Can Being Tall Cause Social Anxiety? | How To Navigate Social Situations As A Tall Person

Good morning everybody. You are currently listening to a Tall Girls podcast hosted by a tall girl named India. I hope everyone who's sitting in today is doing super fantastic. Before I get into this episode, I do want to say make sure you following me on my socials at a Tall Girls podcast on Instagram, TikTok and pinchert so that you could stay up today on all of the latest podcast episodes and catch a glimpse of my everyday life. Also, feel free to ly me review and let me know how tall you are. I'm genuinely curious. Everything is going to be linked in the description and also subscribe to my newsletter. I need to start saying that before I say everything is going to be linked in the description, so that you guys know that that link is also going to be in the description. We have a lot of links going on. It's not even that many links, because I have a link in biotype of thing. I use beacons, dot ai or whatever for my linkin biotype of thing, so it's just one link that takes you to a whole slew of links. Still a bunch of links though, but just know everything is going to be in the description. Okay, so it's much easier for you guys. I want to make your guys' lives much easier. So I had to record this introduction a couple times because if you're in New York City, at least you know that there's a crazy, massive heat wave going on right now. And I tried recording with my window open, because you know, I want to get the air circulation in here. And I was like, Okay, it's a Sunday morning, because I like to record on Sundays. It's a Sunday morning. What's the likelihood of there being any type of noise outside? Like I could leave my window open and you know, get air in and it's not going to affect recording this episode. Was I wrong? Oh one hundred and ten percent, Because sometimes I really do forget that I live in New York City, where every second of the day is extremely noisy. Okay, you got cars passing by outside my window, car alarms going off, sirens, whether from ambulances or police cars, and it's just like, Okay, that's an of that. So I just made the decision to have to close my window. So we'll see how we can get through this episode. Okay, I left my fan on to the last second so that I can get enough air circulation in here before I eventually closed the window. I mean doing okay so far right now. But I may have to take a few water breaks, but I'll edit those out, so I don't even know why I mentioned that I'm gonna edit those out, so it doesn't even matter. But speaking of water breaks, make sure you're drinking your water. Okay, this is your reminder to drink some water, especially if you haven't already, especially if you've woken up and it's the morning. Drink your water. Stay hydrated, folks, Okay, especially if you live in New York City. With this heat wave, Please stay safe in this weather. I'm not even gonna say stay safe in this heat. Stay safe in this weather because even just yesterday super hot. It hit the nineties with a real fill of like one hundred and four degrees in the morning. Earlier in the day, I should say, then in the second half of the day it was hubricating. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating with the hubercaning, but the downpour, the rain, it was pretty heavy. So please make sure that you stay safe because you know you could think, yeah, go out and like shorts and like a T shirt or a dank top. But especially when you take public transportation and you're not taking using an umbrella, you can get wet. There's like a bunch of ac on public transportation and you're all wet and boom, you could get sick. So just make sure you check the weather app, make sure you're watching the weather channel or wherever you get your weather, and know how to dress and know what you need to do in order to stay safe. That's all I'm gonna say. And drink your water. Plus, Also, before we move on, if you're one of those people who when August hits you're like, oh, getting ready for fall, please stop. I've been seeing a lot of pov tiktoks lately. It's like, yeah, pov is August, and they got their pumpkins spice scented candles out. Okay, they're making pumpkin pies, And I'm like, what are you doing. It's August. It's one of the hottest months of the year. Why are we talking about fall right now? Fall? At least in my mind, I'm assuming and everybody else's mind that was that way. But I guess at least in my mind, because that's not the case for everybody else. In my mind, fall starts in September. We're quite literally in the middle of summer. Like, why are we talking about falling the summer? Okay, I'm not thinking about fall right now. I'm still thinking about tanning outside. Okay, I'm still thinking about going to the beach. But you're thinking about pumpkin pie. That is crazy to me. Okay, no, Tin, no shade. I mean that's you is that's like what the weather is like in your area, Like if it's fall like weather coming to you in August. I get it, Okay, but the rest of us are still at least trying to enjoy the last bit of summer before it leaves for a good six months. Anyways, now that I got that off my chest, we can move on. Today. We are starting the episode with a question can being tall cause social anxiety? Think about it. We stick out from the crowd, we sometimes get negative attention, and we also sometimes have difficulty existing in physical spaces. Surely our height can be a contributing factor to social anxiety. Right. While we're on the topic of social anxiety, I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page here with the definition of social anxiety. So I did write this down. It's I look this up on Google. It's like a combination of websites that I looked at to get like this one definition. So on the internet, social anxiety is basically like this disorder where every day social interactions cause irrational anxiety, fear, self consciousness, and embarrassment. And don't come for me because Google said all this, Okay, that's that's what I got from all the sources that I looked at, and a lot of these websites ended with so I'd like to think that they're trustworthy. But social anxiety can really occur anywhere or at any time well in regards to social interactions. So it could be at a bar, at a club, meeting at school, or when you're just meeting new people. In general, you could be hanging out with your friends. But I'm thinking like, especially like heavy on the meeting new people, meeting a lot of people, being around a lot of people, because there's this fear of judgment from them, There's fear of humiliation in front of them, worry of embarrassment, and of course I'm not going to lie to you, guys, I'm not going to be like, yeah, I have social anxiety, like I have firsthand experience with this, because I don't. First of all, I'm not even diagnosed by a professional. And if you think that you have a certain disorder, you should be diagnosed with a professional. Okay, there could be signs around it that show you, yeah, like I could potentially have this disorder, but if you want to know for sure, you should be diagnosed by a professional. Bank Anyways, I don't really experience too many of those symptoms, especially in social interactions, so I personally don't think that I have social anxiety. So I'm not going to sit here and be like, yeah, I have first set and experience with this, because I don't. However, there has been times where I have a little bit of anxiety surrounding my height, especially with my self consciousness, and you know, probably anxiety related to bullying a little bit when I was younger. So I do have some experiences with some of the symptoms, but I'm not going to go out here and say I do have it, because I personally don't think that I do. And as I've said before, the biggest thing, at least like with me, especially when I was younger, was I stuck out like a sore thumb. See, And that's the thing. One thing about being tall is that you can run, but you can't hide. If you're in a public setting, you stick out from the crowd. So the likelihood of someone or a lot of people seeing you is very high. And that could be pretty frustrating because it's like in the back of your mind, no matter where you go, no matter where you are, you're thinking to yourself, oh my gosh, our all eyes on me? Is everybody seeing me? Like everybody's looking at me? And then you've not only become hyper aware, you start to overthink and that can play a part in social anxiety. So you know what, let's actually talk about that. What does social anxiety look like in a tall person. It can be slouching or hunching over to appear shorter or to try to hide, avoiding eye contact, or having very close off body language, overthinking, physical symptoms like trembling and sweating. Have you experienced any of these in a social setting? And I think that overthinking is a really really big factor in this. And what's very interesting to me about that is how powerful your thoughts are like your thoughts about you know, oh my gosh, is everybody watching me? They're thinking this, or they're thinking that, or they're judging me or something, or they're laughing at me can literally trigger like physical responses or physical actions like you know, sweating as I said before, and trembling. Your heart can start beating rapidly, your hands can start to sweat, your breathing can literally get heavier, and you know, it's literally scary to even think about experiencing this, especially when you're around a bunch of people who you don't even know. It's kind of a thing of what do you even do in that instance, especially if you know, let's say you're with your friends or you're hanging out with your friends in a public setting. What if they're away, like and you start having these symptoms like what do you do? That's just a scary thought for me to have. And this can just take you out of the present moment and prevent you from having a good time until eventually you just really stop going out. Do you stop hanging out or just decrease the amount of times you go out and public or the amount decrease the amount of time you spend outside in public. And then I found something interesting in my research on what social anxiety was. Apparently a twenty twenty two study claims that body height can't predict social anxiety, but it can predict loneliness. How do we feel about that? Is it the high difference or is it just avoiding social situations? I need to read up more on that, but truth be told, overall, I'm pretty sure that navigating social anxiety is not an easy feat, especially when we have to be social to a certain extent, be in public to a certain extent, in order to function and survive in society. Because it's not just about hanging out in social situation with your friends, like going out to bar, going out to club meetings at school, or just hanging out a park or something like that, or going to a mix or whatever. It's also like we have to go outside to well, not necessarily because we can order groceries now, thank goodness, but you know, some people still go outside to go grocery shopping. You could go to virtual school, but a lot of people still go to school like traditionally, like in person, going to school campus or going to school grounds, or even work. Yes, some people still work remotely but there are others that still have to go physically to work. So just trying to navigate that when you have to literally be social and be outside to function and survive, I'm pretty sure it could be very difficult. And because I said earlier, because your thoughts are so powerful, I think that being able to be in control of that can be helpful to the situation. It could actually be a first step to combating social anxiety. And then actually acting on it is very important as well. Like if you're realizing what's the cause of social anxiety, such as let's say being with a certain group of people, maybe not being with that group of people is a good way to mitigates that social anxiety. Is it hanging out with a lot of people or a lot of new people. Maybe you try to keep your groups more intimate or introduce new people into your life a little bit slower at a slower pace. Is it because people are being mean to you? This can also apply to family situations as well. Maybe try to surround yourself with people who are supportive and are friendlier. And yes, it's good to provide constructive criticism, but that doesn't mean to be disrespectful. So and even if you live with this person, I know that it could be very, very hard, but still, at least trying to surround yourself with supportive people can help offset that. But if it's your friends or quote unquote friends, yes we're using the air quotes. Now get you some new friends. Okay, listen, Okay, every tall girl needs a tall bestie, but I firmly believe that every tall girl also needs a short bestie, one who supports her and helps her to appreciate her high anstance up for her to other people. Well, anyways, back to the causes physically uncomfortable spaces. If you notice that you're in a physically uncomfortable space like this is regarding your posture. So let's say the seats are very uncomfortable. I especially hate seats. Hate is a strong word. I especially strongly dislike seats that don't have backs to them, because you know, being tall is you're more likely to have a hunch back because you're already hunching over pretty much everything because it's shorter, like sinks and other things that are not coming to my mind right now, but I'm pretty sure you know what I mean. It's mainly because, like I was washing dishes literally like this morning, and I was just hunting over the sink and my back was starting to hurt. I was like, oh, I need to take a break, but whatever. But we're already hunting over so many things simply because they are much shorter than we'd like for them to be. So if you're putting yourself in situations where you're gonna be physically uncomfortable and you're gonna be hunching over, that's just gonna make the such situation worse. So, you know, regarding your posture, Sitting or standing in very awkward positions can also make you feel self conscious because it's not only a thing of oh my gosh, I'm literally in pain, but as everybody seeing how weird I look right now, like they must think that I look so weird, so out of place. So posture is very, very important, not just for physical comfort but also for confidence. The literal physical pain that a tall person can feel is actually crazy. Just this week alone, I've had this sharp pain on my right side from my neck down to my meadow back, and I found out that it's because of the way that I was sleeping. So yes, tall folks even sleep. Posture is important, but even so, poor pasture can lead to pain that you know ultimately affects how you know. You just do your day to day. You walk slowly, you flinch or cringe at like doing certain movements because of like this excruciating pain stuff like that. To be your best, you got to feel your best, So make sure you are doing your stretches, and make sure you are sleeping, walking, sitting, standing properly. And of course lastly, this is like a serious problem. I definitely recommend seeking professional help, especially if you want a diagnosis. Please do not diagnose yourself. If you want an actual diagnosis, go see a professional. And if you know that you need help, also try to see a professional. And I know that you know this is not always the most accessible to people, especially relating to finances, and you know, not everybody's insurance is able to cover therapy or just seeking professional help in general, So just do the best that you can. But professional help is definitely I personally feel like worth the investment after you have all your basic needs. Of course, so in conclusion, as a tall person, it's not always the easiest to stand out in a crowd, and this can negatively impact our mental health, and this serves as a reminder that it's just as important to take care of your mental health as it is of your physical health. And that means being able to focus on what you can actively control. Your environment, the people you're around, your posture, therapy, a lot of that good stuff. So make sure that you keep that in mind, that you can't control everything, but you can at least control what you do, especially if you're an adult, So just try to focus on that. So that's my two cents of you know, talking a little bit about what social anxiety looks like as a tall person and you know, ways to navigate that. So I hope that that was helpful or at least a little bit insightful. I do appreciate that you made it to the end of this episode. Thank you so so much for that. I really do appreciate you. And yeah, feel free to hit me out. Let's have a conversation about this on social media or now that I have a newsletter, we can have a conversation over email. But either way, let's have a conversation about this. You know, let's talk about like, what are your experiences with social anxiety? Do you have social anxiety? Are you a tall person with social likings anxiety. Did anything that I say make sense? Like do you think you have something to add? Like let me know. Let's have a conversation about this because I'm down for it. And yeah, until then, have a great rest of your day, week, month, year, whatever that is for you. Stay safe and whatever weather you're experiencing right now, and I'll catch you in the next one. Good night and goodbye.