When I'm standing in line in a cafe, or in an airport, just passing through some random area, I really enjoy saying "hi" or giving a genuine compliment to strangers. You know, "I love that scarf". "That is a cool bag, where'd you get that?" "Nice camera, is that the...". I feel it's like a good vibes all round thing.

But, sometimes I'll feel just scared to open my mouth, and not because I'm sensing that now would be an inappropriate time for whatever reason, just because I feel scared, in the moment.

The trick I developed for myself, so I could keep creating good vibes and not be limited by that occasional fear was as follows: I'd just count to 3 in my head, and then force myself to say it. Like force the air out, and the words out of my chest, throat mouth.

I find, if you wait much longer than that...the "moment" passes, and the relevance of whatever you want to say to the momentary feeling in the air somehow disappears, and if you want to say it and wait, the fear or sense of discomfort just increases. It's never really good to wait for those tiny moments, just grab them!

So that trick I developed helped me to grab those tiny moments and make something good. The more I did it, the easier it got. And unlike some sort-of artificial thing like Toastmasters or whatever that I never liked or joined, it's a natural interaction between people. And it's pretty low stakes, like if it goes bad, "Well, hey, I'm out of here soon, anyway." But if it goes well, now you got the kind of "warm fuzzies" for a little bit, and you brighten someone's day.

But that's a trick, and it's not depending on anything outside yourself.

In general for reducing the kind of body and mind reactions that are not optimal and tend to get in the way of people being their best, most authentic and most expressive selves I've found the following, practiced regularly (like every day), to be most effective (in no order, with a URL or original name provided to allow you to find an accurate description if needed):

- box breathing (https://quietkit.com/box-breathing/),

- alternative nostril breathing (nadi shodhana),

- full yogic breath (3 part breathing, digra pranayama), hatha yoga,

- meditation where you just sit and focus on the feeling of breath at your nostrils (Anapanasati).

If you want something that isn't focused on breath, energy or meditation but is more just physical I recommend:

- child's pose where you rest arms on floor by your legs is particularly soothing (Bālāsana),

- or just sitting in "Easy Pose" (Sukhasana), the seated meditation posture (but not meditating or doing anything special). Just note that for many of the breathing exercises above it helps to sit in "Easy Pose", and amplifies the healthy and relaxing effects.

In Easy Pose, there's even more you can try! You can experiment with variations where you have palms up, palms down, one palm up one palm down, and use no mudras (finger positions: for example to different simple ones you can experiment with: touch (or nearly touch but comfortable apart) tips of index and thumb together; touch tips of ring finger and thumb together) or different mudras. These can produce different kind of healthy relaxed states.