Vitamins
I think it's great that your feeling a lot more confident catherine, I wish you all the best, I'm always interested to see posts that link nutrition to social anxiety. I do though believe full heartedly that the majority, if not all of people who experience social anxiety, are experiencing it because of the way they think.
I think poor levels nutrition and exercise do compound the issue though, I've now overcome my difficulties with social anxiety, and part of feeling good again was to make major improvements to my health, I found I felt so much more able to cope with everything and make progress when I was feeling healthy. Cutting out sugary and dairy products from my diet and eating lots of fresh veggies and salads helped a lot. Let me stress though that these changes did not stop my social anxiety, they helped me have the energy and well being to overcome my challenges.
There is a lot of talk in this thread about supplements and dosages, and correct me if I wrong, but I though a few people thought that they were drugs, they are not, vitamins and minerals are vital for us to stay alive and are found in the food we eat, with the exception of st. john wart which is a natural drug and not a vitamin.
You can get all the vitamins and minerals you need by eating a healthy balanced diet (what this is though is open to discussion, it definitely involves lots of vegetables though), a lot of todays processed food are nutrient deficient so a lot of people don't get all they need to have good or optimum health, and certain things like cigarette, alcohol and pollutents can inhibit our ability to absorbe nutrients or they cause us to need more or certain things.
It is much better to get these vitamins from foods as the nutrients found in food are more easily absorbed usually, this is how we've evolved to get our daily nutritional intake. As a general rule, eat lots of whole foods (unprocessed foods) such as beans (not baked beans), lentals, fresh vegetables, salads, nuts, seeds, fresh fish and some fresh fruit. Keep hydrated with just water. Stay clear of wheat (particularly white flour), dairy (although it contains a lot of calcium, it has now been proved that milk is a poor provider since the protiens in it leach calium from our bones) , addatives, sugary or salty foods and fried foods. You'll be amazed at the amount of energy a diet like this can give you and how you will have more mental clarity and feel more able to cope with life. Many people have dairy or wheat allergies or intollerances, many suffer and don't knwo why. I found I had a dairy intollerance and my levels of anxiety reduced significantly when I gave it up (my panic attacks stopped), again though, this did not stop my social anxiety and is not a complete answer, overcomming social anxiety means changing how you think, there are no short cuts, it is still possible to overcome SA without changing your lifestyle, but it certainly helps.
Too many B vitamins will make your pee yellow btw, if you do your getting more than you need and your body it removing the excess. There's is no correct dosage for anyone since it depends on what foods your eating and what your body is already abundant or deficient in and what your biology is, we're all different.
Hope this clarifies things,
Nick.
p.s. I'm gradually developing a free resource to help people experience social anxiety live the happy and fulfilling life they want. Goto
www.socialanxiety.org.uk , please be patient it will be updated soon, in the mean time, I hope you find
www.socialanxiety.org.uk/nomore an interesting read.