Social anxiety is clinically defined as feeling intense anxiety when anticipating a social situation, being extremely awkward during and after a social event. The thing that freaks people with social anxiety is the fear of evaluation of other people around him or her. People with social anxiety fear those who give negative or even positive evaluation of how they look, what they do and how they act. People with social anxiety want to be inconspicuous as possible, hiding away from other people in a social event. Most people with social anxiety start off with extreme shyness until the shyness evolves into fear of meeting other people. Shyness may seem like something that holds you back from a lot of things, but social anxiety is far more severe because it can affect your lifestyle altogether.
There are a few things that you can do in order to overcome social anxiety and these are:
- Try reading self-help books
Self-help books can extremely help and can give you tips on how to act in social situations and how to deal when the anxiety attacks come. Try reading so you can internalize on what you can do, and how you can face social situations.
- Get professional help
A lot of people with social anxiety feel ashamed of getting help from a professional, but regular sessions with a therapist will help in so many ways. There are many therapists who specialize in dealing with social anxiety, so try to get help so you can properly deal with the anxiety attacks and hopefully, do away with the social anxiety in the long run.
- Take deep breaths!
Breathing is one of the most therapeutic steps that you can do to ease off the anxiety attacks. It is actually the primary reason why breathing is made part of a lot of exercise classes. When you are having an anxiety attack, go to a spare room or the comfort room, take deep breaths, and focus on each breath you take. After a few breaths, you will notice that your stress will start to go away and your dizziness will start to dissipate.
- List down the things that stress you out in social situations
One of the things that you can do is to list down all your anxiety-provoking situations. You can list them according to the intensity of the anxiety you feel. You can start off exposing yourself to the easiest ones. Expose yourself more on the first levels, and make it a habit to list down how you react to that as you progress, then once you move on from the first item, move your way up the list. Practice doing this regularly, and you will find that you have great improvements in dealing with your social anxiety problem.
- Create realistic and objective goals
As for every plan ever made, it is highly important to set a realistic and objective goal. This is to make sure that you are setting your targets correctly, and not just jumping into non realistic goals that may just bring you disappointment in the long run. Remember, the primary goal in getting rid of your social anxiety problem is to ultimately live a healthy social life. Always remind yourself of this goal every day, and make it a point to keep a record of your developments as well.
Social anxiety is something that is something that you can take out of your system, but you have to commit yourself in changing the way you think, because technically, social anxiety is a battle in the mind. You just have to reprogram the way you think, stick to your plan and keep your eyes in the goal so you can get the results that you are aiming for.
