Overcome Anxiety When Dining Out in Restaurants

Eating out socially is meant to be enjoyable so when anxiety gets in the way it can be very upsetting.

We've found that some people can feel anxious weeks before they know a social meal is coming up.

But why do people get anxious around eating socially?

Anxiety does not go well with eating

Anxiety is meant to get us ready to fight or flee. And when we become anxious everything that would not be useful when we are running from a predator switches off.

You wouldn't need to be digesting whilst fleeing from a lion so digestion switches off, salivation diminishes making your mouth dry and blood is pumped away from the stomach into your major muscles for fighting or running.

This does not make for an enjoyable meal!

In this case the fear instinct has wrongly associated social eating with anxiety and so the adaptive response of shutting down digestion actually gets in the way of you relaxing and enjoying your food.

You may have noticed that when you feel anxious eating out in restaurants then it feels like food just gets stuck in your mouth and you may even feel difficulty swallowing.

That's what fear does.

Avoidance makes the fear worse

Understandably, many people who suffer from a fear of eating socially make excuses about not eating, saying they are just not hungry. Or they may avoid going out altogether.

But the more you avoid something the worse the fear gets. If you avoid eating out then you are literally teaching your fear instinct to become even more fearful of that situation. Your instincts get the wrong message that it is dangerous because you are avoiding it.

Imagination can make the fear worse too (through negative self hypnosis)

If you imagine eating in a restaurant and then feel anxious you are training your instincts to fear that situation through a kind of natural negative self hypnosis. This misuse of the imagination also teaches your fear instinct to build around eating out.

The Relax Eating Out session does the opposite. It will prime your instincts to have a natural and calm association with eating out so you reclaim one of life's great pleasures - sharing nourishment with other human beings.

Imagine feeling confident and relaxed when eating out - how wonderful would it be to be free of that old anxiety?

Download Relax Eating Out now and open up your social life. You can listen on your computer or device or via our free app which you can access when you have completed your purchase.