Learning some quick tips and techniques can be the best way to start overcoming your social anxiety. The three main areas to focus on are your thoughts, emotions and behaviors. Attacking your social anxiety from these three areas at the same time will have a compounding effect on the results you get. Focus on the ones you have the most difficulty with now, and then move on to the others. Your thoughts and how you manage them can have a substantial impact.

By Jon Hershfield, OCD Center of Los Angeles.  Social Anxiety or Social Phobia is more than just shyness. When I first began treating people...it seemed to me this condition was a problem of interesting people not realizing they are interesting.  While this is a significant element, there is more going on... Someone may have no qualms about performing on stage, but may dread the interactions inherent in dating.  This may explain why some entertainers who have spent their careers on stage or on camera (Barbra Streisand, Carly Simon, Donny Osmond, Kim Basinger), have reported having Social Anxiety...

By Arlin Cuncic, About.com Guide. "Movie characters with social anxiety tend to be featured in two types of films — thought-provoking or laugh-a-minute. When these types of characters show up in the latter, you can be sure their awkwardness and social bumbling is there to generate laughs. But when the main character suffers from something akin to social anxiety disorder, a window into their internal world is often opened for viewing."

Being shy may not be uncommon for children, but when it endures for us as teens and adults, shyness impedes the kinds of social connections that can enhance our talents and creative expression.

Social anxiety disorder or SAD - also referred to as "social phobia" - is a mental health condition in which the sufferer faces extreme and unwarranted fear in social situations. Individuals with SAD have an unreasonable fear of making a mistake or being embarrassed and humiliated in social situations.

If fear of rejection has led you to distance yourself from people, especially groups, there are several specific things you can do.

Social anxiety disorder affects millions of Americans and leaves men and women, young and old alike with performance anxiety related to a great deal of different situations and interactions... However you may be affected, the condition can be treated and eliminated.

"There are two different types of social phobia. The first is generalized, where anything and everything in the way of social interaction has the potential to send your nerves into overdrive. People who are only afraid of a few or a particular type of social interaction have non-generalized or specific social phobia."

Most of us are concerned about what others think about us and we say and do things just to get the approval of others.  These thoughts and behaviors seem to be so much a part of who we are and are so common in others that we assume that they are just part of being human. In fact, however, you can eradicate these thoughts and behaviors forever.

Individuals suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia) feel that people are constantly watching them, judging them – just waiting for them to make some kind of embarrassing mistake. The degree of discomfort is such that the individual will avoid certain social situations (trigger stimulus) altogether, situations like public speaking, eating out at a restaurant, or using a pubic restroom. Interacting with perceived figures of authority such as a supervisor at work is also a source of extreme discomfort.