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Everybody in the world has anxiety. None of us are alone when we get nervous, we just assume that we are. Some of us suffer with anxiety more than others, it can be more severe in certain situations with certain people. For some of us, it's so hard to deal with, that it holds us back in life, and makes it hard to walk out the front door every morning. But there is a light at the end of this tunnel, and you can make a big difference in a small amount of time. Here's some of my secrets to self improvement...

The first big step is to acknowledge your fears, because anxiety IS fear. Fear that turns into a vicious circle.

You can easily determine whether you are an anxious person or if you have a social anxiety disorder, by recognising the symptoms. Some very common symptoms that you may have when you are anxious are; Sickness, Sweating, Shaking, Emotional, Getting out of breath, Going Red (blushing) and Diarrhoea. Yes, all of them are unpleasant, but you may not get them all. Some of us have a selection of the symptoms, but they can amplify easily, and make us very ill. You could describe it like the first school day nerves, but you just happen to get it much more often and in the smallest of situations.

Once you determine your level of anxiety, you can move on to targetting the problem. The next stage is Safety Behaviours! Remember those two words, they are very important. Everytime you go into a social situation, you engage in safety behaviours automatically to make you feel less anxious. Some of these behaviours can be Staying by someone at all times and never leaving their side, Keeping your head down so that you won't be seen, Staying hidden, or if your anxiety is that bad.. you often use the behaviour of Avoidence. These may sound like clever things to do if you get nervous, but they really are not. The more safety behaviours you engage in, the weaker your confidence will become.

If you constantly do those little things that make situations more comfortable, you will find it harder to be thrown into a situation by surprise. You are always going to come to a part in your life, when someone springs a surprise on you, such as; Someone in your family goes on holiday, or ends up falling ill, so you will need to do the weekly shopping, or get to work on your own by public transport. In those kind of situations you cannot plan staying by someone else to make you feel better, You have to find a way of coping on your own. So you NEED to target those safety behaviours before you can move on.

You can do this, either by contacting a councillor and arranging a meeting. A councillor will provide you with information and work with you step by step to help you cope with your problem. They will also break down all the situations you feel most anxious, to find out exactly why you feel anxious in those particular events.

Or you could do it on your own, the easier way.

Start right now, by getting a pen and a piece of paper. Right down 10 things that make you the most anxious, the one of the top of the list being the scariest situation you can think of. Now, I want you to, look at situation number 10, the least anxiety provoking of them all. Then I want you to imagine that situation, without all the safety behaviours. Imagine you have to go into that situation, but you have to keep your head up, you can't remain hidden, you can't stick by your friends, and you have to engage in some kind of social interaction. Well now that you have that vision all planned out, I want you to go out and Get into that situation! Yes, I know its going to be difficult, but thats the point. I want you to stay in that situation for as long as it takes for you to start feeling comfortable without your safety behaviours. Then I want you to do it as many times as it takes on different days or weeks, until you find that it doesn't make you anxious anymore. Then cross it off your list. After number 10 has been crossed off, you can begin to do number 9, and then the rest of the situations until you reach number 1. I want you to do number 1 as many times as you possibly can, and you will start to find that without your safety behaviours you can become radient and confident in your own personal way.

The more you engage in social interaction, the more confident you will become. Don't ever say "I can't do this, I must avoid it" You musn't avoid anymore sitautions, Because once you avoid one situation, you start to sink back into your old routine.

Just keep smiling, be positive, and you WILL find your breakthrough point.