New Delhi: Model actor Darasing Khurana, an active philanthropist, founded the Pause.Breathe.Talk foundation to help people with mental disorders and provide mental health services to those in need. Khurana established the foundation after the sudden death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput last year.
The Pause.Breathe.Talk foundation has several psychologists and psychiatrists on its board who have been helping people in need for over a year. During this time he realized that many people suffer from social anxiety, a serious mental health problem where daily social interactions cause fear, anxiety, or embarrassment. So Darasing, who is also a socially active celebrity and a leading expert in the field, came up with five things to overcome social fears. Here’s what they suggest:
Watch your breathing
Breathing techniques are often recommended to aid relaxation or to manage stress or anxiety attacks. When you breathe, your blood cells receive oxygen and give off carbon dioxide. However, when people are anxious, they tend to breathe quickly and shallowly from the chest. If you are afraid, focus on your breathing. Inhale, hold your breath and count to 5, then exhale. Doing this 70 to 80 times will definitely make you feel calmer.
Behavior change is a must
Remember that nothing is going to change around you! The social situation remains unchanged. So it is best to plan well for a social situation that makes you nervous. For example, when it comes to a date, you need to plan every aspect of it. The idea is to recognize what is triggering your anxiety and try to minimize activities that might trigger the anxiety. If you are feeling socially anxious and want to work on it, you also need to go out with people who are close to you and take care of you when you feel anxious.
Keep a gratitude journal
You need to write down the positive things that happened to you during the day. One thing that combats fear a lot is gratitude. At first glance, it may seem a little wrong and can take a lot of effort, but you have to do it anyway. At first, your negative thoughts may be too powerful, but you need to understand that the negative thoughts are already within you, so you need to cultivate thoughts of gratitude to balance things out.
Sweat
When we feel anxious, our body is ready to fight or flee, releasing stress hormones, cortisol, and adrenaline; This can lead to high blood pressure, increased heart rate, and sweating. Exercise can help us burn off negative energies that in our earliest times would have been used either to escape or to combat a threat. You can take a brisk walk, put on your running shoes and hit the tarmac, or jump to an aerobics video or your favorite music in your living room. Regular exercise and meditation really help you stay focused. This is something that you need to do in order to overcome social anxiety.
Open up, meet the experts
Communication is the key to all mental health problems. It is important to share your feelings and to talk to people around you. Listening is also important sometimes. Imagine that something is triggering your anxiety, which is the result of negative thoughts about you that keep coming back to you. Shifting the focus of your thoughts to someone else will also help contain anxiety. Also, be sure to contact a psychologist and psychiatrist. Professional advice is essential if you are to get the best results. It is imperative to use these two services at the same time instead of giving one meaning and skipping the other. Medication and therapy are equally important.
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