. Relaxation has the effect of demonstrating to your brain that there is nothing to be afraid of in this situations, which makes your brain’s anxiety lessen. You want that: nothing kills feelings of nervousness and anxiety faster than physical relaxation.

Your relaxation routine should be structured in a way that gets you the maximum results in overcoming shyness. It is not an event, it is a process. It is more effective to implement relaxation as a new routine rather than try it out one time incorrectly when you are in the middle of a full-blown anxiety attack. It will be the compounding of accumulated change that yields the most substantial results.

Set aside some time every day to practice relaxation. This will let you become relaxed when you are feeling at your most tense and nervous around people.

The Worst Shyness Advice in The World

Here are 5 of the worst pieces of advice

1. Focusing On Other People

It’s a piece of advice that sounds great on the surface … to people who have never had shyness.

If overcoming shyness was as simple as telling someone to “focus more on other people,” then nobody would be shy. The advice is simply not SPECIFIC enough to be helpful to the average shy person. 

2. Rehearse What to Say

If you want to sound like a robot, then this would be great advice.

But for everyone else out there, rehearsing what to say is a terrible thing to do because it completely ruins your ability to talk to people naturally and spontaneously.

Preparing what to say for a job interview or a speech is normal. Rehearsing daily conversations or phone calls because you are shy is ridiculous. It turns your life into a performance, and is that really how anyone should live?

Do normal people have to rehearse their daily conversations like an actor? No, they simply talk to people. And the reason why they can talk to people easily is because their inner psychology is free of anxiety, insecurity and inhibitions, not because they have memorized the perfect “lines.”

So you need to focus on getting your inner psychology right instead of rehearsing what to say. 

3. Ask More, Talk Less

Back when I had really bad shyness, I would barely speak up and people would always call me quiet. If someone had told me back then that I should “talk less,” then I’d probably think they were crazy.

Here’s the truth: Shy people need tips for how to talk MORE, not less.

4. Affirmations

Affirmations are basically positive statements that you repeat to yourself like “I am confident and happy.” Literally hundreds of self-help books have repeatedly recommended using this technique for overcoming shyness or low self-esteem… without any scientific proof that it actually works!

In fact, every scientific study recently done on affirmations has consistently shown that they don’t work, and can even make you feel worse!

Here’s a quote from one of these studies. (Pay special attention to the parts I’ve bolded.)

Canadian researcher, Dr. Joanne Wood at the University of Waterloo and her colleagues at the University of New Brunswick who have recently published their research in the Journal of Psychological Science, concluded “repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most.”

The researchers asked people with low self-esteem to say “I am a lovable person.” They then measured the participants’ moods and their feelings about

themselves. The low-esteem group felt worse afterwards compared with others who did not. However, people with high self-esteem felt better after repeating the positive affirmation–but only slightly.

– Psychology Today

5. Just Do It!

Just like other shyness advice that sounds logical but doesn’t work, asking yourself questions like “Who cares what they think?” or “What’s the worst that can happen?” does NOTHING for making you feel less shy, nervous or anxious in social situations.

For more ideas to overcome shyness, watch this video –How to Overcome Shyness

By Sean W Cooper, the author of The Shyness and Social Anxiety System, is an ex-sufferer from social anxiety and shyness. This program is a compilation of his research and effort in overcoming shyness and anxiety.

Sean W Cooper’s Shyness and Anxiety system is a step by step audio course broken down into modules that are easy to access. It teaches you ways to start overcoming your social anxiety and self-doubt. The system utilises cognitive behavioural therapy which explores how feelings and thoughts can drive behaviour. 

The Shyness and Social Anxiety system is endorsed by professionals and praised by psychologists due to the way it provides the relevant skills to manage issues of shyness and social anxiety.

To find out more, click on Overcome Shyness – Two Easy Ways to Get Rid of Nervousness

Here are 3 Social Anxiety Tips to Help You Lower Your Fear

 

CLICK HERE to Find Out How to Overcome Your Social Phobia

Learning some quick tips and techniques can be the best way to start overcoming your social anxiety. The three main areas to focus on are your thoughts, emotions and behaviors.

Attacking your social anxiety from these three areas at the same time will have a compounding effect on the results you get. Focus on the ones you have the most difficulty with now, and then move on to the others.

Your thoughts and how you manage them can have a substantial impact. If you have time, look into cognitive behavioral therapy for a complete set of tools on managing your thoughts. If you just want to try some quick techniques out right now, then keep reading this article.

One way to lower your anxious thoughts is to accept them. It sounds like a contradiction, but it isn’t. Once you fully accept yourself, even down to your anxious thoughts, which are a “flaw,” then you’ll feel a lot less inferior to others.

If you have thoughts or feelings of inadequacy or inferiority often, then it usually just comes down to accepting yourself and then working towards a better future at the same time.

Also try thinking a lot less. Most socially anxious people think way too much, which makes them stuck inside their head. If you can slow down your anxious thoughts by switching your focus to the people around you, then you should be able to think a lot less, which will make you less anxious.

If you have social anxiety, then it’s normal to feel lonely, sad and depressed.

Unfortunately, these are the exact types of emotions that will drive off potential friendships or relationships. People don’t like to be around people who are sad and depressed all the time. Instead, you want to be fun and happy a good deal of the time.

How do you do this? Try smiling. The simple act of smiling actually releases chemicals in your brain that start to make you feel happier automatically If you don’t believe me, then try it for yourself. How much different do you feel when you are slouched over and looking bored versus sitting up straight with a huge smile on your face?

The last tip I’ll show you is the one which may make the most lasting changes to your level of social anxiety.

Here it is: face your fears directly. It may sound like impractical advice if you are very socially anxious. In that case, you need to start with small fears and build your way up. Maybe try to make and hold eye contact outside with three people outside today and then move on to bigger fears.

Social Anxiety Tips – 2 Sure-Fire Techniques That Work

It’s the moment of truth. You know you have to finally face your fears and go into a scary social situation. The question is: how can you cope with your social anxiety so it doesn’t overwhelm you?

I remember when I had social anxiety. I would avoid most social situations whenever possible. When I HAD to do something for sure, like making a presentation in front of the class, I would dread it for weeks beforehand.

When the day came, I would start to get physical symptoms: Sweating for no reason, shuddering breaths, shaking in fear. Some people who have social anxiety disorder may even get headaches, stomach aches, or vomiting because of their anxiety.

What a nightmare!

The good news is, in my quest to overcome social anxiety, I found some sure-fire techniques for coping with social anxiety as it comes up. Some of these you may have hear of before, others may be completely new to you. For the ones you have heard of before, read them again and pay careful attention to how I used them, it may turn out to be different from what you’re used to.

For all of these techniques, make sure you don’t just read them and then forget about them. These can all make a measurable, significant decrease in your anxiety whenever you need them. And I’ve also found most people don’t use them properly right away. It takes some practice to get the feel for when and how to use them.

Right when you are feeling most anxious you probably won’t be in the best state of mind to try out a new technique. You’ll need to use it several times before it begins to work instantly for you. Also, keep in mind that these are not a cure for social anxiety.

They are only meant to help you cope with social anxiety in the short term.

1. Be Very, Very, Very Relaxed

One of the most basic concepts in psychology is that the mind and the body are interconnected. When you feel anxiety and find yourself starting to sweat, shake or blush, your mind is affecting your body.

What most people don’t realize is that the opposite is also true. The state your body is in also affects the state your mind is in. If your body is totally relaxed, then your mind will start to follow along. (In psychology, this effect is called psychosomatic.)

If you change your behaviour, your emotions will follow.

So how should you change your behaviour to decrease your anxiety? Focus on becoming very, very relaxed. Be as relaxed as you can possibly manage.

Go through your muscle groups in your head and release a little tension in each one. Start with your face: unclench your jaw, relax your cheeks, rest your eyebrows. Then move on down to your shoulders, stop tensing them up so high, drop them a little bit by relaxing those muscles. Keep going down until you have relaxed each muscle group a little more. If you want, you can do this again and again and become more and more relaxed each time.

How relaxed should you be? Completely and TOTALLY relaxed. You almost have to make your body go limp — that’s how relaxed you should be. In my mind, there is no such thing as “too relaxed” for someone feeling anxiety. Maybe if you start slurring your words you should stop, but I don’t think there’s a big chance of that happening.

Try this out for yourself. Next time you’re feeling anxious in a social situation, make yourself relaxed to the point of feeling lazy and limp. You’ll still feel some anxiety, but much less than you did before. As you do this over days and weeks, it’ll become much easier to be deeply relaxed in social situations. If you keep it up, you may even become as relaxed around people as you are when you’re by yourself just by using this one technique.

Don’t take this technique lightly. It is one of the golden keys to overcoming social anxiety disorder and one of the biggest tools I used for overcoming my own anxiety.

2. Breathe Deeply Through Your Belly

The second technique is about making a simple adjustment to the way you breathe to decrease your anxiety on the spot.

What you’re probably thinking right now is: “Why do I need to change the way I breathe? And what good will this do?”

People with social anxiety breathe badly because their mind has taken over their body. Someone who is under a lot of anxiety is probably experiencing a “fight or flight” reaction in their body which makes them breathe in a way that only makes their anxiety worse!

When you feel anxiety, your body actually thinks you are in immediate danger, so it sets up an emergency system that will allow you to either fight the danger or run away fast.

One part of this “emergency system” is to change your breathing patterns. Most people who are experiencing anxiety are breathing in a very bad way. They are breathing shallowly, taking very fast breaths, and using their upper chest to breathe as opposed to their stomach.

This type of breathing would be great if you needed to run away from danger RIGHT NOW! … but it’s extremely counterproductive if you are trying to make yourself feel calm and relaxed to lower your anxiety.

So how do you change your breathing to make it “normal?”

The first step is to breathe through your belly, not your chest. Most people with social anxiety spend their whole lives breathing through their chest. This is not good if you want to relax your body and mind and feel less anxiety and nervousness in social situations.

Also, breathing through your chest gives you less oxygen, so you may end up with cold, clammy hands all the time — even in summer!

Here’s how you breathe through your belly. Look at the animation to the left. When you breathe in, your stomach should expand. When you breathe out, your stomach should contract. Your chest and shoulders shouldn’t move at all. This type of breathing is also called diaphragmatic breathing.

If you’ve been using your chest to breathe all your life, it may take some time to get used to belly breathing. You can practice by laying down on your back and putting one hand on your belly and one hand on your chest. Then you breathe, trying to only move the hand on your belly and keeping the hand on your chest as still as possible.

Take slow, steady breaths in and out. Practice making them longer and longer. Also, try to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. When you get the hang of belly breathing, you should try to do it all the time. Right before you go to sleep or right after you wake up, take 10-15 minutes to just lay in bed and practice belly breathing.

When you feel anxious, your body will want to go back to chest breathing. This is the time to take control and consciously make yourself breathe through your belly. If you keep doing this, you’ll find that it’s a very reliable method of coping with social anxiety.

Practice to Improve

Remember that for both techniques I showed you, it’s not enough to read about them. You have to PUT THEM INTO PRACTICE if you want them to have an impact on your life. And you’ll be most successful if you practice consistently.

Once I put these techniques into practice for myself, I found that my physical symptoms became much better. I stopped breaking out into a nervous sweat as much, and my hands stopped being cold all the time. My voice also sounded much less weird and awkward, even when I felt anxious on the inside.

The catch is, these techniques are for COPING with social anxiety, they will not get rid of it. In order to cure your social anxiety, you must attack the root of it, not just them symptoms.

For more social anxiety tips, watch this video – 7 Techniques to Overcome Social Anxiety | Causes, Symptoms and Strategies

If you want to learn more about how to get rid of social anxiety permanently, then check out my eBook called “The Shyness and Social Anxiety System.” I overcame my own social anxiety and now I teach people all around the world how they can do the same.

It’s much easier to get rid of your social anxiety when you know the exact steps you need to take. Most of the books and audio programs on overcoming social anxiety out there were made by people who learned about social anxiety from a psychology textbook and now they want to pay off their degree.

By learning from someone who has done it himself, you’ll be able to progress faster than you ever thought possible because you’ll learn all of the “insider secrets” to overcoming social anxiety that I figured out along my own journey. Click here to find out more.

By Sean W Cooper, the author of The Shyness and Social Anxiety System, is an ex-sufferer from social anxiety and shyness. This program is a compilation of his research and effort in overcoming shyness and anxiety.

Sean W Cooper’s Shyness and Anxiety system is a step by step audio course broken down into modules that are easy to access. It teaches you ways to start overcoming your social anxiety and self-doubt. The system utilises cognitive behavioural therapy which explores how feelings and thoughts can drive behaviour. 

The Shyness and Social Anxiety system is endorsed by professionals and praised by psychologists due to the way it provides the relevant skills to manage issues of shyness and social anxiety.

To find out more, click on Social Anxiety Tips to Lower Your Fear