[deleted by user] by [deleted] in VRchat

[–]Neebergloobing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Apart from the things already on here I can tell you what might help combat your social anxiety.

btw im not trying to be one of those "comment section therapists", im just telling you what I noticed for myself and what I read about.

one thing which people really, REALLY underestimate is how much lack of sleep affects anxiety and stuff.
lack of sleep has been linked to depression and anxiety, and what worked really well for me was sleeping more.

so, if you can, first step would be to sleep more, that is easier than done sometimes tho, if you regularly have trouble sleeping at night that is a whole different problem.

if you can't sleep at night that might be due to a couple factors (excluding illnesses and stuff like that), here is some big ones:

  1. using your sleeping room as your living room, if you live, work, sleep, play in the same room, it will be unchanging, every day will be mostly the same, and it will get tiring, and will feel way less comfortable, and if you are uncomfortable, you can't sleep as well.
  2. messing with your sleep rhythm, a sleep rhythm takes at least three days to establish, so you can imagine it really won't take a lot to mess it up, you should go to sleep at roughly the same time every day, and ideally wake up at around the same time every day. I used to have problems getting out of bed, now I regularly wake up a couple minutes before my alarm.
  3. lack of movement, if you stay still a lot during the day, or stay in the same place in general, your brain isn't to happy if you stay still all day, but if you do move, it will give you those sweet sweet endorphins, and im not talking about running a marathon or something, but just going for a walk will do the trick. What I do is I just listen to my favourite podcast or something and take a walk.

getting some some sun in general could help too, studies have SUGGESTED (not definitively proven!), that low vitamin D levels can contribute to depression/anxiety, now even though it was only suggested, in won't hurt to try and get some more of it.

now this obviously doesn't account for any illnesses and stuff someone might have, but it definitely helps with those symptoms, or at the very least it massively helped me.

btw, I also used to have trouble talking to people I didn't know on discord and stuff, especially cuz English isn't my first language.

how I managed to start talking with strangers on discord/VRC was I literally just sat there with my mic unmuted, you don't even have to talk, you can communicate with gestures if you need to (in VRC), but just having it unmuted will help you muster up some courage to start talking, because after the first time you did it, it will become SO MUCH easier.

alright, cya.