Dealing With Social Anxiety Disorder

There is one good way when it comes to dealing with social anxiety disorder. That is meditation. Here is what you can do when you are dealing with social anxiety:

First of all, sit in a chair (don't lay down -you may fall asleep) and loosen your clothes. Clothes your eyes and start to relax one muscle group at a time. Start from the top of your head and relax every major and minor muscle group that you can think of. While you are doing this - take a few deep breathes.

Once you are done relaxing your whole body - you will need to relax your mind. One example of doing this is to visualize yourself on an escalator which is going down. The farther you go down, the darker it gets. Keep going down until you hit the bottom layer and look around. Just imagine a beautiful blue river flowing by your feet. Step into the small river and imagine warm water around you. By now, you should be totally relaxed.

Now you are ready to wake up from your meditation. You will count backwards to one where you will open your eyes. Just say the following to yourself: "Five - You are now waking up. Four - You are feeling refreshed. Three - You love and accept yourself. Two - Waking up. One - Open your eyes and you will have a great day".

Do this perhaps one or two times a day. You will notice slight changes throughout time - but at the end of ninety days, you should see a tremendous change. Of course, this will really depend on how bad your social anxiety is, but no matter what, if you keep meditating daily, you will improve beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Now let's say that you are afraid of eating in public. What you want to do is visualize yourself in a restaurant by yourself. See yourself order very confidently to the waiter what you want to eat. Then see him bring you the food and you notice yourself feeling confident while you cut into the steak. You look around and nobody is looking at you - if they are - they smile back at you and you know they approve of you and the way you are eating. You feel accepted by everyone and you love everyone back.

Keep picturing yourself this way for the next five or ten minutes. Just keep seeing yourself eating very confident in the restaurant. Then the last scene in your imagery - you get up from the table and walk confidently out, perhaps waving at the waiter that served you. All is well and you feel incredible.