When you are feeling stressed and anxious, what’s your strategy? If you’re like many of us, you head home to hide under your covers. What if I told you the cure was at the cocktail party?

Humans have evolved to survive in large part through social engagement and connection. When we are in a safe place with people who are familiar to us, our nervous systems enter into a specific state of calm, alert engagement. It feels really good to be in this state–it’s one of the reasons we all crave connection so deeply. When the nervous system perceives a threat, however,  even an imaginary one, our survival systems overwhelm our ability to get there.

that we feel these states “in our organs,” and that information is sent up to the brain stem through the vagus nerve. It happens at the physical, experiential level, so you can’t reason yourself into calm or out of anxiety. Luckily, there are tools that can help. Here are three:

 

Curated from Three Tools for Managing Social Anxiety | Spirituality & Health Magazine