Social Anxiety Disorder formerly known as Social Phobia is an anxiety condition marked by overwhelming anxiety and extreme self-consciousness in routine social situations. People who suffer from social anxiety disorder constantly, intensely, and chronically worry about how others will perceive them, how their behavior will make them look, and how others will react to them. Their dread could be so intense that it prevents them from participating in their jobs, studies, or other activities. Numerous sufferers of social anxiety disorder are aware that their fear of being around people may be excessive or irrational, but they are unable to get over it.
A person with a social anxiety disorder may only exhibit symptoms in specific contexts, such as a fear of public speaking, or they may exhibit symptoms consistently while around other people. Social anxiety disorder can have negative effects if left untreated. People might be prevented from attending jobs or school or from making acquaintances, for instance.
SYMPTOMS OF SOCIAL ANXIETY
Physical Symptoms
More often than not, social anxiety goes beyond fear of social interaction. People who struggle with social anxiety frequently worry about how other people will see them. It could be a minor condition. When severe, it can significantly lower a person’s quality of life.
Physical symptoms might result from social anxiety. An individual with social anxiety may:
- Shortness of breath
- Faintness
- Increased heart rate
- Shaking
- Sweatiness
Emotional and Behavioral Symptoms
- Fear of situations where you could receive unfavorable judgment.
- Worry about making yourself look bad or humiliated.
- Severe anxiety while engaging or conversing with strangers.
- Fear that people may notice that you appear worried.
- Fear of experiencing bodily reactions that could humiliate you, such as blushing, perspiring, trembling, or speaking with a tremble.
- Avoidance of activities or interactions with others out of a desire to avoid shame.
- Avoid circumstances where you might be the focus of attention.
- Fear of a dreaded activity or event-related anxiety.
- Severe anxiety or fear in social situations.
- After a social event, evaluate your performance and look for weaknesses in your interactions.
- The anticipation of the worst outcomes after a bad experience in social situations.
OVERCOMING SOCIAL ANXIETY
SELF-HELP FOR SOCIAL ANXIETY
Self-help techniques frequently incorporate the efficient elements of more conventional therapeutic modalities. Self-help techniques could include exposure to frightening situations, mind reprogramming, and relaxation techniques.
- Get Yourself Out There
You can simply feel stuck in a rut most of the time if you have mild to moderate social anxiety. How can you break out of a rut the best? Get moving.
If you have a social anxiety disorder (SAD), it can be tempting to stay away from social and performance circumstances, but it’s crucial to put yourself out there. That entails agreeing to invitations to go to places and engage in activities that are uncomfortable for you. At the same time, you must get yourself ready to deal with being outside.
- Ask for Help
Waiting till tomorrow, next week, or the following crises are not advisable. Schedule a consultation with someone right away. Consider calling a mental health helpline, like the one provided by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, if you are too ashamed to call your doctor. Speaking with a stranger could be less scary for you, and you might end up getting the assistance you require as a result. Simply take the first action.
- Keep a Journal
Maintain a daily journal so you can track your progress. Writing down your ideas and experiences will also make it easier for you to spot when you are reverting to old routines and destructive thought patterns.
- Improve Your Health
Make every effort to prevent your physical health from being a factor in your anxiety issues. Eat a nutritious, balanced diet and engage in regular exercise, including weight training and cardiovascular activity. Try your best to avoid drinking. For calming effects, sip chamomile tea.
- Set Goals
Having vague objectives for what you wish to accomplish is insufficient. It’s critical to write out your objectives, whether you desire to become an Academy Award-winning actress or get rid of your social anxiety symptoms. This makes things measurable and real.
Setting goals involves selecting where you want to go in the end, but it also entails learning about yourself and establishing a baseline for where you are right now. One approach to achieve this is to perform some self-assessment tests to determine your social anxiety level (the Liebowitz scale is a good one to try.
You can take the test again, later on, to check whether your results have improved once you have started to pull yourself out of the rut. In terms of social achievement, keep in mind not to compare yourself to others but rather to how you were performing a week, month, or a year ago.
- Congratulate Yourself
Even though you lack confidence in front of an audience, you have a lot to be proud of in your life. Recognize that you encounter more difficulties than others and that you should be proud of your tiny victories. On certain days, you could even feel proud of yourself for leaving the house. You’ll feel more confident about yourself if you build on minor successes.
- Stop Trying to Be Perfect
It’s common for perfectionism and social anxiety to coexist. It’s not necessary for everything you say and do to be perfect. Make it a point to risk-taking and being flawed for a day.
- Go on Vacation
As obvious as it may sound, occasionally we may all need a change of scenery. If you find yourself in a persistent state of social anxiety, consider traveling alone for a weekend somewhere new. Take in some of the local customs and acclimate to a slower pace.
- Read a Book
For self-help, pick a book about social anxiety or a motivational narrative. Read as much as you can about social anxiety and how to overcome it. Read authentic accounts from others who have experienced it. Read common life-motivational literature. Self-education is never a bad idea; it might provide you with the inspiration or insight you need to make changes in your life.
- Start Paying Attention
Your thoughts and emotions may have become so routine that you aren’t even aware of what goes through your head every day. 2 Examine your thoughts as they come, paying particular attention to any negative ones as you slow down and take your time to concentrate on the here and now.
Why do you suffer from your thoughts?
- Make Changes for Yourself, Not Others
Think carefully about why you wish to change. It makes sense to control social anxiety if daily life is painful. The improvements you make won’t stick around if your only goal is to impress your Facebook friends or people you know in person with your popularity and social skills.
- Reward Yourself
If you don’t give yourself rewards for your efforts, getting out of a rut won’t be very enjoyable. Choose a reward you know you’ll enjoy and save it for when you’ve made changes in your life—whether they be daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. Ideas may include a great meal, a fresh book, or perhaps a trip you’ve always wanted to take.
- Make One Little Change
We sometimes tend to believe that the changes we need to make to break out of a rut must be significant. Check to see if one small modification has an impact on your life.
One minor modification might be to watch the news every evening to stay up to date with current happenings.
- Challenge Yourself
Are you employed in a position that does not make use of your abilities and skills? Due to your social anxiety, have you ever chosen the “safe” path? Try to break out of a rut by stepping outside of your comfort zone and accepting the difficulties that will help you develop as a person.
Accept the promotion at work, return to school to pursue a different field, or launch your own company. Do not let social anxiety prevent you from pursuing your passions and aspirations.
- Appreciate What You Have
Although experiencing social anxiety may have been bad luck, there are certainly many things in your life for which you should be grateful. Spend some time being thankful for what you do have.
- Get Adequate Sleep
Make sure you are getting enough sleep because not getting enough sleep might make you feel less than your best and make anxiety worse.
- Laugh
Sometimes those who struggle with social anxiety worry and fret so much that they forget to laugh and enjoy themselves. When was the last time you laughed aloud while watching a hilarious movie? Who made you laugh the most recently? Make an effort to laugh more often. What is the point if you aren’t having a good time?
- Spend Time in Nature
Being outside naturally calms one down. 11 Try going outside more frequently if you work indoors or spend the majority of your time indoors. Whenever you can, take a stroll in the park to break up your routine.
THERAPIES FOR SOCIAL ANXIETY
It is a type of psychotherapy that works wonders in the treatment of extreme social anxiety. By removing thoughts or actions that support the anxiety illness, CBT and behavioral therapy attempt to reduce anxiety significantly.
Exposure, or facing one’s fears, is a crucial component of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety. There are typically three stages to the exposure process. A person is first introduced to the feared circumstance. The second phase is to make it more likely that you’ll be rejected in that circumstance so you may gain confidence in your ability to handle rejection or criticism. Teaching someone how to deal with criticism constitutes the third phase. In this phase, participants are invited to visualize their biggest fear and are urged to come up with helpful reactions to this fear and their perceived rejection.
These stages are frequently accompanied by instruction in anxiety management, such as teaching people deep breathing methods. It could be feasible to reduce anxiety related to feared circumstances if this is done properly and with guidance from a therapist. When you receive CBT or behavioral treatment, exposure will only happen when you’re ready, gradually, and with your consent. Together, you and the therapist will decide how much and how quickly you can tolerate it.
Other than a brief increase in discomfort due to increased anxiety, CBT and behavioral therapy have no unfavorable side effects. However, for the treatment to be effective, the therapist must be well-versed in its techniques. The therapist will probably give the patient homework during therapy, which they must complete between sessions. Behavioral therapy, such as CBT, typically lasts 12 weeks. If everyone in the group is dealing with issues that are sufficiently comparable, it can be conducted in a group setting. Significant others may benefit from receiving supportive therapy, such as group, couples, or family therapy, to better understand the disease. Social skills instruction might occasionally help persons who struggle with social anxiety.
- GROUP THERAPY
People with social anxiety may find group therapy sessions helpful. Group therapy can be a space for people to practice and build social skills. This is done in a safe and teamwork-oriented setting.
The purpose of group therapy for social anxiety disorder is to help people form new relational patterns and responses to situations that increase their anxiety in social situations.
During group sessions, counselors will often ask leading questions to encourage discussion, connection, and social interaction amongst the group. People may volunteer to speak, or the therapist may ask a person to share. Conversations are always fluid and organic.
To help clients overcome their anxiety concerns, some counselors will even let them “practice” situations. The term for this is exposure treatment. As a person starts to learn how to control their anxiety symptoms, group practice can eventually transition to real-life situations. Two group members might occasionally be requested to “role play” themselves.
To gauge the success of the group’s participants, counselors frequently follow up with their clients outside of the group. People will typically start to notice subtle changes in their confidence or social interactions after a month or two. As group work enables individuals to practice difficult social interactions in a secure atmosphere, it is undeniably true that social practice within group settings aids in individuals gaining confidence in their daily lives.
- PSYCHODYNAMIC THERAPY (PDT)
PDT is being studied as a possible social anxiety treatment. Compared to CBT, this form of treatment necessitates more sessions and self-reflection. Psychodynamic treatment, like psychoanalysis, urges the patient to express as many of their psychological experiences in words as they can.
The therapeutic relationship is the primary tool for doing this. The therapeutic interaction between patients and therapists acts as a catalyst for transformation as they collaborate. The patient and therapist work to identify the related events that led to the emergence of social anxiety during treatment.
While doing this, they closely monitor the patient’s current relationships to see if they change over time. In a way, the therapeutic relationship can offer the patient a corrective experience by tending to any emotional needs that may arise while they are receiving therapy.
This implies that PDT does not, in and of itself, intend to treat any particular psychiatric issues. Instead, it makes an effort to foster self-knowledge, which can result in experiences that can change one’s life.
However, because of its symptom-relieving properties, it is now frequently used to lessen symptoms. Numerous quick therapies (10–36 sessions) have been demonstrated to effectively lower social anxiety.
Among the objective changes that can often be observed throughout the treatment process are:
- Improved communication skills
- Better conflict management
- Enhanced assertiveness
- Decreased social isolation
However, the patient’s subjective alterations are particularly relevant in psychodynamic therapy. The analytical perspective the patient is likely to grow during the therapy procedure is a crucial element of PDT. This attitude is likely to stick with the patient even after they complete treatment by carefully examining all of their significant relationships.
No one plan works successfully for all clients receiving treatment for social anxiety disorder. Each client’s needs must be taken into account when providing treatment. Together, a patient and therapist should choose the best course of action and evaluate if the strategy seems to be working. Because every patient reacts differently to treatment, changes to the plan are occasionally necessary.
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REFERENCES-
https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/social-phobia/treatment
Enroll in our Accredited CBT Therapy for Anxiety Online Course
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Practitioner (CBT) Udemy Course
- How to overcome excessive worry – CBT guide Udemy Course
- Managing OCD with Mindfulness & CBT Udemy Course
- CBT Counseling with Mindfulness for self-compassion Udemy Course
- CBT for Fear of Abandonment & People leaving you Udemy Course
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