Overcoming Shyness

Staying with the theme of anxiety and taking steps to overcome them today we are talking about social anxiety and shyness.

For many of us, social situations are coupled with negative feelings of anxiety, stress and even fear, all of which can ruin our otherwise enjoyable experiences. Shyness and fear of being judged is by far the most common type of social anxiety - everybody has felt like this at least once in their life. It is sometimes inevitable and especially after nearly an entire year of limited or no social interactions, it is natural to be nervous about restarting your life.

Whilst these feelings may be inevitable, it’s important to try and maintain a balance between emotions, and to not let them overwhelm your brain in a social situation. You may find yourself conscious about everything from what you’re saying, what you look like and how you sound in a social situation, and overthinking these negative thoughts can be incredibly detrimental to your long and short-term mental health.Over the years, I’ve come across some tactics that work for anxiety in general and I have found can be used discreetly and work well in social situations.

A good tactic and one I have mentioned many times before on this blog is to ‘ground yourself’. Often, overthinking comes when you stop paying attention to a conversation and start going off in your own thoughts. Trying to ground yourself - ie paying attention to your surroundings - can stop you spiraling into your negative thoughts. A good way to ground yourself is to check off all of your senses: find 1 thing you can see, 1 you can hear, and so on with touch, smell, taste. Paying attention to your surroundings in this way is a form of mindfulness, and a great way for you to prevent spiraling into your negative thoughts. It is one of the easiest but most effective ways I have found to tackle anxiety in general.

Another way to calm yourself when feelings of anxiety and stress rise is to talk to someone you trust when you start to feel like this - this could be a friend, a mentor, a family member etc. Not everyone can function perfectly in every situation - we are not robots! Being able to identify exactly what is stressing you out can also help a lot, and this is much easier to do when you’re talking to a friend about it. It is also nice to simply know there is someone by your side to provide you with moral support. We as people often work best when surrounded and supported by the right people, and mental health is no different. Having someone who can relate to your problems or simply be there for you regardless can combat some of that loneliness that is unfortunately common with most mental health issues.

Finally, something I like to remember is that nobody is going to be as critical about you as you are to yourself - as the saying goes you are your own worst critic. Shyness tends to stem from a lack of self-confidence, and the best way to improve your self confidence is to realise that you don’t need to change anything about yourself to do it. Remember that just moving forward and taking each day as it comes is a great achievement in itself. These feelings are all normal, and being able to live with them and move forward from them is something to be proud of.