How to Manage Social Anxiety in Everyday Situations

Social anxiety is something more than nervousness in social situations. It’s an extreme fear of being criticized, judged or negatively evaluated by others. Typical physical signs include a racing heart, sweating, shaking hands, and a dry mouth; and typical emotional signs include feelings of dread or embarrassment. And socially, it may cause people to avoid social situations all together which only further feeds the cycle of fear.

Practical Strategies to manage social anxiety

The identification involved Cognitive Behavioral Techniques (CBT).

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the best ways to tackle anxiety be it social or non social. CBT teaches us to recognize and challenge these negative thoughts that cause anxiety. For instance, a person might think, ‘If I say something wrong, everyone’s going to think I’m stupid,’ and that’s incrementally more anxious. This thought can be reframed by using CBT so that you see this differently, perhaps: ‘Everyone makes mistakes, no one cares anything about me, they’re just thinking about themselves.’

Breathing and relaxation exercises

Anxiety grabs ahold of you and your body’s reaction is with physical symptoms like rapid breathing and increased heart rate. Deep breathing exercises help calm both bodies and minds.

Exposure Therapy

In exposure therapy, you gradually expose yourself to feared social situations, beginning with less stressful ones and progressing to the more anxiety provoking ones. Conquering fears by stepping up to them is a method that increases confidence, and resilience.

Confidence Building through Social Interactions

Preparing for Social Situation

Social situations are made much easier when we prepare. Being able to know what to expect and preparing in advance can help make people feel more in control. Realistic expectations can also go a long way towards easing the anxiety, like knowing that you don’t have to have the perfect conversation every time. A psychiatrist can help individuals develop strategies for managing anxiety in social situations and work on setting realistic goals to build confidence.

Positive Self-Talk

Managing social anxiety involves a lot of self talk. For example, one way anxiety feeds on itself is through negative self talk (which can be anything from “I’m going to embarrass myself” to “I am going to fail this test”) while positive self talk (“I am capable of handling this”) reinforces calmness and confidence. It can even be empowering if you use affirmations to encourage yourself or focus on your personal strengths.

Practicing Active Listening

In social situations, away from yourself and onto the other person, the focus can reduce anxiety. Active listening entails fully focusing on the conversation and making note of the conversation by keeping eye contact and nodding, and asking follow up questions. It makes people feel more connected and less self conscious.

Social Skills to Make the Workplace Comfortable

Non-Verbal Communication

Social interaction depends greatly on non verbal communication, such as body language and face expressions. One way to show confidence is to appear confident — whether that means giving a warm smile, good posture and steady eye contact. Positive body language makes you look more confident to others, and as a result makes you feel more confident, even if you feel anxious inside.

Small Talk

If you experience social anxiety, having the ability to master the ‘art’ of small talk could be a real game changer. Small talk tends to focus on easy entry topics into conversations like shared experiences, or the weather. It’s small talk so there’s often an opportunity to practice social interactions and at the same time build confidence. After a while, however, these exchanges can feel less awkward and infantile.

When Necessary Seeking Professional Help

Social anxiety can be severe and overwhelming enough to the point that you need professional help. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a well known treatment that appears to be the most successful treatment for overcoming social anxiety. In some cases, there are medications that a psychiatrist in Karachi can prescribe for you to help with the anxiety symptoms.

Managing Social Anxiety on the Long Term

Lifestyle Changes

There are other ways to cope with social anxiety, aside from adopting a healthy lifestyle. Stress can be decreased overall and mood will improve through regular exercise, a balanced diet and adequate sleep. Physical activity in particular can be a good way to help build up confidence in a situation like social anxiety, as it will lead to a greater feeling of accomplishment, and thus can be empowering.

Developing a Growth Mindset

Finally, to succeed in something long term, we need to avoid the pity mindset. We should never pity ourselves. Learning to embrace discomfort, and seeing social situations as opportunities for growth as opposed to threats, makes a big difference. Although each small step towards facing fears is progress, with time, people can develop resilience and social interaction confidence.

Conclusion

Social anxiety is not something that will disappear overnight; it will take patience, practice and persistence to manage (and overcome) it. Cognitive behavioral techniques, relaxation exercises, exposure therapy and teaching social skills are some ways people can go a long way to overcoming everyday anxiety. Just remember, you may not see progress in a day, but everything leads to progress. Anyone can overcome social anxiety with the right tools and support to live a life that’s fulfilling and confident.