How To Get Over Social Anxiety

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What Causes Social Anxiety?

Social anxiety doesnt have one specific cause. It generally develops from a complex combination of a few different factors, like genes, personality, and early life experiences.

Research suggests that theres a genetic component to social anxiety disorder. There isnt a set selection of genes that have been shown to cause social anxiety. However, it does seem to run in families and having a family member with social anxiety increases your chance of having this disorder as well.

Peoples early life experiences also influence the development of social anxiety. Experiencing situations that impact your confidence at a young age can be a risk factor for social anxiety, like overly critical parenting, bullying, or being excluded from important social groups. However, social anxiety can also develop in people who didnt have any significant negative experiences growing up.

Personality factors also contribute to social anxiety. Social anxiety is more common in people who are naturally shy or introverted. Personality traits like being perfectionistic and self-critical, or being a worrier, can also lead to social anxiety.

How To Deal With Social Anxiety

What is CBT?

How I Manage My Social Anxiety At Work

Do you feel like youre constantly being observed and judged in social situations? This debilitating feeling is called social anxiety and one in 14 people in the world deal with it. In this personal essay, Ascend editor Rakshitha Arni Ravishankar speaks with psychologist Ellen Hendriksen to understand what social anxiety is and how to cope with it.

• Social anxiety is a mental health condition thats driven by fear and largely learned. Its maintained through behaviors that mimic hiding such as walking around your entire office building to avoid others on your way in or not raising your hand during class even when your grade depends on it.
• Managing social anxiety starts by taking a behavior-first approach to experiment with new ways of learning to be comfortable in social situations. To start, focus on listening to others without trying to respond to them. This will help you shift your attention outwards instead of looking inwards.
• In uncertain situations like office parties, create your own structure to give yourself a sense of control. For instance, pick three to four people that youd like to talk to and see how you feel about it during the party.
• Finally, be kind to yourself. When you feel embarrassed or anxious, imagine how you would treat someone in a similar situation. Try and stay reasonable and grounded while giving yourself some grace.

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Today, it still shows up for me often.

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What Fears Are Involved

With social phobia, a person’s fears and concerns are focused on their social performance whether it’s a major class presentation or small talk at the lockers.

People with social phobia tend to feel self-conscious and uncomfortable about being noticed or judged by others. They’re more sensitive to fears that they’ll be embarrassed, look foolish, make a mistake, or be criticized or laughed at. No one wants to go through these things. But most people don’t really spend much time worrying about it. The fear and anxiety are out of proportion to the situation.

Map Your Social Anxiety Triggers

As much as you may struggle with social anxiety, its important to remind yourself that youre not always socially anxious.

There are likely certain people in your life you do feel comfortable around. And there are probably plenty of non-social times throughout your day when youre not in the grips of social anxiety.

I say this for two reasons:

One of the reasons social anxiety can be so overwhelming is that it becomes an automatic process.

Heres an example:

Now, simply managing the triggers of your social anxiety isnt going to completely eliminate them.

But Ive found that its a very useful first step because it can seriously take the edge off your anxietyenough to be able to start implementing some of the strategies which target the core maintaining causes of your social anxiety directly.

Try this:

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Social Phobia Underlying Fears

Some of the fears commonly aroused by social situations can include:

• worry that others will notice their physical symptoms of anxiety, such as blushing, sweating, and stammering
• fear of looking stupid, silly, or ridiculous
• fear of appearing quiet, boring and uninteresting to others
• fear of being judged as socially inadequate.

How To Effectively Deal With Social Anxiety

Its possible to manage social anxiety. You can deal with anxiety at work, school, or social events by implementing a few tips. It might not happen from one day to another, but its possible.

Working with a mental health professional can help even more. They can help you explore the possible causes of your symptoms. They can also help you develop skills to face your fears without experiencing strong emotional or physical reactions.

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Challenge The Negative Thoughts

After youve identified them, ask yourself how you are so sure these thoughts are valid?

If I am not exciting, how am I not sure that people will look beyond and like my personality as it is?

What makes you so sure that when you try something people are going to find you ridiculous?

When you question these thoughts you can replace these negative thoughts with positive. It causes a shift in how you look at which context you find yourself socially.

You need to stop guessing or think you know what others are thinking. Even if you are thinking a negative thought, what makes you think that the thought that you have of yourself is what people are actually thinking of you?

Just as how thinks could go wrong, things could go well. You are not yet in the situation but you think that that you are going to a good job. You need to change those negative thoughts my friend.

Stop blowing things out of proportion and stop anticipating things like Im going to be nervous, I will sweat and stutter over my words and people will laugh at me.

So what if that happens? Everyone has been there and understands that it is a part of life. Its not as bad as your mind is leading you to believe.

Feeling Like An Imposter Or Fraud At Work

Many people with social anxiety hide it extremely well. In fact, Ive found that social anxiety seems to be especially prevalent among people who might describe themselves as high-achievers or Type-A.

In other words, social anxiety is more prevalent than you would think in people who look like theyve got it all together on the outside. But on the inside, theyre plagued with self-doubt and imposter syndrome

• They constantly feel like theyre a fraud, not good enough, and that at any moment people are going to figure it out.
• Theyre in the habit of chronically comparing themselves to others and never feeling like they match up.
• They struggle to appreciate their wins and successes because as soon as something goes well, they immediately worry that its not good enough or that someone will find fault with them.

Of course, this struggle of feeling like a fraud tends to show up most frequently at work. And interestingly, is especially common among people who are higher up in a company or organizationas a client explained to me once, the higher you climb the further you have to fall.

Okay, now that weve covered what social anxiety is and what it looks like, lets take a look at where social anxiety comes from and what causes it.

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Ways To Overcome Social Anxiety For Good

As a psychologist who specializes in anxiety, I get asked all the time about how to overcome social anxiety.

And while I know what a struggle social anxiety can be, I have good news

With the right mindset shifts and some new habits, you can overcome social anxiety.

And thats exactly what Im going to show you how to do in this guide.

Youll learn:

• What social anxiety is exactly
• Some specific examples of what social anxiety looks like
• Where social anxiety comes from and what causes it
• A collection of practical tips to help you work through your social anxiety in a healthy way

Okay, lets dive in!

What Happens When Someone Has Social Phobia

Extreme feelings of shyness and self-consciousness build into a powerful fear. As a result, a person feels uncomfortable participating in everyday social situations.

People with social phobia can usually interact easily with family and a few close friends. But meeting new people, talking in a group, or speaking in public can cause their extreme shyness to kick in.

With social phobia, a person’s extreme shyness, self-consciousness, and fears of embarrassment get in the way of life. Instead of enjoying social activities, people with social phobia might dread them and avoid some of them altogether.

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Stop Being Mean To Yourself

People who are socially anxious tend to judge themselves harshly. They tend to find a problem with everything they do and criticize themselves.

You should stop beating up yourself. Give yourself credit for the efforts that you make so while you may not get the desired results, the fact that youve made and effort is something that you should appraise yourself for.

Every effort that you make is in itself already something worth being credited and praised for. It took so much courage for you to do. Youve taken a bold step.

These little encouragements will motivate you to continue on that path to overcome social anxiety disorder.

No ones perfect and everybody feels embarrassed at one point in their life. Overcoming social anxiety takes a lot of effort.

There will be times when you try to overcome social anxiety and feel like giving up but keep going at it. To be the best version of yourself, you have to be persistent and committed to overcoming your social anxiety.

Failing doesnt mean youre a failure. Simply take a minute and get over it.

Understanding who you are and what you want is crucial towards overcoming social anxiety. Dont surrender whilst youre having an awful day and feeling down.

You wont overcome this challenge overnight. So even if youve made some progress and then find yourself going back to your old habits, be patient with yourself, dont beat yourself up. It will get better in time

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Distress And Impairment Are Key To Social Anxiety

Distress refers to our level of suffering. Feeling anxious before a job interview is seen as acceptable because its a high-stakes situation. However, if you feel the same level of stress and anxiety when youre driving to the office or taking out the trash, then youre likely distressed.

Impairment occurs when were unable to make healthy, empowered decisions for ourselves. This can look like avoiding participating in class even when youre being marked negatively for it, taking a sick day to avoid an important meeting at work, or turning down a promotion because you fear you wont be great at it.

Beyond the formal symptoms, there may be some informal aspects of social anxiety. First, there is the urge to hide or isolate yourself, Hendriksen said. Second, this urge is expressed through avoidance behaviors, where you fly under the radar in social situations or dont show up altogether. Finally, there is a tendency to focus inwards and question your behavior: rehearsing what you may want to say, overthinking after a conversation about whether you said the right things, or feeling unsure of what to do with your hands or how to smile in front of people.

Turning inwards so vigilantly can take up a lot of our energy and leave us drained when it comes to dealing with the actual situation at hand.

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What Causes Social Anxiety And Shyness

Although we do not know the exact cause of social anxiety and shyness, we do know the factors that contribute to it. One of which can be your genetics, and also your environment.

However, a very common cause of social anxiety is a negative experience that could have happened to someone. For example, bullying the pain and negativity from this experience can sometimes stick with people.

The anxiety can possibly carry on through to adult life, causing fears of social situations and fears of being rejected or judged etc. Itâs even known that some hormone imbalances such as serotonin imbalance can contribute to social anxiety.

Now you know the causes of shyness, you can move forward and learn how to overcome social anxiety.

Talk With A Therapist

Despite what some people might suggest, social anxiety goes beyond shyness, or feeling uneasy and nervous around new people. Social anxiety is a mental health condition, and its not always possible to work through symptoms yourself.

You can do a lot on your own to manage the anxiety and distress you experience, but getting professional support is always a good place to start.

A trained mental health professional can:

• offer more insight on the difference between social anxiety and shyness
• help you identify social anxiety triggers
• teach helpful coping strategies, social skills, and relaxation techniques
• offer guidance with challenging and replacing or reframing negative thoughts

Therapy also offers a safe environment to practice navigating anxiety-provoking situations through graduated exposure, one potential treatment for social anxiety.

Your therapist might recommend group therapy or support groups, which give you the chance to practice social skills and interact with other people also coping with social anxiety.

A therapist can also refer you to a psychiatrist, who can prescribe medication for social anxiety. Medication can provide some relief from severe symptoms, making it easier to start working through them in therapy.

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Stop Complaining And Blaming

Perhaps you were dealt a bad hand in life. Maybe you had a controlling mother or a father who put you down. Although these life experiences may have contributed to your social anxiety, you don’t need to let them continue to influence the course of your life. Start taking responsibility for your actions and behavior.

How To Get Over Social Anxiety ~ 5 Ways To Free Yourself Of An Agoraphobic Lifestyle

Living with Social Anxiety

Agoraphobia, also known as social anxiety, is a condition in which someone feels an overwhelming fear of social situations, in that they may be judged, humiliated, rejected, or caused to be center of attention. An agoraphobic lifestyle can be very debilitating and interfere with someones ability to live life to the fullest. This is because they avoid many social situations that are important for self-growth. Having a fear of leaving the house, fear of crowds, or fear of people can stop a person from meeting new people, going on job interviews, interacting with others, dating, and dining out in public. Learning how to get over social anxiety involves understanding the cause of the fear in the first place.

How to Get Over Social Anxiety by Releasing the Ego

Shyness and Social Anxiety

Social anxiety causes may be attributed to shyness in adolescence, low self-esteem, or childhood trauma, such as physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, and abandonment issues. PTSD can also lead to social anxiety and these disorders commonly co-exist with one another. A shy person may feel self-conscious and use avoidance as a way of protecting themselves. Misinterpreting someones words or behaviors can also contribute to social anxiety.

Social Anxiety Triggers

• Fear of leaving the house
• Fear of open spaces

Social Anxiety Symptoms

Any of these symptoms may appear as a result of being faced with any of the fears listed above.

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Simple Steps To Feeling More Socially Confident

• Find a therapist to overcome anxiety

Social anxiety disorder is often misunderstood, and many people could be suffering in silence. Its much more than feeling shy and not wanting to speak up in big groups. It can really take control and impede your everyday life. Anxiety Care UK states that social anxiety is a common and distressing condition, with as many as 40 percent of the population suffering from it.

Young People With Social Anxiety

Experiencing social anxiety and fear of social interactions can make simple responsibilities almost impossible to overcome. An estimated 15 million American adults have social anxiety, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, with young adolescents who are transitioning to secondary school or college being particularly vulnerable. Its suggested that social anxiety disorder symptoms usually begin around the age of 13.

The good news is that there are ways to develop new habits to help ease and overcome your social anxiety.

1. Challenge your negative and anxious thoughts. At times it may feel like theres nothing you can do about the way you feel and how you think. In reality, though, there are a number of things that can help.

4. Create an exposure hierarchy. Identify and rate how each social situation makes you feel in terms of anxiousness. For example, 0 would mean no anxiety, and 10 would be a full-blown panic attack.