Imagine this scenario: You are about to walk into a mall that you can tell just from the packed parking lot is crowded. Your hands start to tremble, and you can feel a cool sweat oozing from your skin. You’ve done everything you can to avoid going but caved into the pressure. Normally, you stay close to home and don’t frequently immerse yourself in social situations. You walk into the mall and feel like everyone is staring at you, judging you, assessing you like you are a bug under a microscope. It becomes difficult to breathe, and you feel your heart racing.
If you do not experience social anxiety, it is difficult to put yourself into this mind-frame. If you have social anxiety, you’ve probably experienced something quite similar. In fact, for you, it might be something you experience on a daily basis. Learning how to get over social anxiety can happen but will involve you taking the time to mindfully sort through your thoughts and emotions. This can help you build a better strategy and maintain as realistic of an outlook on social situations as possible.
Take Note of Your Fearful and Anxious Thoughts
As many counselors trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy will tell you, it is important to be mindful (in other words, to pay close attention to) of the thoughts and feelings that correlate with your experiences of social anxiety. While taking notes is not a permanent fix to your thoughts, it can help you understand what might be triggering your social anxiety.
Are there any particular patterns that emerge while you take these notes? Which social situations seem to spark your anxiety the most? Which symptoms (for example, an elevated heart rate, difficulty breathing, or profuse sweating) do you notice when you experience social anxiety? Try organizing your notes by listing the date and time, situation, and symptoms of anxiety into three separate columns. As you go, look for patterns and similarities that might emerge and tell you more about what is causing your social anxiety.
Develop an Exposure Hierarchy
Exposing yourself to the situations that evoke feelings of social anxiety is terrifying yet, for many people, effective at developing a better understanding of social anxiety. Once you have a notion of what triggers your symptoms, try constructing a fear ladder. You can start off with smaller fears (such as saying “hello” to your teacher or co-worker) and, step-by-step, gradually work your way up each rung of the ladder. Once you feel you have successfully faced down one trigger, you can move onto the next and try as many times as you need until you feel comfortable.
Develop Relaxation Techniques
When you are able to relax the mind, you can also relax the body. Anxiety manifests emotionally, mentally, and physically, so it is important to learn ways to effectively control all of these aspects in order to learn how to get over social anxiety. Two ways that you can do this are through calm breathing and progressive muscle relaxation.
Calm breathing can help you slow down and reconnect your mind and body through the emphasis that is placed on deep, regulated breathing. Since this is something that is a core component of yoga and meditation, many people with different forms of anxiety will practice those things in order to reduce the severity of their symptoms.
Likewise, progressive muscle relaxation can help you on your journey for how to get over social anxiety. It does so by helping you learn how to reduce the amount of tension in your muscle groups. Even if you are not feeling anxious in the moment, it does not hurt to practice progressive muscle relaxation on a routine basis. That way, when something does trigger your anxiety, you will be ready with your technique.
Maintain a Rational Perspective
Keeping a realistic frame-of-mind when in the throes of social anxiety is much easier said than done. However, it is a crucial step in learning how to get over social anxiety. Those who have social anxiety tend to think some relatively negative thoughts about themselves when they enter into situations that evoke their anxiety.
In fact, you might recognize some of these thoughts:
- “Everyone will laugh at me!”
- “No one is going to like me if I open my mouth to speak.”
- “People will notice how jittery I am and think I’m crazy.”
- “If I make a mistake, people will think I am dumb or ignorant.”
These thoughts might feel real, but, in truth, they are not that realistic. Also, these negative thoughts tend to not be very helpful.
Instead, what you can do is start finding more realistic and helpful thoughts to replace these. Try asking yourself some of the following questions whenever one of these anxiety-driven thoughts occurs:
- Am I 100% certain that this will actually happen or is true?
- If my best friend told me the same thing I just thought, what would I say to them?
- What is truly the worst that could happen? And would it?
Realistic thinking is something that takes time to cultivate, and you might not succeed at catching and correcting yourself every time. To help yourself out, you can make coping cards (cards with your realistic and helpful statements on them) and carry them with you.
Give Counseling a Try
Social anxiety can be difficult to manage on your own, which is why having a compassionate counselor on your side can help you learn how to get over social anxiety. CBT and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy counselors have many tools at their disposal that can help you cultivate your social anxiety toolkit. There is no shame in accepting their help.
Learning how to get over social anxiety takes time and practice. It also helps to have a strong support system on your side. While you might feel like it is easier to go it alone, reaching out for help can be one of the most profound steps you can take in coping with your social anxiety.
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