I recently helped to answer a question on Mens Health - Maybe you can benefit from my answer...
Question: I struggle to maintain eye contact. Can you help? Matt, Boston, MA
Answer: First, understand why you're loathe to lock eyes. "When you feel dominated, anxious, or shy, you look away as an attempt to regain control, disengage, and limit how much information you take in," says John Dovidio, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Yale University. So before any important conversation, make a conscious effort to rein in your addled emotions. If you're still struggling with eye contact, take the advice of body-language expert Patti Wood, M.A., and "split your attention among the person's mouth, eyes, and cheeks." This makes wandering eyes less obvious. And don't stop trying: University of Colorado researchers found that meeting a person's gaze makes you seem powerful and credible.
