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What is Social Anxiety?
Social anxiety is a specific type of anxiety that you feel in social situations. People who suffer from social anxiety are having a hard time fitting in because being social is one of the biggest parts of being human.
When you have social anxiety, you might have a few or even all of the following traits or symptoms. These symptoms can be physical, mental, and behavioral and they can affect a big part of your life!
Physical Symptoms:
- Sweating
- Blushing
- Lump in your throat
- Trembling
- Heartbeat racing
- Fainting
- Shaking voice
- Teeth clenching or grinding
- Nail biting or skin picking
Mental Symptoms:
- Worrying that everyone is looking at you
- Fear of public speaking
- Expecting worst-case scenarios
- General intense fear
- Thinking negative
- Overthinking
Behavioral Symptoms:
- Avoiding social situations or parties
- Leaving early or arriving late
- Ignoring phone calls or messages
- Staying inside the house most of the time
- Looking down or up instead of making eye contact
- Not dating or meeting someone new
Some people suffer from this greatly and others only have a few symptoms, but nevertheless, they need to be helped! Of course, these lists are not all-inclusive so you could experience some other symptoms as well.
Let me help you by giving you some tips to relieve your stress.
8 Tips to Combat Stress
1. Prepare Yourself
Always be prepared. When you prepare yourself properly for any situation, you do the best you can to make the situation the best possible. But beware of over-preparing! When you have high-functioning anxiety, this could be you, over-preparing every situation so you would never feel uncomfortable.
When you have social anxiety, you will worry about what topics to talk about with other people. Prepare yourself by making a list of topics for specific occasions so that you have this list to fall back on when things get awkward (those awkward silences give me the chills). It’s good to have a list for first dates, little moments with coworkers, family gatherings, etc.
You could also prepare yourself for events by picking out the clothes you want to wear in advance. If you choose to do this a few minutes before leaving, chances are you find nothing that looks good and you cancel the event. When you do this the day before, just go through with what you decided to wear and you will be fine! Don’t overthink it anymore!
If you have regular meetings or moments when you have to speak up and share your thoughts, also bring a document with your preparations for the meeting. This will help you to actually say what you’ve been thinking of because it’s there black on white on your paper. In the moment, you will probably feel anxious so try to grab all of your courage and speak up. It’s easier when you have it written down.
2. Find Comfort
Know the things that will give you some more comfort when you need it.
When you go out in public and the weather is fine, you could wear sunglasses so you feel less recognizable and exposed. This is a way to avoid eye contact without people really noticing.
Your close friends or family can help you
If you have social anxiety, you probably will still have some people in your life that you do feel comfortable with. Try inviting them with you to social events so that you have someone to talk to that you know and like. Introverted people with social anxiety could really benefit from having an extroverted friend who covers most of the talking at social gatherings.
It’s normal to be uncomfortable for a while when meeting new people but when they become close friends or even your partner, it’s really worth it to bite through the sour apple at the start. Meeting new people alone can be terrifying so hopefully you have a friend to accompany you from time to time.
Pets work great too!
If you are going somewhere and there’s a cat or dog, go there! When you have social anxiety and love animals this is a golden combination. You can spend time with the dog and it’s also a great conversation starter. You can divide your time and focus between the dog and the people so the contact between you and the other people becomes less intense. Petting a furry friend can also help relieve your anxiety!
Have something to do
When you want to go to a coffee shop alone or to eat somewhere by yourself, bring a book or your laptop so you have something to do instead of just thinking about what other people will think of you. Most of the time, other people won’t even notice you because they are more involved in their own lives and perhaps even thinking about how you feel about them. You are not the center of attention and that’s a good thing!
3. Breathing Techniques
Whenever you feel like you’re getting more anxious, try to focus on your breath. This is going back to the basics and getting all your attention to your breath will let your anxiety levels go down.
Put your hand on your stomach to focus on breathing deeply and not shallow. Feel your stomach going up as you breathe in, and down when you release all the air out. Do this for at least a few minutes if you can or until you feel yourself calming down.
When you don’t have enough time to take a few minutes to breathe at work for example, give yourself one minute to do a couple of deep breaths. When you are anxious, this will help you be a lot more productive than when you ignore your anxiety and just keep pushing even more.
There are a lot of different breathing techniques, all with different purposes. A few breathing techniques that can help when you suffer from social anxiety are:
- Alternate Nostril Breathing
- Deep Breathing
- Slow Breathing
I found a great website that explains all the different breathing techniques when you have anxiety. Check it out over here.
4. Give Yourself a Break
When you have social anxiety, it won’t be pleasant to constantly expose yourself to your biggest fear. Don’t get me wrong, exposure therapy is great, but how exposure therapy works is gradually exposing yourself to more of what you fear. Step-by-step is very important here. And also, exposure therapy is not a lot of fun.
If you have to go out every single evening because you get invited to a lot of stuff, you don’t have to say yes to all of it! Especially if you’re an introvert, you need some alone time to be able to recharge.
Choose to say no, not because of your social anxiety, or yes maybe give yourself a slip-up once in a while, but because you need some time to rest or do the things you truly enjoy.
You can’t expect to make great progress all the time, you need to cut yourself some slack sometimes and do something that feels good to you.
Make some time for self-care, plan fun things you can do even with your social anxiety, or just do nothing for a while. Give yourself a well-deserved break from being social and truly de-stress.
5. Journal
To journal or not to journal should never be the question. Journaling has many benefits for everyone!
Journaling can help you figure out what you are feeling, what negative thoughts you have regularly, how you spend your time, etc. You can discover patterns and when you do, you can change them for the best!
Every night or every morning write down your thoughts about the day and yourself and see if you recognize thoughts that occur daily. These thoughts can be undermining thoughts if they convey a negative message about yourself or your situation. Try to think about them more rationally than emotionally and challenge them. See if these thoughts hold some truth in them or if they are complete crap.
When you figure out which thoughts are total nonsense, create the opposites and more positive thoughts to rewind your brain. Say these positive sentences every day to yourself so that after a while, your brain will start to believe them. This cognitive behavioral therapy journal can help you with this as it guides you with its instructions.
You could also journal differently and do more of a brain dump. A brain dump is nothing more than just writing everything you’re thinking of at that specific moment on paper. Dumping all your thoughts in a journal. This helps especially before you go to sleep because it will clear your mind and will make you less likely to overthink when you should be sleeping.
6. Change Your Diet
Did you know that some foods will make your anxiety worse? I didn’t either for a while. Until I did some research on this topic.
Apparently, coffee, soda, energy drinks, and chocolate should be avoided if you have anxiety. Such bad news. These foods and beverages all contain caffeine which causes an increase in anxiety levels. Caffeine will make your body release more stress hormones and therefore will increase your anxiety symptoms.
Products that contain high sugar will increase your anxiety as well because of the blood sugar drop they create after the initial high.
Here is a great article to tell you which foods you should avoid if you want to lower your anxiety.
Having a healthy diet is always best for your body in general but also to regulate your anxiety. Eat complex carbohydrates instead of products with refined sugars, get in your proteins, your healthy fats, and your vitamins, and cut back on caffeine and alcohol.
7. Always Have an Escape Plan
It pays off to know where the exits are when you have social anxiety and how to get out. You should also have a list of excuses ready to use whenever you feel so uncomfortable that it’s not worth it anymore.
Going to a party or social event once in a while really is good for you so you should do this sometimes. However, it can feel so scary to go because you think about all the hours you will have to be there wanting to get back home and you simply can’t.
Or can you go home early? Give yourself the possibility to leave early when you get overwhelmed. This will make the barrier to say yes to invitations lower so you will try more things this way. Which is great!
Make a list of plausible excuses you can use to leave early. Some examples might be: the babysitter has to leave, I’m not feeling well, I have to work or do something in the morning, my dog needs her medication, etc.
You could also escape during an event without leaving the event but just remove yourself from the situation for a while. This could be moving to another room, getting some air outside, or taking a long toilet break. Recharge your social battery a little and go back in again.
8. Create a Life that Fits You
When you are socially anxious, you shouldn’t be dealing with over-the-top social people every single day all day long. Try to find a career and lifestyle that fits you better.
When you have social anxiety, it’s exhausting to spend the entire day talking to people. It will soak up all your energy and leave you drained when you finally get off work. Look for jobs that don’t require you to be social all the time. There are also some jobs with no human interaction so if that’s your thing, start applying!
If you find a job or career that doesn’t drain all your energy when you get home, you could plan some social activities that you enjoy.
Conclusion
There are so many ways you can relieve your stress levels when you suffer from social anxiety. Try them all to see which ones work best for you and use them in your social situations.
Social anxiety should be taken seriously and you should consider going to see a therapist about it to help you even more.
Don’t isolate yourself completely, use these tips and make your life a little better one day at a time.
You can do this!