People who suffer from social anxiety tend to avoid large crowds, participating in social events and activities. Feel awkward around new people. Have a hard time starting a conversation or making friends. Avoid drinking or eating around other people, and etc.
Social anxiety and hypervigilance
Social anxiety can make you feel like other people are always paying direct attention to you. Judge your physical appearance, social skills or personality characteristics. This phenomenon is called hypervigilance. It’s a common trait among people who suffer from anxiety disorders.
Hypervigilant people’s brains are more alert and sensitive in social situations. They scan the surrounding environment for possible threats. In case of social anxiety that could be a situation where other people might see or judge your imperfections, social performance, reject or make fun of you.
Hypervigilance lead social anxious person to feel uncomfortable, restless in social situations. Person might experience excessive fear and anxiety symptoms such as racing heart, sweating, cold hands and feet, blushing, shaking hands, stuttering. These symptoms often make social interaction even more stressful because person may feel that others can notice social anxiety symptoms.
Overthinking and avoidence
People with social anxiety tend to feel intense fear, uncertainty before social interactions. They fear that social interactions will go wrong and they will embaress themselves or inadvertently offend others.
Fear and uncertainty often leads to rumination and overthinking of every slightest detail, every possible negative outcome of situation. People may start to believe that they are not good enough looking, accomplished, funny to belong in certain crowd.
This often leads to avoidence, self-isolation, depression and sadness. Person can say mean things to themselves such as: ,, I am a looser. No one will ever want talk to me. I am boring, I have no personality. I lack social skills. Everyone is better looking.”
Symptoms of social anxiety
- You avoid social events, gatherings.
- You feel shy, awkward around other people.
- You worry that others are constantly looking at you, judging you.
- You fear that other people will notice your imperfections.
- You have a hard time starting a conversation or expressing yourself.
- You worry that others won’t like you.
- You experience uncertainty and anxiety before social events.
- You experience symptoms such as racing heart, sweating, cold sweaty hands, blushing, shaking hands, stuttering.
- You are obsessed with analyzing your social interaction, performance.
- You worry about leaving a bad impression on people.
- You like to be quiet and remain unseen in a social setting.
- You fear that others might reject you because you’re not good enough.
- You have a hard time making friends.
- You worry about leaving a bad impression or offending others.
- You really want to know what others think of you.
Social anxiety has socially favoirable side
In reality, people who tend to suffer from social anxiety have socially favorable personality traits that are beneficial for social interaction and establishment of long-term friendships.
- They are deep thinkers. Usually they carefully analyze different aspects of a topic and don’t jump to conclusions. They may have a unique way of pursuing the truth.
- They are great listeners. They don’t make conversation just about themselves, they like to ask questions and understand another person’s perspective and point of view.
- They are empathic. They are able to connect with other people’s soul and being, walk in their shoes, understand other people’s emotions and challenges of life.
- They are considerate. They have great understanding of boundaries, impact their actions, words will have on others. They like to follow social norms and etiquette, and be honest to others.
- They are positive people. They don’t like to bad mouth others, they always try to give their best. They are kind, loving people that like to see the positive side of a situation.
How to overcome social anxiety?
Self-acceptance
We all have insecurities and parts of our body, personality that are difficult to accept. Insecurities create fear and shame. They can create feeling that somehow you are not good enough for others and they may reject you. We way believe that others can notice our imperfections and based on them judge us.
Most of our insecurities, unless you been traumatized, are part of processes that naturally happens inside our psyche. Our psyche is really sensitive to criticism and rejection, so it will do anything in order to avoid these two scenarious.
Learning to accept your body and be okay with irrational fear of criticism and rejection, is the best way to free yourself from discomfort that your mind creates. At the end of the day, most of our insecurities are fantasies and they are not true.
If you believe that they have a negative impact on your life and you continuously engage in thought processes, pay attention to them then they become part of your reality. Learning to see yourself beyond imperfections and accept truly who we are, is a journey we all must go through.
Hypervigilance retraining
Hypervigilance is a state of mind where a person is overly aware of people surrounding him. Hypervigilant brains are always scanning for possible danger, threat in social situations. That could be judgment, rejection, mistreatment from other people.
For example, you may go for a walk and listen to music on loud speakers. People may pass by and suddenly you feel anxiety, have thoughts that others might judge your music taste and say something negative to you.
For example, you take a ride in public transport and wear your favorite winter boots. They have been scratched from wearing. You may feel shame and fear that others might notice them and think of you like a less worthy person or judge your appearance.
Hypervigilance retraining is a cognitive exercise in which you have to learn to regulate yourself. When you have intrusive thoughts your job is to try to keep your head straight. Recognize that those are just thoughts and they are trying to trick your mind into a panic state.
The less you engage in conversation with your anxious side that is ready to be criticized or rejected, the faster you will get back to the calm state. You should always try to remain as calm as possible. All you have to do is to recognize: ,,Ah, my mind is trying to trick me.” and try to shift your attention elsewhere. You can shift it to the core of yourself. Focus on relaxing and breathing calm. Try to be as non-reactive to your thoughts as you can be.
Generally you want to build safety and calmness around yourself. Self-acceptance is also an important part of this step. It takes time to rewire your anxious brain but once you get a little bit of grip, you will get better and better.
Exposure
Exposure is a commonly used tool for treatment of social anxiety. In simple terms, exposure is a process in which you slowly build courage, confidence to do things you are mostly afraid of, and try to avoid. If you are afraid of starting a conversation with a stranger then you can start with small steps and work your way up.
In beginning, you may have a conversation with close relative you don’t have close relationship. Then you can work your way up and have a conversation with the cashier at the grocery store. Later you may ask stranger for directions on street and have little chat.
Slowly you get used to talking to strangers and your confidence grows. Of course, it takes courage and will power to put yourself through social situations that make you uncomfortable, anxious. Usually with practice anxiety tends to slowly reduce and you get more comfortable, confident. After a while you don’t really worry about the problems you had before. Practice and gained skills outweighs uncertainty, anxiety.