Social Anxiety Is Stopping People From Being Themselves

* the Following article is from my regular newsletter about mental health, social anxiety, careers, and more. Click here to subscribe for free!*

?Raise your hand if you have ever been in a moment where you felt like you couldn’t be yourself in front of others. You feel your heartbeat race quickly, throat clench, armpits sweat, your mind races and you just don’t know what to say? 

Or have you struggled with...

Eating in front of other people

Meeting new people

Interviewing for a new job

Feeling like you can't show people certain sides of yourself 

Going to work or school

Making eye contact with others

Talking on the phone

Not responding to texts or being social for days

Using public restrooms

I spent the first portion of my life like that....and unfortunately saw the darker side to social anxiety. I was always the shy kid in the back of the classroom not knowing how to make friends.

The guy who always looked down walking with a cloud hovering over his head. I was filled with the feeling that I shouldn’t be social with people.

When it was presentation time in school, I would be absent that day. 

Group activity? Gotta go to the bathroom for a long time and then come back and not say anything.

Due to social anxiety I was unable to participate in sports, clubs, and other activities: all because I couldn’t be myself in front of others.

Some may refer to this as being shy or having social anxiety, which is a mental health problem. For some, it’s not a problem. We all experience a healthy level of being shy from time to time depending on the setting, like going to an event where you don’t know anyone and being a bit uncertain when you first arrive, or moving to a new school or area and not breaking out of your bubble for the first couple of months.

For me, it was a bit different. Growing up, I was in a perpetual state of social fear that placed unconscious boundaries in my life, all the time. That is social anxiety.

But nobody knew.

I was referred to as the “shy, quiet kid.” In reality, I needed help. I wasn’t a shy kid, I was a social and friendly kid who wanted to make friends but couldn’t because of social anxiety.

The American Psychological Association reports that 40 to 60% of adults face this problem. And while shyness or social anxiety may seem like a trivial issue to most of the world, or even wrongly mistaken as introversion, this is a dangerous notion. If we look at the data, social anxiety has one of the highest correlations to social isolation, suicide, and substance abuse. 

Despite my potential, social anxiety caused me great pain, Today, I’m on a mission to change society’s narrative so we can give hope to the younger generation and those who grew up and were forgotten. 

Creating a New Narrative (Hope) 

Many of us who are born with socially anxious tendencies believe we are stuck in this position, that we’ll never be able to communicate with the world. Social anxiety is not only very misunderstood but treatable through natural, holistic, and sustainable methods proven in varying studies from Harvard University to UCLA. 

There are socially anxious people in this world who are beyond talented, skilled, intelligent, and empathetic.

They could be changing the world. Instead, they are trying to manage their fear of talking to others and have trouble collaborating & communicating with their fellow humans.

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, people with social anxiety disorder report having symptoms for 10 or more years before seeking help. Let’s start the conversation by discussing what people can do on their own.

This problem is invisible to those who don’t have it, and for people like myself who experienced severe social anxiety you know it’s like a life sentence that controls your every move. Because the biggest problem is...

3. Society Has Masked the Problem with Introversion

People are more apt to address and manage issues they can see. But with issues pertaining to mental health, it can be tough to identify, diagnose, and educate. This is especially difficult for an individual who suffers from social anxiety, especially when they go and ask for help, and the world tells them they are just introverted. This is confusing in and of itself because introversion is a character trait that describes a person who pays more attention and gains more energy from their internal world. 

There is a healthy natural spectrum of being shy that everyone faces to some degree, and it’s okay to not be okay. But being shy in every situation is social anxiety. 

Picture this: kid sitting alone at lunch or in the library. Society says he does this willingly because he or she is an introvert.

Is that always true?

It doesn’t mean that they want to sit alone at lunch or in the library.

There's, often a particular moment when someone in their lives develops social anxiety. Studies by the British Psychological Society associate moving to a new school or being bullied with the onset of social anxiety or shyness.

Personally, for me, it was moving to a new school and facing challenges with my health as well as bullying and racial disparity...

Living with social anxiety for almost a decade has shown me its real danger...

The Darker Side of Social Anxiety

Some of us know the surface of what it’s like being socially anxious and shy. 

Let’s talk more about some of the harder challenges to face when you are socially anxious.

- Staying up all night for 4 hours anxiously overthinking future social interactions you’ll have the next day at school or work.

- Wanting to ask for help, informally to your friends, or even formally in the form of therapy, but your brain prevents you from doing so.

- Wanting to express yourself authentically to even the people you love, like your family but feeling unable to: not because you don’t want to, but because your nervous system won’t let you.

- Seeing your patterns of behavior and thinking it’s your fault and that you’re weird because you can’t talk to the world, which in turn, makes your social anxiety worse. Shame seeps into the integrity of your character. 

See what I mean? Social anxiety isn’t always being afraid to take that phone call in public, or go on that date. It could have some real, long term effects on your life.

Why Is This Important?

I realized this was so important because most of the mainstream mental health advice tells us to see a doctor, therapist, or call the suicide hotline. While these can all be significant pathways for managing treatment, many people who face social anxiety are having extreme problems, even struggling to ask for help. In fact, studies report it takes 10 or more years before seeking help, because socially anxious people are afraid to speak up. 

Most of our society’s misconceptions around being shy are not helping teenagers and adults find solutions. However, a meta-analysis study done by Harvard University found that those with social anxiety have statistically significant risk factors for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the 2nd leading cause of death for people ages 15-34 is suicide. 

Being shy may not seem like the worst problem a person can have, but it is a clear gateway to isolation. We need to find solutions. 

I stumbled down my own dark path and unknowingly found a potential solution to this problem...

How do we fix this problem? 

There’s no 1 single solution and it will look different for each person.

When I went off to college, it was the first time in my life that I became consciously aware that I had social anxiety. But it was also the first time I understood what my struggles had been leading me to do my entire life. There were so many amazing people I wanted to meet and become friends with, but my brain didn’t let me. 

I did what a lot of socially anxious people do. I escaped with some sort of a vice into social isolation. I have memories of being in my college dorm room alone, ordering take out, eating junk food like pizza and wings, and anything I could put in my mouth to numb the pain. 

Heard of the freshman 15? I gained the freshman 75. Eventually I gained even more and hit 220 lbs. I was eating to try to fill the hole in my soul. With obesity came low energy, depression, even more social isolation and a real recipe for disaster. 

By creating my issue of being overweight, I was also discovering a solution....

Food & Gut Microbiome

In an effort to get healthier, I began to learn more about what it takes to lose weight. I stumbled on many fad diets and the wellness industry’s latest new health craze, all about shrinking your waistline. But in doing my research, I stumbled across a fascinating link between our minds and the gut microbiome. 

In short, the gut microbiome is a vast community of trillions of bacteria and fungi that inhabit your gastrointestinal tract, and have a major influence on many things, from your mood to your digestion.

Here’s the most interesting part. The gut and brain communicate through a connection with your nervous system regulated via a highway called the vagus nerve - Source.

Even MORE interesting is....

Serotonin -- a neurotransmitter that sends messages among cells -- serves many functions in the human body, including playing a role in sleep and even regulating social behavior and mood. Previously we believed that most neurotransmitters like serotonin are in our brain...because they are NEURO transmitters. That’s actually not the case.

A whopping 90% of the body's serotonin is produced in the gut microbiome - Source.

If 90% of serotonin in our bodies is not produced in the brain, but the gut, the key to regulating social anxiety lies within what we eat and how our gut microbiome processes food. 

When I started eating healthy, as in a natural whole food, whole plant, whole animal diet, removing all artificial chemical substances, my social anxiety didn’t necessarily disappear. But eating healthy helped my brain get healthier with more mental clarity, better energy levels, decreased overall anxiety & depression, and better sleep and mood.

3 Actionable Ways to Go About this:

1. Avoid eating any food that hasn’t grown in the ground or been walking or swimming around. 
2. Focus on adding more healthy foods to your diet that are easy to prepare and work for your schedule vs. obsessing over eating healthy all the time and not allowing yourself to eat junk food.
3. Avoid substances that drain your brain’s neurotransmitters. These include excessive alcohol, sugar, and overly processed food. These substances are created by scientists from corporations that are more often than not interested in their bank account, not your health account.

It’s not just about what you eat either. Studies have shown when under chronic stress, environmental dangers, or even traumatic events, the gut can stop working properly and enter dysfunction… However, there is no such thing as a universally healthy diet that works for all. 

While the gut microbiome is a pivotal solution to get in charge of your mental health, other solutions like meditation and proper sleep have been shown as powerful interventions for social anxiety. 

So why did I tell you all about physical health when we are talking about mental health and social anxiety?

Biochemistry Creates the Foundation

On my journey, I found it extremely important to focus on my biochemistry, the hardware that enables us to install new software. Many solutions out there focus primarily on the software, like positive self-talk, exposure therapy, and talking to others. 

When you focus on biochemistry and use that as a foundation, it can enable someone who has social anxiety to find longer lasting solutions by building a neurochemical foundation first. 

Not focusing on the hardware first in most cases, is like trying to install the latest version of iOS 13 on the old iPhone 4. No matter how hard you try it’s still gonna be an old iPhone 4. Update that to an iPhone 11 and there’s no longer a problem with the software. 

Why this is So Important

Life Is All About Community and Helping People and YOU CAN’T DO THAT AS WELL WHEN YOU ARE SHY AND HAVE SOCIAL ANXIETY.

Well, maybe you can but it’s going to be brutally painful if you don’t get help.

* Being shy is a meta problem that stops many great people from doing what they want to do in the world, because almost everything we do has to do with other people & communication.

* Major global issues that need sustained, concentrated efforts towards fixing, like climate change, inequality, health and longevity, the justice system, and the education system all require communication...

In the last 23 years of my life I have transformed from being so afraid of the world, of telling my story or sharing what I’m most afraid of, to becoming a world speaker who speaks in front of thousands virtually about this empowering message on mental health that I didn’t know growing up..... 

Can I help?

Over the last several years I’ve devoted my life to helping introverted, shy, socially anxious creators, entrepreneurs, CEO’s, and professionals move these mental obstacles out of their life so they can get busy being their real selves in front of anyone.

If you are interested in potentially inquiring about my services for yourself or someone else, please fill out this form below and message or email me with any questions! 

For next steps, fill out this form - here