Dr. Alok Kanojia (Dr. K)

Fair enough.

But in today's world, that becomes maladaptive.

So our brain is not designed for the modern world we live in.

It's designed for a world that existed like 600,000 years ago.

That's how it evolved.

So putting yourself out there is, and this is what people get like really confused about.

They think like, okay, if I just mindlessly put myself out there enough, then I will get better.

That's not what it is.

What you need to do is put yourself in situations that make you uncomfortable.

That's phase one.

Second thing is learn to tolerate that discomfort.

Just don't react.

Don't run away.

Don't force yourself to engage.

Just sit in that place.

And what will literally happen is our subjective sense of distress will gradually decrease.

Sometimes it intensifies first and then it goes down.

Right, so a great example of this is like if I jump into some cold water, it'll feel really cold for the first few seconds and then my body acclimatizes, my brain literally acclimatizes.

So even if you are feeling anxious in a social situation,

As long as you don't keep feeding your thoughts, and we'll get to that in a second, you will acclimatize and then the anxiety will go away.