Today, we will discuss a familiar yet unwanted feeling that we often encounter, especially when we face uncomfortable situations if things go south. We will discuss Nervousness & Ways to Overcome Nervousness. Everyone experiences nervousness at some point in time. It feels like a mixture of anxiety, dread, & discomfort all at once. Our palms may get sweaty, our heart rate may increase, & we may feel that jittery, nervous stomach feeling. Anything that causes trepidation or fear can lead to feelings of nervousness.
What Causes Nervousness?
Even prominent researchers are not sure what exactly can trigger nervousness in a person, still they have pointed out some factors which can contribute to it.
- Stress.
- Medical issues like depression or diabetes.
- Relatives with generalized anxiety disorder.
- Environmental worries, like child abuse.
- Substance abuse.
- Circumstances like surgery or occupational hazard.
Moreover, researchers believe that it comes from the areas of the brain responsible for controlling fear & the storing & repossession of emotional & fear-related memories.
Ways To Overcome Nervousness
Nervousness can wreak havoc in our personal & professional life. No company would hire a nervous person & family members will see that person as someone who is not reliable & confident. Sometimes being nervous is okay; all of us face that sometimes. But if the feeling of nervousness looms large in our mind 24×7, it will affect our performance & make our lives a living hell. There are some ways to Overcome Nervousness.
1. Keep Yourself Prepared if Possible
This is a bit palpable. But doing your preparation in time & not leaving it for the last minute & doing the practice well, without trying to do it perfectly – rather than somewhat shabbily can make a big difference. You will feel surer of yourself & relaxed about your task. Here are some examples. If you have a crucial meeting, do your homework to guess what will or may come up in the meeting. When you have a job interview, think about what they may ask you & think of some good answers. If you have a date, you can try to think of some interesting topics to bring up in case an awkward silence happens.
2. Ask Yourself: What Is the Worst that Could Possibly Happen
This question has helped many people countless times to calm down & to stop building a mountain out of a molehill. They will reject your application if you have performed poorly in an interview. They will not shoot you. You can get their feedback & apply elsewhere by working more on your weaknesses.
If you have messed up in a meeting, you can always apologize for your poor performance & make sure this thing doesn’t happen in the next meeting. If it is a bad date, this doesn’t mean the end of the line. The second date may not occur, but you can get a clear idea of what & when things went wrong & work out on it. You can always learn something valuable from your failure & work on it.
3. Choose Courage Over Confidence
It’s easier to persistently choose to be courageous than to create confidence in a particular moment. Recognizing that we lack confidence & realizing that we don’t exactly know how to appear more confident can make us have even less confidence. Alternatively, we can choose courage. “Yes, I’m a little afraid. Yes, I’m a bit nervous. But I’m doing it anyway!” This positive step in choosing courage can bring a positive psycho-physiological response & enable us to perform better.
4. Try Deep Breathing
Right before you step into the circumstances that make you nervous, slow down. Start breathing through your nose. Try to take a little deeper breath than you usually do. Make sure to breathe with your belly. Not just with your chest. This is a common problem when people get stressed or nervous.
Concentrate on just your slow in & out-breaths for a minute or two. Only on the air going in & coming out of your nose. This will calm you down and make it simpler to think normally again & that focus can draw you back to the current moment rather than past failures or future worries.
5. Recognize Your Strengths
Note down your strengths, skills & accomplishments. There is a reason you have been chosen. Despite how you feel, most possibly, you are the right person. Someone more senior, experienced or specialized invited you to this meeting or to offer this presentation.
Even if you cannot trust your judgment about whether you are the right person for the role, trust their experience & belief that you are the one. Focus on your skills & constantly remind yourself about that. Tell yourself people choose to believe you because you have proven yourself in the past; you can do it again.
6. Assume Accord in Social Situations
Many of us feel nervous when we meet someone new or go to a gathering with little or no aquatints. Just before you meet someone, you imagine you are meeting one of your best friends. Then you’ll naturally slip into a much more relaxed, confident & enjoyable mental state & state of mind. In this particular state of mind, the conversation tends to flow more naturally without too much thinking.
7. Identify Nervousness as a Sign of Something Good
For most of us, nervousness offers new opportunities & challenges. If we didn’t have that awful feeling infrequently, that would suggest we’re not pushing our boundaries & not stepping out of our comfort zone. People who choose to live inside their comfort zone & continue to do the same work feel comfortable. They don’t feel nervous while in the zone.
If you feel nervous, remind yourself it’s possibly because you’re pushing yourself forward. Someday the circumstances that currently make you nervous will be your new standard, & then it will be time to seek out new opportunities that demand your courage to do more.
8. Practice Meditation
Practicing meditation daily can help you control your mind, and it is the best way to Overcome Nervousness. Various techniques can allow you to handle stress & anxiety. If you can decrease the amount of your stress & anxiety, needless to say, you will manage nervousness more effectively. Meditation can do wonders to calm your mind.
It has proven benefits against fighting anxiety & nervousness. Meditation can create a deep state of relaxation & a serene mind. During meditation, you focus your full attention & eliminate the stream of messy thoughts that may be crowding your mind & causing nervousness. This procedure may result in enhanced physical & emotional well-being.
Conclusion
Are you familiar with Dr. Sheldon Cooper of the famous American sitcom The Big Bang Theory? He was so nervous about public speaking that he fainted once, even thinking of that. Even his friend Howard was so nervous about going to the space station that he asked his father-in-law to shoot him in the leg. In the concluding episode of the sitcom, we saw Sheldon delivering a heartwarming speech on the podium of the Nobel Prize Ceremony & Howard became a successful astronaut.
You may argue that it was just a sitcom with a script, but the fact is being nervous is not productive at all. There are Ways to Overcome Nervousness. In case you are wondering How to stop being nervous, there are many simple yet effective ways; you have to recognize the problem first and then follow the shown path.
