How To Overcome Eye Contact Anxiety

Tips for Making Eye Contact

Man talking to a woman on the train.
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Eye contact anxiety can interfere with everyday social interactions. By the same token, the ability to maintain good eye contact is an important aspect of social interaction. People who look others in the eye are perceived as friendly and welcoming. However, many shy and socially anxious people have difficulty with this part of communication. 

What Is Eye Contact Anxiety?

Eye contact anxiety refers to discomfort about making eye contact or looking other people in the eye. Some people simply aren't as comfortable making eye contact as others.

A person with eye contact anxiety may feel unable to look directly into other people's eyes when talking or feel like they are being judged or scrutinized when making eye contact.

Why People Avoid Eye Contact


Eye Contact and Social Anxiety Disorder

Often people with social anxiety describe looking someone in the eyes as anxiety-provoking and uncomfortable. This is likely due, in part, to genetic wiring—research has shown that people diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD) have a pronounced fear of direct eye contact.﻿﻿

If you have social anxiety disorder, the part of your brain that warns you of danger (your amygdala) can be triggered by eye contact. 

Eye Contact and Autism

Research on those with autism shows that people with this condition are hypersensitive to eye contact such that their brains show higher than normal activity in the pathways that process expressions on people's faces. This means that these individuals avoid eye contact to manage feelings of arousal;﻿﻿ in other words, eye contact is a painful experience for them.

How to Overcome Eye Contact Anxiety

It is important to make eye contact during conversation. This skill is vital both for your career and personal relationships. While some people may be predisposed to fearing or avoiding eye contact, most individuals can learn to improve their eye contact skills and become better at making good eye contact.

There are two phases to learning eye contact.

  1. Reduce anxiety about eye contact.
  2. Improve skills for making eye contact.

Reducing Anxiety About Eye Contact

Individuals with a diagnosed anxiety disorder will benefit from treatment including cognitive-behavioral therapy and/or medication.﻿﻿ Most people with social anxiety disorder can learn to overcome their fear response and maintain better eye contact. In this way, eye contact is just one aspect of social interaction that you can become desensitized to through practice and exposure.



You could even try starting by making eye contact with characters on television, in Youtube videos (e.g., vlogs), or over Facetime or other video chats if real-life eye contact feels too stressful at first. If you find your anxiety rising before or during situations in which you must make eye contact, try practicing deep breathing to slow your heart rate and calm yourself down.

Improving Eye Contact Skills

If you are talking to someone one-on-one (or looking at people within a group), choose a spot directly between or slightly above the listener’s eyes. If this doesn’t feel comfortable, try letting your eyes go slightly out of focus, which has the added benefit of softening and relaxing your gaze. Look away occasionally. Staring too intensely will make people uncomfortable.﻿﻿

Employing these two strategies to improve your eye contact will make your listeners feel more connected to you and increase the likelihood that you will feel more comfortable when speaking—either to a group or to an individual.

Tips for Making Eye Contact

  • Make eye contact before you start talking to someone.
  • Use the 50/70 rule: maintain eye contact 50 percent of the time when speaking and 70 percent when listening.
  • Hold eye contact for about four to five seconds at a time, or about as much time as it takes you to register the color of their eyes. When you break eye contact, glance to the side before resuming your gaze.
  • When you look away, do it slowly. Looking away too quickly (darting your eyes) can make you appear nervous or shy.
  • Don't look down when you look away, as this shows a lack of confidence.
  • Rather than looking away, you can also look at another spot on their face. Imagine an inverted triangle connecting their eyes and mouth. Every five seconds, rotate which point of the triangle you are looking at.
  • Break your gaze to make a gesture or to nod, as this appears more natural than looking away because you've grown uncomfortable with the amount of eye contact.
  • If looking someone directly in the eyes is too stressful, instead look at a spot on their nose, mouth, or chin.

In a Group

When speaking to a group of people, instead of thinking of the group as a whole, imagine having individual conversations with one person in the group at a time.

As you speak, choose one person in the group and pretend that you are talking just with that person. Look at him as you finish your thought or sentence. As you begin a new sentence or idea, choose another person in the group and look her in the eye as you finish your thought. Make sure that you eventually include everyone in the group.

Research on Eye Contact in Social Anxiety Disorder

A 2017 review published in Current Psychiatry Reports found that social anxiety is related to a mixture of being on guard and avoiding processing emotional social stimuli.﻿﻿ This means that at a party, you might both be on the lookout for people who seem to be judging you, but also try to avoid situations in which you feel you are being judged.

In addition, the review showed that socially anxious people tend to avoid maintaining eye contact. Again, this is likely due to the fear of being judged.

A Word From Verywell

If you find that your social anxiety is severe to the point that looking someone in the eye is overly distressing, seek help from a mental health professional or your family doctor. If you have not already been diagnosed with SAD, your symptoms will be assessed and a treatment plan for your unique situation drawn up.

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Article Sources

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  2. Hadjikhani N, Åsberg johnels J, Zürcher NR, et al. Look me in the eyes: constraining gaze in the eye-region provokes abnormally high subcortical activation in autism. Sci Rep. 2017;7(1):3163. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-03378-5

  3. Jefferson JW. Social Anxiety Disorder: More Than Just a Little Shyness. Prim Care Companion J Clin Psychiatry. 2001;3(1):4-9. doi:10.4088/pcc.v03n0102

  4. Weick M, Mccall C, Blascovich J. Power Moves Beyond Complementarity: A Staring Look Elicits Avoidance in Low Power Perceivers and Approach in High Power Perceivers. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2017;43(8):1188-1201.

  5. Chen NTM, Clarke PJF. Gaze-Based Assessments of Vigilance and Avoidance in Social Anxiety: a Review. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2017;19(9):59. doi:10.1007/s11920-017-0808-4

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