If you’re frustrated by being labeled timid, skittish, introverted, or insecure, now is the time to make changes that will help you overcome social anxiety and connect to the world again.
Nearly 15 million adults in this country manage social anxiety disorder, and most wait a decade or more before actively seeking support. Don’t wait any longer. Start with these tips to overcome social anxiety soon:
- It may be difficult, but coping is best achieved with a support system and a qualified therapist. People you trust aren’t there to judge you. Allowing people to support you can help you learn to cope and uncover the heart of your distress. Tell your friends and family how you’re struggling. Share with your therapist honestly. Allow them to help you heal past issues, address current concerns, and gently challenge validity of your fears. In a safe environment, you can learn to recognize, examine, and cope with your fears more effectively. Learning tools to cope helps revive hope. As hope returns, you find ways to reframe your social interactions, and challenge unproductive and negative thoughts or perceptions.
- Recognize anxiety as a sign of normalcy. It’s a natural response. Knowing when to employ “fight or flight” is crucial to survival. You don’t want it to go away altogether. You simply want to keep anxiety in its place, when the danger you perceive isn’t real, and the people around you aren’t really out to get you at all.
- Understand that anxiety lies a lot. You’ve got a deeply-ingrained habit of thinking about people in worrisome ways. Examine your own thoughts, instead of trying to read the minds of others. Record them if it helps. Take a good look at how anxious you feel. Consider your automatic perceptions and responses to a group of people or unfamiliar place. Take a breath to observe and think more critically and realistically.
- Breathe deeply. As a preventative or calming measure, focus on your bodily response. Become more aware of your breath. Employ deep-breathing practices to help you arrest or slow down anxious thoughts, automatic perceptions, and negative feelings.
- Alleviate anxiety with exercise. Make physical activity a regular part of your life. The research clearly shows that exercise helps soothe the anxious mind. This may be attributed to increased familiarity with an elevated heart rate, elevated endorphins, or simple stress relief. Whatever the reason, it works. Exercise and progressive muscle relaxation change your outlook significantly.
- Practice presence. Shift focus from the racing thoughts that keep telling you what could happen or what people might be thinking. Be in the moment. Look around. Listen. Feel the air in the room. What is happening now? Keep anxiety reined in with grounded, neutral thoughts and clear observations.
- Expect discomfort and tolerate uncertainty. Life is often unpleasant. People often do or say things we wish they wouldn’t. Truthfully, sometimes those things will be directed toward you. But not all the time. Concentrate less on those things; expect them, but try not to internalize them. Leave others to their own opinions. They aren’t as important as they seem.
Anxiety lies to you when it says you will die of embarrassment. That everyone is judging you isn’t true. Accept life as it comes, embrace help from others, and slow down before you bolt. You’re more capable than you think and more resilient that you realize.
