A person who suffers from social anxiety tends to think that other people are far better at public speaking, or hanging out in a social situation and mingling with others at a party. The person tends to focus on every little small mistake they do in a social situation, and exaggerate them out of proportion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Social phobia disrupts normal life, interfering with career or social relationships. For example, a worker can turn down a job promotion because he can\u2019t give public presentations. The dread of a social event can begin weeks in advance, and symptoms can be quite debilitating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overcoming social anxiety<\/strong> is more challenging than most people think. For many people, overcoming social anxiety<\/strong> comes with a lot of anxiety. And anxiety makes overcoming social anxiety <\/strong>very difficult. But why is overcoming social anxiety <\/strong>so difficult?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s difficult because people highlight negative experiences and ignore positive ones. The negative experiences receive far more attention than the positive ones. Often, one bad experience is considered to be the rule rather than the exception. Without proper guidelines, overcoming social anxiety <\/strong>is more than just challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are a few steps that can help you overcome social anxiety:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first step in overcoming social anxiety <\/strong>is to control your breathing. Through breathing exercises you learn to calm down when you are getting nervous and sweaty. Most socially anxious people start worrying about the fact that they are becoming nervous and start to sweat. Worrying makes people more nervous and sweat more. Breathing exercises, however, calms down your body, slows down your heartbeat, and makes you feel more relaxed. Breathing exercises are a powerful tool in overcoming social anxiety.<\/strong> Here are the 4 steps to exercise your breathing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you\u2019ve practised this a few times, you\u2019ll notice that it becomes easier. You don\u2019t have to put your hand on your chest and stomach any more. When you go to a social event, and you notice you\u2019re getting a little nervous, try to calm yourself down with this breathing exercise. You\u2019ll see that it works!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second step in overcoming social anxiety<\/strong> is to give you more confidence during conversations. Talking to someone can be very challenging when you don\u2019t know what to say, when there is an awkward silence, or when you\u2019re afraid of saying something silly. So I guess it\u2019s important to give you some tools to avoid these painful moments, and to boost your confidence when it comes to talking to others. In the end, overcoming social anxiety <\/strong>is a lot easier when you have positive experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overcoming social anxiety <\/strong>is difficult when you have the feeling others around you think you are fat, ugly, uninteresting, or blush\/stutter often. This feeling can make you feel insecure, unimportant, and unwanted. Realize that these are merely thoughts, your thoughts. The problem with these thoughts is: you will look for evidence to support these thoughts. This means: you\u2019ll misinterpret signs, gestures, and comments. And it will make you feel even worse. Try to challenge these thoughts with or without counseling. Ask yourself the question \u02ddwhat proof do I have for these negative thoughts?\u02dd And tell yourself whenever such a negative thought pops up: \u02ddI am only thinking \u2026(negative thoughts)\u2026, but I know it\u2019s only a thought. This way you distance yourself from your thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following thinking styles make overcoming social anxiety<\/strong> very difficult, so try to identify them in time and eliminate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What can I do to stop this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019re too focused on your own feelings, thoughts and behaviour. So the best thing you can do is to focus on everything but yourself. Pay attention to the way others are dressed, talk, and behave. Pay attention to what others are drinking, what the place looks like, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overcoming social anxiety <\/strong>is impossible if you don\u2019t expose yourself to those situations that cause you social anxiety<\/strong>. By avoiding events that make your anxiety levels rise, you never learn how to deal with those situations. Your anxiety will increase over time. And you will avoid even more fun social events in the future. So the best thing to do is to face your fears to make overcoming social anxiety <\/strong>less problematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The best thing to do is to take small steps to increase the chance of a successful experience and to boost your confidence. So write down a list of situations that are challenging and hard to overcome. Start with the easiest situation and end with the toughest one. Now before you start exposing yourself to these situations, please think of what you want to achieve in that specific situation. Again, don\u2019t make it too hard for yourself, because one bad experience may increase your anxiety levels. For some people saying Hi to people on a party is a goal. Once you\u2019ve achieved your goal, reward and praise yourself. You\u2019ve done a great job!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Changing your lifestyle may make overcoming social anxiety<\/strong> easier. Most people with social anxiety use alcohol, drugs, or other substances to calm down during social events. Usually, peer pressure makes anxious people turn to bad habits. Fortunately, these bad habits only have a temporary effect. On the long run, the disadvantages of these bad habits are far worse than the benefits. Despite the fact that you relax due to these bad habits, you still don\u2019t learn how to cope with social events. The easiest way to overcoming social anxiety <\/strong>is to stay away from these bad habits, or to reduce their intake to a minimum. Here is an overview of these bad habits and their effect on anxiety:<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is clear that overcoming social anxiety <\/strong> while using drugs, alcohol, caffeine or when you are sleep deprived, is very difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Counseling helps you overcoming social anxiety<\/strong> effectively. The most effective method is Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Typically CBT for social anxiety focuses on: learning to control and reduce physical symptoms of social anxiety, learning coping skills, replacing negative thoughts for neutral or positive thoughts and gradual exposure to challenging events. Even though overcoming social anxiety <\/strong> seems to be difficult, it is definitely worth it! Social anxiety disorder, also known as social phobia, is an intense fear of becoming extremely anxious and possibly humiliated in social situations \u2014 specifically of embarrassing yourself in front of other people. A person who suffers from social anxiety tends to think that other people are far better at public speaking, or hanging out in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[7,18,11,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":743,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ithrive.in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Step 1: How to regulate anxiety through breathing?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 2: Helpful conversation techniques to lower anxiety levels.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
How does it work?<\/strong> The moment someone tells you something, you pick one word from his sentence and simply repeat it with a question mark at the end. For instance, if you ask your friend: \u201cHow was your day?\u201d. He may answer: \u201cAgh, I\u2019ve had such a busy day, I even had to reschedule some of my appointments\u201c. The underlined words can be used as one word questions. They will explain you more about these words (and from their explanation you pick another word). \u201cBusy day?\u201d. \u201cYeah, every Friday is extremely busy. Today I had 5 appointments and a meeting. I didn\u2019t even have time to finish my lunch, because my boss needed me again. \u201cAgain?\u201d\u2026. and so on. This way you don\u2019t work hard at all, and you don\u2019t need to feel insecure. At the same time you give the other a lot of attention and are strengthening your friendship. On top of that: you are leading the conversation, because your one word questions force the other person to tell something about that word.<\/li>Step 3: Switching off imagination for a more realistic view.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 4: Facing your fears.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 5: Changing your lifestyle to reduce anxiety.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 6: Knowing when to search for professional help.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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