Strategies to Overcome Your Social Anxiety

Social anxiety is a problem for many people. While social anxiety bears some similarity to shyness, there is a distinction: people who experience social anxiety often want to talk to others, but they're just too afraid.

Symptoms of social anxiety include fear of talking with others, fear of embarrassment, feeling fear throughout any social encounter, and altering behaviors to avoid social situations. If you suffer from social anxiety and would like to change the way you feel about social situations, here's what you can do.

Breathing deeply and engaging in meditation can help soothe feelings of nervousness. Engaging in deep breathing and meditation on a daily basis can help reduce stress and may give you more control over your own emotional state. To start deep breathing, make time in the morning or evening to sit down in a quiet room. For 15 minutes, close your eyes and breathe.

Pay attention to your breath and clear your mind. If your mind wanders, acknowledge that your mind has wandered and then bring it back to breathing. Doing this daily can give you some ability to manage stress. In addition, the more you do this, the easier it will be to center yourself through deep breathing as you encounter anxiety-producing situations.

Engaging in deep breathing and mindfulness any time you feel social anxiety can help you feel a little more calm and relaxed. Over time, this tool becomes more effective and more powerful.

As you begin to work toward your goals, start keeping a journal to document your feelings in social situations. How do you feel and when? Can you rate your feelings of social anxiety?

Tracking progress in a journal will give you the ability to reflect on your emotional state and generate ideas for overcoming your anxiety. In addition, having a journal will also give you the ability to track your progress. Looking back, you'll be able to see how far you've come.

Many people with social anxiety walk away from social situations criticizing themselves for their performance in front of others. Stop this behavior by congratulating yourself on successful interactions.

Remember times when someone smiled at something you said, laughed at a joke, or said a kind word. Think about how you navigated your social encounter, then tell yourself that you did a good job. Record your experiences and how they made you feel. Use these memories to keep yourself going at times when you're feeling social anxiety.

Social anxiety can be very disruptive to a person's life. People suffering from social anxiety may find it difficult to date, enter relationships, succeed in school or at work, and feel happiness in social situations. For many people who suffer from social anxiety, the best way to beat the problem is to work with a professional. Your psychiatrist can give you tools, suggestions, and even medication to help you overcome your anxiety.

For more information about how you can overcome a social phobia or another type of anxiety or fear, contact a professional today. At Heritage Mental Health Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, we're happy to answer your questions.