Top stars suffered from terminal shyness

Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt and Hugh Grant are some of the world's brightest stars. They have also suffered a "terminal shyness".

The UK Telegraph newspaper reports that shyness has been tagged as the anxiety disorder of the decade by The American Journal Of Psychiatry.

Grant last year confessed to camera shyness after a long hiatus from films. "In recent years, I've had really bad panic attacks where I totally froze up. I thought 'well, if I am going to get stage fright, then I am packing it in."

The actor, 49, has since returned to films but continues to talk of retirement and his wish for a partner and children.

Linda Crawford of the London Shyness Centre summed it up: ''Shyness wreaks havoc in lives. It is the hidden and ignored emotion. You can spend a lifetime of under-achievement, loneliness, panic attacks and depression, unable to ask for help.''

While research in the US at Stanford University has found shyness starts young with some kids mirroring the low self-esteem of parents, there is hope for sufferers. The London Shyness Centre touts NLP or neuro-linguistic programming. The approach encourages focusing on positive thoughts instead of thinking about how people will look at you or "I am not good enough".