You haven’t done it.

You didn’t listen to the dating gurus.

You know, talking to 500 women a day to kill your approach anxiety, lol.

But that’s good.

So you’re ready to discover how to actually deal with approach anxiety.

Hint: it has nothing to do with talking to 500 girls daily by force.

Luckily, there’s an easier and less stressful way to get over approach anxiety that’s proven to reduce approach anxiety LONG-TERM.

Now, before we dive in, the following fact might feel a little uncomfortable for many:

What is approach anxiety?

Ready for the uncomfortable truth?

Approach anxiety can be described in various ways.

Some talk about the fear of being rejected.

Other’s about feeling nervous approaching a girl.

But the truth is:

Approach anxiety comes from neediness. 

Which means:

You’re invested in the opinions of women about you.

You secretly hope she likes you and accepts you the way you are. 

But that’s not all.

To overcome approach anxiety and not sabotage yourself, you need to know why you feel it in the first place:

“Why do I have approach anxiety?”

It’s weird, right?

You know exactly that no woman will pull out a chainsaw from her tiny bag and shred you into pieces for approaching her.

And yet, you feel this anxiety. The reason lies in how your brain works.

The simple explanation:

Throughout evolutionary history, we lived in tribes of max 150 people.

And with just a few potential lovers you can choose from… a rejection meant game over.

Dry desert. No reproduction. No wet penis glans. Ever.

You’d be left, hurt in the wild, with no PlayStation 5 to cover for your loss.

The dominant, unconscious part of your brain ‘knows’ this.

And even if the logical thinking part of your brain (the Neocortex) understands nothing will happen when you approach a woman…

Other parts of your brain keep repeating the same mental horror movies.

That’s because your old, unconscious brain is the big daddy who came first, long before the logical thinking part developed. And it’s wisdom about women and rejection from ancient times is still ingrained in you.

👁️ Eye-opening side fact:

This is why online dating feels so much better. Because if a girl doesn’t match with you or rejects you, it just doesn’t feel real. Your brain has nothing to fear since no tribe will notice.

Does approach anxiety ever go away?

Now, I have good and bad news for you:

Let’s start with the bad news: because of how our brain works, you’ll never get rid of approach anxiety.

Whoever tells you otherwise should get imprisoned and forced to listen to ‘Last Christmas’ for the rest of their lives.

(Looking at you, pickup industry.)

The good:

If you do it right, the degree of your approach anxiety you feel will lessen over time. In fact, it can turn into a feeling of excitement once you get good at approaching women.

Just like when athletes are about to enter a huge competition and feel nervous and excited at the same time.

So, let’s look at how to NOT get rid of approach anxiety because most methods out there tend to make it worse. And that’s the last thing you want, right?

How to NOT get rid of approach anxiety

“What you resist will persist.”
– A quote I shamelessly have stolen lend from Buddhism

The dating and pickup industry is funny.

They preach that you only need to expose yourself to the “threat” of approaching women often enough, and eventually, you’ll wipe out all your worries together with your rejections.

To do so, you should grow pubic hair and talk to hundreds of women (coupled with their “breakthrough techniques,” of course.)

The advice is mostly based on a mix of exposure therapy and the concept of “fake it until you make it.” In other words, talk to a woman, don’t let her know you’re afraid, and repeat until you turn into a social robot.

But does talking to hundreds of women a day help with getting rid of approach anxiety?

Aside from being impractical for busy men, science does not approve of this lazy advice:

First:

Neurobiology studies have shown that fear and anxiety get amplified the more you resist them.

Which means:

Approaching lots of women and telling yourself to relax when you’re not is more likely to make your anxiety worse instead of helping you to overcome it.

The actual way to overcome your approach anxiety is to accept it. I know, I know… this “woo-woo” accept this, accept that advice has never changed someone’s life.

That’s why I wrote a detailed step-by-step guide on how to approach women… so you can see what this actually looks like (you’ll be surprised.)

Second:

Exposure therapy (as mentioned previously) appears to be quite effective for some people to help them deal with smaller fears, like their fear of spiders, for example.

But when it comes to dating, there are significant downsides to helping you to get over your approach anxiety:  

Doing it on your own is very hard 

So you have to ask a friend or hire a coach to push you into talking to women. The most common consequence is you’ll be stuck once you’re on your own again.  

You’ll experience the Approach Paradox

Your friend or coach will push you to talk to women you don’t find attractive just so you get in your reps. The result? You’ll feel like crap for getting rejected by women you don’t like.

You’ll feel stuck over-analyzing

Women typically have a higher emotional intelligence than men. They’ll notice that you don’t like them and reject you. You’ll feel awful and start over-analyzing what you did wrong. It’s a common trap I see with many guys.

You’re treating symptoms, not causes

Anxiety is a symptom caused by a deeper lying issue. So the real question you should ask is, “Why am I afraid to talk to her in the first place?”

Now we’re left with the question:

If constant exposure and fake it till you make it aren’t the solution, what is?

Glad you asked.

Effective approach anxiety exercises

For simplicity’s sake, let’s divide this section into two types of exercises:

Short-term and long-term exercises.

Short-term exercise:

It’s the only thing where I agree with common pickup and dating advice: the 3-second rule.

The rule works like this:

When you see a woman you want to talk to, take a deep breath and think:  “Approach her,” and then actually do it.

Taking a deep breath will calm you down as you reduce the reaction from your brain’s internal flight or fight response. It’s a hack used by Navy Seals under fire. You simply can’t be nervous and calm at the same time.

But again, it might not work for everyone. And it’s definitely not for the long term because it only targets the symptom of nervousness in that specific situation.

Long-term exercises:

Remember what I said in the beginning?

Anxiety is an expression of neediness.

Deep down, somewhere in this machinery you call your mind, there is a belief that you have nothing to offer to attractive women. Or that you don’t deserve a girl like her. So, you probably put women on a pedestal because of their beauty.

If so, no need to feel bad about it. It’s true for most guys. And it was definitely true for me when I started.

The good news: there are many exercises you can do to alter the way you think and feel about women.

They all aim to increase your confidence around women. Since this is a more complex topic, I dedicated a full article on how you can become a confident man. Take a look and try some of the exercises yourself.

Your Efficient Dating Advisor,

Herman The German