Mental health
Social anxiety – what it is and how to overcome it
By Mandana Ahmadi, founder and CEO of Alena
Have you ever experienced the flutter of butterflies in your stomach when approaching a conversation with someone? Have you found yourself debating whether to attend a party where everyone is unfamiliar? Have you ever felt profound regret over something you said, causing sleepless nights?
These are all telltale signs of social anxiety, a common yet often overlooked condition that quietly exerts control over our lives.
Left unaddressed, social anxiety can lead to significant comorbidities such as depression, substance abuse, and eating disorders. However, the good news is that social anxiety is highly treatable.
Social anxiety itself is not inherently negative; it serves as an essential function in creating effective societies where individuals care for one another and understand their place in the larger community. However, when social anxiety becomes impaired—whether excessive or lacking—it hinders our ability to tap into the resources that society offers.
This struggle often underlies the development of comorbidities: we feel down and spiral into depression when we can’t advance in our careers despite our potential and skills, we turn to drinking or comfort eating to soothe our anxiety, and the accumulated sleep debt harms our overall health.
By addressing the root cause, which can sometimes be social anxiety, we can reverse these negative patterns.
Social anxiety is influenced by various cognitive functions, which, when impaired, intensify social anxiety or drive it to suboptimal levels. Four major drivers include the rumination function, avoidance behaviour, accurate perception of others’ opinions, and attentional focus during social interactions.
Here at Alena this is our area of expertise, and the Alena app can help measure the health of these cognitive functions and provide scores, followed by cognitive behavioural therapies that target these specific areas. While there is no instant remedy for social anxiety, there are steps you can take.
The first step towards overcoming social anxiety is to recognise that it is a common and normal experience. Many people struggle with social anxiety, but it often remains misunderstood.
By acknowledging it, you are already on the path to overcoming it. Understand that your anxious feelings are more a product of how your brain processes information rather than an accurate reflection of how others perceive you.
When anxiety strikes, there is a tendency to want to escape, hide, or distract ourselves from the discomfort. Instead, allow yourself to experience those feelings and focus on calming your body through slow breathing techniques commonly used in meditation.
By slowing down, you can help your body break free from the fight-or-flight response. Shift your attention away from your inner thoughts and redirect it towards the external world. This can be done by immersing yourself in the sounds around you or paying close attention to the visual details in your surroundings.
You will notice a sense of relief as your attention releases from the internal spiral, leading to a lighter and less tense state.
Next, try to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone you love who is going through a similar situation. Consider how you would talk to them and evaluate the seriousness of the situation if it involved them.
By adopting an external perspective, you distance yourself from your own anxious thoughts and gain a more objective view of reality. This helps to ground you in the present moment.
Lastly, the most effective way to overcome social anxiety is through exposure to small social events and gradually increasing your comfort zone.
Often, you will realise that nothing catastrophic happens, challenging the belief that social situations are as major and terrifying as they may seem. By incrementally expanding your social experiences, you will build confidence and realize that you can handle them.
Remember, you are not alone, and overcoming social anxiety takes time and effort. With the right support, strategies, and a gradual approach, you can regain control of your life and thrive in social situations.
Mandana Ahmadi is the founder and CEO of Alena. Mandana is dedicated to tackling the world’s mental health crisis, starting first with social anxiety. She has worked with the International Brain Laboratory, and achieved her PhD in computational neuroscience from UCL Gatsby.
A screen time app that lets friends cut their phone use together has won the £15,000 top prize in a women-led startup competition.
Snitch, led by design engineering MEng graduate Asha Bakhai, took first place at WE Innovate, Imperial College London’s flagship competition for women-led startups.
The team aims to tackle excessive screen use among young people, which some research suggests may have a negative effect on mental and physical health.
The app lets users join accountability groups and set shared limits across their most-used apps.
When one person scrolls, the group’s combined timer counts down. Its founders say this helps build awareness, encourages reflection and supports small changes in behaviour by making screen use a shared responsibility.
Speaking at the WE Innovate Grand Final, Bakhai, co-founder and chief executive of Snitch, said: “Thank you to all the people who have been involved with thinking about what it could look like for young people to not be addicted to their phones.
“Whether that’s our friends who we started this with – exchanging screen time passwords and things like that – or the users along the way who beta tested with us, or our families and our friends who we’ve forced to use our app, even though it failed and bugged out and blocked all their apps. Thank you to all of them – and especially, thank you to WE Innovate for making all of this happen.”
Snitch’s team also includes co-founders Serena Sebastian and Yoshiki Berrecloth.
WE Innovate is a six-month pre-accelerator run by Imperial Enterprise Lab for teams led by female students, recent alumni and early career researchers.
The programme supports 25 women-led teams through masterclasses, business coaching, one-to-one expert support and peer mentoring.
The top five teams competed for a share of a £30,000 prize fund.
Professor Hugh Brady, president of Imperial College London, said: “WE Innovate was born out of the realisation that women founders were grossly underrepresented among our wider founder group across the university – so it was an imperative for Imperial to start such a programme.
“It was just last year that we heard Dame Alison Rose, author of the Rose Review, speak about the untapped economic opportunity and potential of women entrepreneurs in the UK.
“After 12 years, this programme has supported hundreds of women entrepreneurs, leading to exciting ventures across health tech, clean tech and all aspects of deep tech.”
The winning teams were selected by a panel including Kristen McLeod CBE, chief strategy officer at the British Business Bank, and Elizabeth Gooch MBE, founder and former chief executive of EGS plc.
The panel also included Pierre N. Rolin, founder and chief executive of Ankh Impact Ventures, and Professor Mary Ryan, vice-provost for research and enterprise at Imperial.
The final marked the second year of WE Innovate National, a UK-wide programme with separate Grand Final showcases held this month at Queen’s University Belfast, Swansea University and Loughborough University.
Joanna Jensen, founder of skincare brand Childs Farm, gave a keynote address about her experiences as an entrepreneur and co-writing The Rise Report of Female Entrepreneurship.
The report found that the UK economy would be £310bn larger if women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men.
Jensen said 78 per cent of the founders surveyed reported that human connection had been central to their journey, while one in seven identified loneliness as their biggest challenge as an entrepreneur.
She said: “That is why what Imperial is doing matters so profoundly. Not just here in South Kensington but as WE Innovate goes national.
“Because a founder in Loughborough, Durham or Swansea deserves the same access to networks, mentors, capital and belief as a founder sitting in this room tonight.
“Talent is everywhere. Opportunity, until now, has not been.
“A nationwide network for female founders, being backed by women and men, having doors opened for them by women and men, and then paying that forward: that is how you close a £310 billion gap.
“Not with one programme. With a system of programmes, joined up across the country, and held to account on outcomes.”
Waypoint, led by innovation design engineering MSc student Bana Quronfuleh, received the £7,000 second prize.
The team is developing a video game controller that allows visually impaired players to hear and feel popular games.
AlphaVectors Biotech, led by Imperial alumnus Dr Apanpreet Kaur, received the £5,000 third prize for its lipid nanoparticle platform, which aims to improve the stability of RNA vaccines at room temperature.
Lipid nanoparticles are tiny fat-based particles used to protect and deliver genetic material, including the RNA found in some vaccines.
The other finalists, FluoroCycle and Epile-X, each received £1,500.
PHlora LABS received the Lauren Dennis Award, which was established in memory of a pioneering WE Innovate alumnus, for developing a synbiotic suppository intended to prevent recurrent vaginal infections.
Synbiotics combine beneficial microorganisms called probiotics with substances known as prebiotics, which help them grow.
The award recognises a team demonstrating exceptional entrepreneurial spirit in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and includes a six-month business coaching package.
DisoLens received the Engineers in Business Award, sponsored by the Engineers in Business Fellowship.
The award provides each winner with £1,500 in grant funding, mentorship and a professional CV package for entrepreneurs working across engineering sciences.
The team is developing a self-dissolving biodegradable contact lens intended to remove the need for lenses to be taken out each day.
A £50m maternity consortium will bring together UK clinicians, researchers and communities to tackle the most critical gaps in maternal care.
Funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research has established the NIHR Inequalities Challenge: Maternity Disparities Consortium under the leadership of the University of Birmingham and Newcastle University.
Higher education bodies, NHS organisations, community groups and voluntary organisations from across the UK will work together through the programme.
The NIHR has committed £50m over five years to support research led by clinicians, researchers and communities across the consortium.
Professor Joht Singh Chandan, consortium co-lead for research at the University of Birmingham, said: “National attention on maternity safety and equity has never been greater, but ambition must now be matched by evidence and implementation.
“Through this consortium, we will work across the UK to understand what works, for whom and in what contexts, and to ensure that research leads to practical changes in care for the women, babies and families who need them most.”
The launch comes at a pivotal moment for UK maternity care, with growing national attention on improving safety, equity and women’s experiences of care.
The government’s renewed Women’s Health Strategy highlights the need to improve care before and between pregnancies for underserved communities.
Against that backdrop, the consortium will generate the evidence, interventions and research capacity needed to help turn national ambition into practical improvements for women, babies and families.
University of Birmingham is leading work to improve maternity care pathways across the antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal periods.
Antenatal care covers pregnancy before labour, while intrapartum care refers to care during labour and birth.
The consortium will examine how women and families can be better supported before pregnancy and between pregnancies.
This includes improving access to advice and care that can help people prepare for pregnancy, manage existing health conditions and reduce risks before they build up.
Other research will focus on improving care during pregnancy, birth and the early weeks after birth.
This will include work on major causes of poor maternal health, such as high blood pressure, diabetes in pregnancy, obesity, perinatal mental health and complications during recovery after birth.
Professor Judith Rankin OBE, consortium co-lead for research and capacity development at Newcastle University, said: “This funding represents a critical opportunity to make the step change we need to improve outcomes for women and their babies.
“Alongside the research, the Consortium will be investing in tomorrow’s research leaders today to ensure we have the capacity to deliver on improving pregnancy outcomes, access to, and experience of, care.”
A four-week Pilates programme may improve heart, metabolic and stress measures in previously sedentary women, a small study suggests.
Pilates is a mind-body form of exercise that has been linked to better fitness, balance, posture, muscular endurance, mental wellbeing and quality of life in different groups.
Built around breathing, concentration, control, precision, centring and flow, Pilates is already used in physiotherapy, rehabilitation and preventive health. The new study looked at whether a structured four-week programme could affect cardiovascular, metabolic, body and stress-related measures in sedentary adult women.
The longitudinal study included 30 sedentary women split into two age groups, 30 to 40 and 50 to 60.
All participants completed a standardised, supervised Pilates programme lasting four weeks, with three sessions a week lasting 50 to 60 minutes.
Researchers measured resting heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, body mass index, abdominal circumference, fasting blood glucose and serum cortisol at the start and end of the programme.
Systolic and diastolic blood pressure are the top and bottom readings in a blood pressure test. Cortisol is a hormone linked to the body’s stress response.
The four-week Pilates programme was linked to improvements in cardiovascular, metabolic, body and neuroendocrine measures, although not every change reached statistical significance within each age group.
In the younger group, significant reductions were seen in heart rate, blood pressure, body mass index and fasting blood glucose after the intervention.
The reduction in blood pressure after the programme was significantly greater in the older group than in the younger group.
Older participants also showed a greater reduction in glucose and cortisol levels after the intervention than younger participants.
Analysis also found significant links between cardiovascular, metabolic and neuroendocrine changes.
In the younger group, this was particularly seen between heart rate and blood pressure responses.
In the older group, it was particularly seen between changes in body mass index and fasting glucose.
The findings suggest Pilates could be a useful multidimensional exercise approach for cardiometabolic health and stress regulation in previously sedentary women.
The researchers said the larger reduction in blood pressure seen in the older group may reflect a higher cardiometabolic burden at the start, leaving more room for improvement after the programme.
The greater reduction in fasting glucose and cortisol in older participants may similarly suggest that people with higher baseline metabolic and neuroendocrine dysfunction could benefit more from structured exercise such as Pilates.
Although Pilates is known to improve body composition through energy use, neuromuscular activation and support for healthier habits, the researchers said the fall in body mass index over four weeks is unlikely to be explained by Pilates alone.
They noted that participants were also told to avoid alcohol, sugar-containing products and sugar-sweetened drinks during the intervention, which may have contributed to the change.
In the younger group, the link between heart rate and blood pressure suggested coordinated cardiovascular responses after Pilates.
The researchers also found that cortisol appeared to be linked to blood pressure and body mass index, suggesting stress-related changes may be tied to cardiovascular and body regulation after the intervention.
In the older group, the link between body mass index and fasting glucose highlighted the relationship between body fat and metabolic regulation.
A positive link between blood pressure and body mass index in this group also suggested that improvements in vascular regulation may be associated with reductions in body mass.
Overall, the findings suggest Pilates-related physiological changes may involve interconnected cardiovascular, body, metabolic and neuroendocrine mechanisms, with different response patterns by age.
The study has important limits. It did not include a non-exercise control group, so it cannot prove Pilates directly caused the changes.
The sample size was also small, which limits how far the findings can be applied more widely.
The authors also noted that cortisol was measured using a single fasting morning sample, which limits conclusions about broader hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis regulation, the system involved in the body’s stress response.
They said larger studies with longer follow-up will be needed to confirm whether Pilates causes these physiological changes over time.
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