These are called secondary behaviors and they are learned probably from the time you were young so they are very ingrained and definitely not easy to correct. If you want to correct them, it will take time, a deliberate approach, and more patience. Here's what I recommend: 1. Make a list of all seconary behaviors you are aware of (there's likely plenty you arent and this is where an SLP can help). I'd rank them based on what is most interferring with communication. For example, eye contact is more interferring/unnatural than interjections like "umm". 2. Create a ordered list of speaking situations for yourself based on difficulty or fear. This would mean "Easy: talking with friends, talking with parents, Medium: ordering at a restaurant, calling a customer service number, hard: giving a presentation, talking to that girl at work". These are just examples. 3. Pick one behavior from Step One you want to work on (I suggest eye contact) and find 2-3 easy situations or conversations you can have in a day. In those conversations, you're going to monitor eye contact. That means, you're going to pay attention and notice each time you look away, close your eyes, blink, etc... You're going to notice when you do it (Do you do it at seemingly random times? Do you do it when you hit a block and you're trying to move forward? Do you do it when you anticipate stuttering?) That's it. Once you get a good idea, you can move to working on maintaining eye contact in those situations. Eye contact is the only purpose of these conversations. It doesn't matter if you end up stuttering 10x more, if you dont come across as clear, the only thing you're focused on is eye contact (whether montioring or maintaining). These situations/conversations can be (and should be) as simple as the next time you're talking with your friend, choose a 2 minute period where you're primary focus is on this task. Or at work find the co-worker you're most comfortable with and ask him about his/her weekend or some question about work. Don't try to have entire conversations doing this. It is supposed to be small, isolated, and achievable. It's not going to be perfect from the start and that's ok. The point is to make incremental improvements you can actually achieve. If you monitor and realze you lose eye contact on every block, next time you work on it you're going to try to maintain eye contact during 1 or 2 easier blocks. You progress at your own pace when you've developed enough skill to at your current level.