Nervousness- How my body betrays me

[thedude]

Hello guys,


One thing that is always consistent is the physiological reaction I have/nervousness in general. I just had a mock interview and when I was done my god damn arm pits were pretty wet...

The same thing happens with girls as well.

My question is, how do I combat nervousness and stop it from happening time and time again?

 

[Rage]

Hey what's up CS

There’s a cliche answer that everyone gives here that like “oh you feel fear feel nervousness and then just act anyway. Feel it in your body be aware of it and then act anyway.”

The cliché is annoying and dull and overused , makes you go ughhh… there is value in trying to look at yourself as an observer trying to look at yourself in the third person and see yourself as “wow Brandon third person is feeling nervous right now, look at that”. And in looking at yourself as an observer you sort of take the level of what you feel a degree down because it kind of isn’t really you feeling it (feels like that when you look at it like that from that bird-view/outside perspective).

If I were to dissect the cliché statement of feel and then act anyway, it would be the above and it would mean just commanding your body to go, taking your mind out of the equation willing your body to move and then going and doing the thing whatever that may be. I’ve read your journal bro and you get good results so you can and do use this well already. And I think the value is whether you go and do the thing after whatever you feel is felt, like the impact and the tangible thing(s) that happen are in the action of what you do.

As far as stop nerves from happening I’m not sure you could do it completely (I’ll share my theories on it). You can have it be a bit less by having it be something you just do a lot e.g. if you're used to approaching many girls in a day, many days a week then you can kind of just go and do it.

We as people all run on an autopilot and all the actions we do we don’t really think and do typically, we instead will just do things because we have conditioned them into our autopilot. Throw a guy into an interaction or escalation with girl (even any intermediate or advanced guy from these boards), and they won’t think about much about what they say or do. They will be instead running largely off of autopilot and if that ends up better or worse it will be directly by how they’ve trained their autopilot to be, what their past experiences have been, and past actions, and lessons learned and time put in/skill built and how consistent they’ve been recently and all of those factors and some more.

If your autopilot is trained to automatically do a certain thing, and it just becomes what you fucking do by impulse by snap of second, in that moment then the nervousness felt will be a bit less. But then still it won’t go away completely (musicians for example when they go up to solo even if they tour play every day will still feel a twinge in stomach and nervousness/sickness in them a bit before they go up to solo).

So all that doesn’t really solve much just in itself; what can sort of work to be a solution I think is mindfulness meditation, and meditating a bit in general. If you're in public, this is taking deeper breaths like into your lower belly and groin area and calming your body and mind through that. Basic mindfulness meditation where thoughts are largely dismissed and mind is cleared breathing is made calm body is made calmer helps and this is what my strategy to combat nervousness is !

I do this before I go for a big lift in the gym and feel nervous and afraid and like anything could go wrong and am hesitating and stuff. I don’t get riled up or crazy but first get very calm very focused with that deep breathing and calm and finding some deeper power and brilliance within that you can sort of only get in touch with by getting that calm. Then it opens and kind of unlocks within you and your mind breaks and you’re fucking ready then and can hit it with 150% power conviction ferocity etc. whatever you do, that’s when you face the adrenaline and the fight or flight and go fight make the decision in the moment, will your body to move and go and do the thing you’ve been nervous to do (so this is more when you're on that threshold and hesitating).

Those would be a couple of strategies I can suggest man, that align largely with what I do personally. You’re already acting despite your nervousness or fear/anxiety and that’s what matters most and is critical (cause if you do that and your autopilot is up to par, then even when you're nervous you'll do fine; it’s kind of like this quote I heard I think Rhonda rousey said about being the best on oyur worst day… basically you train yourself train your skill and abilities so when you show up to bat or on platform or whatever, your autopilot and everything skill and abiltiies within you established are ready, and then even if you are nervous and suck or are held back by that or hindered a bit or perform far below what you felt you could do and definitely have done before EVEN THEN you will dominate and likely achieve what you had desired.

…

Most of the guys on the boards I think have come from backgrounds where they had lots of anxiety or nervous ness or fear that crippled them from early ages. Most of us were introverts and had trouble fitting in getting along or getting the courage to talk to people, or some sort of anxiety along those lines… and then we set out to do something about it go confront our fears and the things holding us back, face our demons and do what we desired to do deeply within us: beat the anxiety.

This made us go approach the women we see in the day and work to build lives we could be happy of; it took starting far below everyone else and having anxiety or nervousness or limitations that kept you from getting to be where you want to be and far below the curve.

Was a sink or swim type of deal, and we’re at it still right now so I guess we chose to swim then huh?

Rage 

 

[Drck]

Let's see if we can find out why do we have anxiety at first place. There are more causes, but the important one is that it is natural brain mechanism to deal with danger. In simplest words, our ancestors had to deal with danger on pretty much daily bases, the anxiety is deeply rooted in our primitive brain; it is a great mechanism that evolved over hundreds of millions of years. When our ancestors encountered some danger, a predator, they had to act fast otherwise they were killed, eaten alive...

Anxiety is basically a physiological response of our bodies (increased heart rate, increased breathing, sweating, tension, getting ready to fight of flight,...) to combat some danger triggered by external (but also internal) stimuli...

How does it relate to girls? Why is it that when you see a pretty girl you freeze, start sweating and breathing shallowly, get all anxious and so fort? Well, all pretty women were always valued highly by our society, virtually all men compete for the prettiest girls out there for millions of years.... Which means that many men were beaten and humiliated, even killed, therefore our amazing brain developed this defense mechanism that associates pretty girls with high danger... For many guys, pretty girl is simply trigger for anxiety, many guys feel so much fear that they are unable to approach and talk...

So whenever you see a beautiful girl, if you are a normal guy an Alarm will sound in your head: High danger, watch for low flying objects aimed at your head! Watch for your friends too, you don't end up with your best friend's knife in your back...

That DOES happen, even today, and your brain knows it. Everybody simply wants to fuck beautiful woman and there are lots of fights, that's why it is associated with high danger...

Speaking in front of a group is very similar in a sense that it is also a trigger. You have to stand up and present yourself to others. You have to show your logic, articulation, skills. Imagine if you were in a small group of our ancestors, and competed for some high(er) position in society. Chances are that other males would also try to take you down in competition for that position. Why? Because the higher the position the easier access to all those prettier girls, at least at that time... Thus it was and still many times much easier to keep low profile, shut up and don't say anything... 100,000 years ago you may have been beaten, killed. Today you may be fired, arrested, fined, humiliated by others... Even today people laugh at you when you say something silly, especially in schools, which is also associated with emotional pain...

So even though it is little bit different than with girls, standing up in front of others may be a good trigger for our anxiety; we may get paralyzed, unable to talk, breath fast, sweat and so on as our brain is trying to avoid any potential pain...

Anxiety is actually our very good friend, it is our older brain (primitive brain) that is trying its best to avoid physical and emotional pain, it is trying to save us from humiliation or even being killed... But we also have a new brain, neocortex, and that one is more rational. So we have to be smart and out-think our old brain with our neocortex, we don't want to get rid of natural ways that prevent injuries...

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So now when we understand the basic principles that triggers anxiety, we may develop some rational strategies to deal with it.


* Simplest way is to take some pills. Xanax will calm you down. I'm not saying to take it every day, but once every couple of weeks/months/years for interview? Why not, it is simple and effective. That's why so many people get hooked so easily on it... I know, I know, nobody wants to take pills...

* Take care of your emotions. Your brain doesn't do a good job keeping the different emotions at the same time. You can either be highly anxious or keep calm. You can either be happy or be depressed. Your brain simply can't do both, it is not that smart. So practice meditation, relaxation, practice peaceful mind, flood your brain with positive thoughts and good feelings... This way you'll minimize the occurrences of anxiety...

* Understand anxiety/nervousness, where is it coming from, what is happening in the body, what are the triggers and so on. The above is only a quick preview, you can read lots of great books on that topic. Once you understand and are aware of triggers, it is much easier to manage it.

At the same time, develop strategies to cope with Anxiety: Hey, I got to go for an interview next week. Chances are that I will be highly anxious next week. I'll try to relax more, I'll try to breath more deeply, be more relaxed,... I know what I am expecting, there might be difficult questions therefore I'll be ready for as many topics as possible... At the same time, people are just trying to find out who I am, what am I about, what I want to accomplish, what are my goals... Remember, most better jobs are ran by professional people. They are trained in dealing with people, chances that you actually meet quite good people during interviews for better positions are quite high...

The same with when you meet a new hot girl: Hey, I know that whenever I meet a hot girl I get all nervous and sweaty. I get all tight and anxious, my chest is squeezed. I know that she triggers all these reactions. So maybe next time I'll try to take couple of deep breaths while relaxing more, I'll try to calm down...

Rationalize: I already know that there is no imminent danger from that girl (or group of people that you talk to), it is simply a conversation, exchange of information... Remember, classy girls are Nice - they don't bite, they love to talk, they don't turn you down... They will smile at you 99% of all the time...

At the same time you got to have reasonable expectations: Not every classy girl will sleep with you just because you approached her, asked for her number, practiced sexy smile and have glassy eyes... Sometimes our ego is simply way bigger than we want to admit... but still, the interaction itself is actually nice, painless...


* Association: learn to associate good feelings with those situations. Say a guy is a normal guy, and he meets a nice girl - but he gets rejected. Then he meets another girl, and he is rejected again. Third time he goes to meet a girl, but this time he already expects failure, he is already anxious about the outcome - and he gets rejected again. Next time he goes, he is already in high anxiety, he is very nervous because he expect failure... So now he created a huge internal trigger for himself: Anytime he sees a pretty girl he already expect high anxiety and failure. What is much worse, that once he projects these things, especially failure, he will be rejected again. It is self fulfilling prophecy, his thinking is now distorted...

So again, we have to use our newer brain to overwrite the logic of the old one: Hey, it may not always be me. I can improve in ABC areas and I am already doing my best, I am improving every day for the past X months. I know that with girls it is many times just a number of approaches - I may approach 30 girls and chances are that all 30 are taken, but it doesn't really mean that there is something wrong with me... I simply have to work on approaching more girls, work on Abundance Mentality, the more Abundance the less anxiety...

Same with jobs: hey, there is 5 positions and 50 applicants. 45 will get rejected no matter what, I could be one of them. Does it mean that I am the worst candidate? Not at all, it just means that the others were more qualified than me, those fuckers knew somebody (as is unfortunately many times true), or they were able to present themselves in a better way than me. I am already doing my best to improve my resume in XYZ areas, this way I can increase my chances to be hired multiple folds... Same as with girls, sometimes it is just comes down to a number of tries...

* Systematic Desensitization - fancy words saying that we should simply do more of girls approaching and more speaking in a group, because we will eventually get used to it. And it is true, it is a good technique, the more we do the better we get at it, and the lesser our anxiety will be...

Go more between people and learn to relax, meditate (while walking in crowds). Loosen up, stop staring at people like a weirdo, stop labeling people and shuffling them into different boxes. Just relax, smile...

See that cute, sweet girl? Ok, smile again, relax - and walk away. Maybe say couple of words when you see another girl, and then walk away - you don't have to sleep with her, you don't have to marry her, and you don't even have to ask her for a number... This way you associate people with good/positive mood...

Also, another good way is to get a job where you are exposed to many different people, where you have to talk to them directly or via the phone. 8x40, that's 40 hours per week of such exposure. That is good, that is a lot, you don't get that experience by approaching couple hours over the weekend... Get a job where you deal with girls...

Do more preps for interviews. If I were back in my 20's I would definitely do some extra public speaking in college, just the fact that you have to stand up in front of many people, confront your anxiety directly and talk is a great experience. Who cares that you are nervous, most people there are nervous. Fear of Public speaking is many times rated as #1 fear; Once you overcome this fear all the other fears will be LESS... I know you are annoyed in college by public speaking, that you think it is a wasted time... but ace it, make it important for you because it will help you for the rest of your life in many different areas...

 

[thedude]

Thank you both for the in-depth analysis.

I hope this topic has been helpful to other people as well.

Cheers,

CS

 

[Lotus]

In the past I would get nervous/fearful before going into sales meetings, until I watch Drexel's video on conquering fear. All it took was visualizing your fear and smashing it with an imaginary hammer. Combined with, "I'm the shit" mentality it worked pretty well.

 

[Flames]

Drck and Rage have made some great points and I won't go into a lengthy post but something I noticed from the way you've structured your post is that you see fear/anxiety as something to be conquered. You (and indeed a lot of people) feel this way and it's isn't neccerserily the right frame.

When your in a strange environment or stressful situation you actually need that fear to help you survive. It will help you one way or the other, yes it may not give you the best or desired outcome but it will help you get through it ALIVE and that's what fear is for.

What you need to do is something that puts you out of those comfort zones every opportunity you get, this is how you become friends with fear and learn how to guide it rather than let it guide you. If doing (mock) interviews scares you, do more of them do them all the time.

Don't try and fight the fear and certainly don't try to suppress it. In a real interview you can actually release tension by just coming out and saying "I admit I'm a bit nervous about this interview" any interviewer wil be impressed by the honesty and if they arnt its not a place you want to work. The same thing applies for dates and pretty much everything else.

When I started on my self improvement quest I rarely looked anyone in the eye, rarely started up a conversation and certainly never made a move on a super hot girl. Now with practice and experience I've realised that really it's nothing to be frightened of at all. I still get nervous of new people but I now have the experience to be able to handle it and excel.

 

[Fuck This]

I really think it is about getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Stretch those comfort zones and revel in the charge you get afterwards. I mean it is exhilarating!

One example is in 2007 I trained for a marathon with a group. Fundraising was part of the training program and I had to hit up everyone in my professional and social circle to raise the minimum for the trip to the race, or foot the bill myself. Now I'd never run more than 2 miles until I started training. Every Saturday for 18 weeks was a new "Longest Run" for me.

I took that exhilaration I felt breaking through that barrier each week and applied it to other areas I felt limited in. I solicited friends, vendors,colleagues, family and every time someone would send me a check for my fundraising effort, and a personal note, I felt that much more empowered and knew they believed in me. It also made me work harder in my training because I didn't want to let them down.

Since then I've run 2 marathons , 2 Ultramarathons, and too many trail races and half marathons to count. But the real reward is the confidence to approach something new with a positive attitude and less fear.