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#Post#: 360--------------------------------------------------
Dealing with social anxiety?
By: notme Date: April 23, 2013, 11:16 pm
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I've recently noticed how bad my social anxiety has gotten, i
have a hard time talking with strangers or people i don't know
very well, i can't initiate conversations, and i can't
perform(on stage) in front of people anymore. When i do i my
chest gets tight, my words don't come out in the order i want
them to and i feel like i might barf. I think my mom is trying
to find me a therapist, but until then does anyone have any
advice on how i can stop being afraid of people?
#Post#: 361--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dealing with social anxiety?
By: A Sexy Tree Date: April 23, 2013, 11:26 pm
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That's a good question, and unfortunately, I don't know anything
off the top of my head.
Social anxiety is different for everyone, to some extent, and
the ways that people deal with it are even more diverse. Some
people just need to talk it out with someone on a regular basis,
like a therapist or, if that's not possible, a close friend.
Some people need to learn how to take a couple deep breaths
before they do something, or just push the feeling away.
I, personally, actually take medicine for stress, because I have
a tendency to get stressed out very easily - especially in
social situations. However, the medicine I take isn't my main
way of relieving anxiety and the like. I actually channel all my
anxiety into my martial arts and my running. The more exercise I
do, the happier and less stressed I am, period. So when I'm
really freaking out, I step away, go for a run or practice
martial arts or do something exercise, and I normally feel a lot
better afterward. Obviously, in the middle of a conversation,
you can't just go for a run or something to calm down. But if I
do exercise regularly, every day if possible, I feel a lot
better. You can tell when I haven't done enough exercise because
I'm really irritable and just generally unhappy.
Now, obviously, what I do doesn't work for everyone. In fact,
some people wouldn't find exercise helpful in the slightest, and
it might even aggravate them if they're the sort of
'take-a-deep-breath' person. So it's really a personal thing. I
guess that's the moral of the story.
Sorry my perspective on this isn't more helpful. Hopefully,
someone else here has some better ideas, haha.
#Post#: 362--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dealing with social anxiety?
By: Red Date: April 24, 2013, 1:24 am
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Much like Tree said, I think the point is to find something
you're either passionate about or simply distracting from
feeling bad. Draw or read a book or sing when nobody's home type
of thing. Idk, that's one way to go about it. Additionally,
exercise naturally releases endorphins and makes you feel better
over all, and that's just what science has to say.
Apart from that though, as a performer and someone who will
probably dedicate their life to the entertainment industry, I
have to deal with crowds and people every day. There's a couple
factors that helped facilitate easing me into these type of
experiences, but before I delve into that, I also want to say
that I have a small social anxiety when dealing with 13-year-old
males, like I honestly feel like they're going to make fun of me
or something and I have no clue why. Anyhow, I guess the point
of saying that was to say that you're not alone.
My advice would be to ease yourself into situations where you
have to deal with people. The more you're out and around people,
and the more you engage in conversation with them, the more
familiar you get with "strangers" I'd imagine. Maybe try
ordering food during a lunch rush where you only have to talk to
one person and say like, three words, but you have people all
around you. On top of that, you get something really important,
and that's positive reinforcement. If you reward yourself after
you have a good mass social experience, your mind might begin to
associate those situations with good things.
Also, I can't guarantee that any of these things will work, but
if they seems like good steps to take, maybe give them a shot.
I'm only writing off the top of my head and I'm not an expert in
any way, but if you try it and it works, cool.
Getting out consistently to do some mundane tasks around people
gets you some really good practice in talking and on top of
that, you get things done, like errands or something. Just
remember that as you do these things, you have to make sure you
think positive thoughts. That another thing, when I began
performing on stage and stuff, I'll admit that I was young and
fairly naive, so I didn't really care about people's opinions or
anything, and doing that over and over has gotten me more
comfortable with performance. That's not to say that I don't get
nervous or anything, my voice almost always shakes and I can bet
on me messing up the first couple times of performing something,
but it helps when I think about good things. It also helps to
have people around you before the show to loosen you up. I
recommend not talking about actually performing before you go
out on stage, but to talk about something completely unrelated.
My favorite small talk topic is food, so normally I'll ask
people if they've eaten anything exceptional lately. If not,
maybe ask them their favorite food or something. The good thing
about this is that just about everyone eats, and on top of that,
if you get a foodie on your hands, you can go on for minutes
before you realize that you have to perform or something. If you
start conversation with a performer who's willing to chat for a
bit before going on, they'd probably appreciate it to, because
I'd bet you $10 that they're also nervous.
For musicians, during a performance or when playing with others,
eye contact with the other musicians is vital, not just to keep
on rhythm, but also to communicate when transitions need to
happen within the song. I don't know how much this can be
applied to musical theater or traditional choral music, but I
know that this applies to orchestras as well. The first stands
should always be looking around at the other musicians - not at
their sheet music, even though that it's really scary not to if
you're not well practiced in a piece. The more you're passionate
about practicing though, the better and better you'll be on
stage, in theory, but there's more that you can do to feel more
comfortable. When you're practicing alone, mess up the song as
much as possible, just go flat out crazy with it. Sing
everything wrong, or up one step or something, or sing harmonies
instead of your melody or something. The more comfortable you
get with the song, even if it's a terrible song, the better
you'll feel about performing it. Also remember that's it's okay
to mess up on stage, and people even restart songs or certain
events if they mess up. This I wouldn't really recommend, but
part of performing is learning how to continue after you've made
a mistake. The audience usually understands, because let's face
it, even if you hold yourself to professional standards, that
does not mean that the audience members are, and they probably
even expect you to miss a note or two or whatever. I usually do
expect people to, even professionals. Nobody's perfect, and
there's never really a perfect show, so there's nothing to worry
about. Just keep in mind that the audience wants you to succeed
and feel good about yourself, and there really isn't any
malicious people you there trying to get you or something. Yeah,
singing and art is a manner of expression, and obviously it's
scary to let your thoughts run rampant when there's so many ears
for them to fall on, but the point of being human is to mess up
and be ugly and make people cringe and cry - but the likelihood
of that actually happening isn't very good. Stretch out before
hand and just try to become as comfortable as possible, even if
it makes you look weird or act weird. If people laugh at you for
stretching funny, it might loosen them up before a performance
as well.
To ease yourself into bigger performance environments and
venues, you can start out by going to empty stages or
amphitheaters and getting permission to go on stage and dance
around or something. Go on with friends or by yourself and
practice your parts or learn skits and act them out with people
you know without even having an audience. Not only is this
downright enjoyable for anyone, but if you do attract a crowd,
it's easier to deal with when you're already on stage and doing
things. Some places where you can do this off the top of my head
are Harry Griffith Park in Fletcher Hills/El Cajon and Mission
Trail's Visitor Center Amphitheater. These are both outdoor
venues with an average traffic flow of about 5 people every 30
minutes or so on any normal day. I'm not entirely positive about
the means of permission needed, but if you wanna give it a shot,
do it until they ask why you're there and then you'll know XD.
The next step up would be to perform at open mic nights. Cosmos
is a recently growing open mic that's kept pretty informal.
Tuesday nights at 6 or 7 in La Mesa Village, they're a little
coffee house that seats about 25 people and stands another 10
probably, but there's rarely a crowd of 35 i think. I've
performed at Cosmos before and it's really fun. Since they've
been getting a little bit more a turnout, they limit everyone to
a 1 song/5 minute set or whichever comes first. I'd be more
hesitant about Lestat's open mic because it's a little bigger
and there's abound to be a lot of competition. Monday nights, I
believe, is when they have it. Also, before you perform at any
venue, make sure you attend a performance there first and get a
chance to talk with the performers. This helps get you
acquainted with how to get a spot, if there's a cost or waiting
list or something, and who to speak with to get on it. Next,
maybe try getting permission to sing for an hour at a mall with
some friends or something. With higher traffic, people will be
moving around a lot and probably won't stay for very long.
They'll also be less afraid of you if it's obvious you're not
asking for tips, but if you are and you're allowed to, there's
absolutely nothing wrong with it. What matters is that you got
out and did something in the first place, not whether you messed
up or generated only a little bit of tips. The more you do these
things and the higher the concentration of them in a certain
time period, the more and more comfortable you'll get with
situations like this, I think. It takes time, but being able to
go up in front of a crowd is a truly valuable skill to have. Not
everyone can do it, and that's mainly why people are so afraid
of it, because not everyone does it, but that's also what makes
it amazing.
If you want to get better at conversation and public speaking,
join a Toastmaster's Gavel club. Normal Toastmaster groups only
accept people who are over 18, I think, but gavel clubs often
have a lower age limit and are significantly less formal. They
can also be formulated around certain communities for people
with similar interests. I actually want to make a thread about
it, it's really awesome, and I completed their most basic
curriculum over the course of a few years while I was
homeschooled. Basically what it is, is a group that meets on an
occasion, once a week, let's say, and they conduct a formal
meeting, with a written agenda and everything. From my
experience, there were very strict timing rules about what part
of the meeting the members should be concerned about, and it
stresses keeping things organized and running smoothly. There's
a club hierarchy with a President, Vice Prez, uhhhhh, i forgot
the middle one, and a Sergent at Arms. Other club duties are
passed around from person to person every meeting or so, with
them being scheduled during the previous meeting. Other club
duties include the Timer, Ah Counter, and Table Topics. The
timer times people and holds up flags of varying colors to let
people know how long they should speak for, the Ah Counter
counts various stutters and mistakes that people make whenever
they speak throughout the meeting. The object is to have none,
but this is very hard to do, as they count all "ah", "um",
"like", "uh", and "you know" that people make, that aren't an
official part of speech. Table topics are random questions
dealing with the theme of the meeting, which can be anything,
that are asked to literally anyone in the audience. There's also
someone who brings a "word of the day" things that all speakers
must attempt to incorporate. The point of the club is to perform
ten speeches which are in the basic curriculum. Each speech has
a certain goal or thing to stress when giving it, but the topics
can be anything you like. They're usually about 5-7 minutes in
length, and are timed. In order to successfully complete the
speech, you must speak and end smoothly within 30 seconds of the
time limit and have completed the goal of the speech. That's
about it. After that, you are evaluated by someone who's job it
is to do that, normally a previously scheduled club member.
Enough rambling about that, I can say that it definitely helped
me, and I was pretty shy and didn't want to do it at all when I
started out, but the club was definitely worth going to.
Also, last but not least, my secret tip! Stress making eye
contact with everyone when in a conversation with them. When
meeting people on the street, or making eye contact with a
stranger or otherwise having some sort of interaction with
anyone, smile and wave if it's appropriate. Normally a smile
isn't very hard to muster and also has a ripple effect.
Sometimes I'll get a smile from someone that I never even knew I
needed, and all of a sudden, my day is fantastic.
Anyhow, If you're interested and I didn't type your ear off, I
hope this gave you some ideas.
Here's the Toastmaster's website if you want more info:
HTML http://www.toastmasters.org/
And here's TED, where people come together from around the world
to give speeches about anything and everything. Musicians and
stuff come and play too. If you watch and want to go to a
conference, hit me up, because I wanna go so badly!
HTML http://www.ted.com/
#Post#: 363--------------------------------------------------
Re: Dealing with social anxiety?
By: MisterCuttlefish Date: April 24, 2013, 10:01 am
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Whoa, I can't read all of this.
Here's a list (most of it is practice):
-I say "Good Morning" to strangers, bus drivers and friends of
friends. ("Thank you." as well haha)
-I wiggle my fingers and my toes just before I talk to someone.
I do this because when I'm lying in bed and can't fall asleep, I
tend to get really bad daydreams, moving helps. Its almost a
safety blanket for me, it cuts down my fears. ("Wiggle your
fingers, wiggle your toes- away, away the monsters go.")
-I imagine I'm talking to a stuffed animal, inanimate objects
are easy to talk to. (Kind of like the underwear thing, but
instead of being human and awkwardly half nakked they are a
super cute stuffed bear)
-I practice smiling in a mirror (I'm strange whoops)
I dunno, sometimes exercise works to help my stress, but if
we're talking about communications this is what I do.
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