 Social anxiety is absolutely brutal to live with but can this unconventional book help you out with your social anxiety? Stay tuned as we discuss. What is up everybody this is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution and today's problem is social anxiety and I haven't done a book review in a really really long time I've been kind of just not even really slacking I've just been like picking up books and going through them and not finishing them all the way because they get kind of and all this other stuff but I'm back and I'm going to be doing some book reviews like the book reading is reignited in me so like this book is going to surprise you but first let me preface this by talking about my history with social anxiety like so many people who meet me like they're so shocked when I tell them that I used to have social anxiety like I did it was brutal my brain was constantly going a million miles a minute I was so concerned about what I was doing what I was saying what I was thinking what you were looking at and all these other things I was trying to read you and I didn't know if I was making you uncomfortable and all sorts of stuff like I was always worried about saying something I might offend or make somebody uncomfortable like I was just extremely socially awkward and like it made me fumble over my words even more which made it even more awkward and it was just terrible it was so terrible and like I just couldn't talk to people unless they were somebody like that I really really knew and if you're socially anxious you know exactly what I mean so what I try to do when I read books no matter what book it is like I try to see what we can learn from it and most of the books I do read are mental health books and this book has actually been on my list for a while but I haven't picked it up because it's not really a mental health book but I'm like you know I bet this book might be able to help people who are socially anxious and it's interesting because I don't think a lot of people with social anxiety would actually pick up this book if they saw it in a bookstore or on audible or amazon or kindle or whatever it is like they might not pick it up but it's actually really good so I'll be honest with you I'm only three chapters in and I'm like yo everybody who subscribes to my channel who has social anxiety needs to read this book now you're asking me Chris what book are you talking about what book is it well it is called what everybody is saying by Joe Navarro all right so I listen to all my books on audible I just listen while I'm driving to work or if I'm doing some like tedious tasks at work I just have an audio book playing and like so just to preface this book so this guy Joe Navarro he is an ex FBI agent and he was one of the best and the reason why he was one of the best is because he's amazing at reading body language so this book actually blends in neuroscience with the science of body language so they that's something that really sold me on this book those of you who have been around for a while I'm really into neuroscience like understanding how the brain works really helps with understanding how we behave and how we think and the way we do things in our mental health and all that kind of stuff so here's the thing when it comes to social anxiety a lot of it is this concern that we don't know what people are thinking what's going through their mind but think about it for a second if we could better understand a person's body language and what certain things meant then we could know if if this person's enjoying the conversation if they're trying to get out of this conversation it's they're uncomfortable if they're nervous like we can read all these different things and that's just absolutely amazing so I'm just going to give a few little things that's in this book so far but I'm only about three chapters in and I'm hustling through it because I actually joined this like book club with some buddies who I play fortnight with and like I was super excited when they told me they were reading this book I'm like yo I need to get this book I want to join your book club because not many of my friends read you know what I mean so I'm glad that I get to like talk and discuss this stuff with other people besides you I love you but I need like some more human interaction so anyways the book kind of starts off with and it goes through kind of like a curriculum of what this book's going to be about but throughout it like Joe Navarro he kind of gives some examples of these different cases he worked and things that he learned and all sorts of stuff and kind of like his childhood and why he became fascinated with understanding body language because he actually came from another country and didn't speak English so he had to learn how to read body language to know if people liked him or didn't like him and this kind of helped him out before he learned English so then like one of the first chapters I think it's chapter two they start to talk about the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex and things like that so the limbic system that is your most primitive part of the brain it is the strongest part of the brain is your emotional part of the brain right so like he talks about how you can't always believe what's coming out of somebody's mouth or like their facial expressions because like they're actually not a good indicator you have to look at other cues on their body which I'll talk about in a second and like for me personally like this book is kind of sold to people like you know when you're talking to your boss you're talking to a customer or you're talking to a client or you're talking to a loved one or you're talking to your kids but like for me I'm like man this could really help with social anxiety you know what I mean so understanding these things so one of the great things that I really want to make some dedicated videos to this is one of the first things it does it talks about pacifying behavior okay these are things that we do unconsciously that calm us down okay so some people might rub the skin right below their neck or they might rub their neck like this because these are actually filled with a lot of nerves and it releases calming neurotransmitters in your body so it actually calms you down it soothes you okay so I want to make some more videos on that because if you're somebody who just gets anxious or stressed there's some points on your body that you can touch that actually calm you down so you can do it more deliberately so this next chapter I'm on he he talks in an earlier chapter about like what do you think the most telling part of the body is and a lot of people would say face and things like that but if that was the truth then why would poker face even be a thing so the feet are actually the best indicator for this and this is something I heard a very long time ago and it's something that I noticed I even noticed myself doing it so just some quick examples if somebody has their feet turned towards the door or towards an exit this means that they're either a uncomfortable or they're in a hurry or they want to leave okay because that's just our natural fight-or-flight instincts okay so like when when we get in these situations like our feet they're prepared to do something okay then it also talks about how having a wider stance is more confrontational so he discusses about how to kind of diffuse a situation to make sure that your legs are together because even on an unconscious level if you're if you have a wider stance and you're like kind of in a heated argument with somebody they're getting more prepared to attack back right even if it's verbally okay so it also talks about other things about how when you cross your legs you feel really comfortable and the reason this is is is because the brain is not preparing you to leave so when you cross your legs you're actually off balance so if somebody's crossing their legs near you whether it's you know one leg over the other and in their lap or if it's just crossing their ankles okay because their center of gravity changes so this means they're very comfortable so their brain's not telling them hey you might need to get out of this situation so like I find this very very useful when like having conversations with other people noticing what their hands are doing their arms are doing like there's one part where it talks about if somebody's cupping their elbow this is also something that means that they're uncomfortable and if they move their hand this means that they're starting to relax so there's a lot of great tips in here and I really hope that some of you read it like the more you understand about the brain and what we do the more you will improve your mental health one of the reasons my mental health is so much better these days is because I educate myself about this I'm going to link a video up in the info card about something called the brain mechanic okay the more you understand about your brain the better you'll be able to handle a variety of different situations whether it's anxiety depression and things like that but I really like this book because it's how to tell if other people are uncomfortable or confrontational and all that kind of good stuff so if you want to join me on this journey and read this book I'm gonna put a link down in the description below that's an affiliate link so if you're interested in it go ahead and buy it from our amazon it doesn't cost you anything and it helps support the channel but I would love for you to read this book check it out and tell me your thoughts on it and then maybe I'll do a full book review after I'm done with it all right but anyways that's all I got for you today so if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you're new here I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental and emotional well-being go ahead and click that little round subscribe button and a huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on patreon I love you guys all right if you want to check out some more content on the channel you can click or tap on one of those thumbnails all right thanks so much for watching learn more about your brain today and I'll see you next time