Overcome Social Anxiety
Goal
To understand anxiety symptoms and how to overcome them.
Anxiety Symptoms (Greenberger & Padesky, pp. 174-175)
Anxiety symptoms can be grouped into four domains: cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physical.
Cognitive Symptoms
- Overestimation of danger
- Underestimation of ability to cope
- Underestimation of help available
- Worries/catastrophic thoughts
Emotional Symptoms
- Nervous
- Anxious
- Irritable
- Panicky
Behavioral Changes
- Avoiding situations where anxiety might occur
- Leaving situations when anxiety begins to occur
- Trying to do things perfectly or trying to control events to prevent danger
Physical Symptoms
- Sweaty palms
- Muscle tension
- Flushed cheeks
- Light-headedness
All of the physical, behavioral, and thinking changes we experience when we are anxious are part of the anxiety responses called “fight, flight, or freeze.” These three responses can be helpful to us when we face danger. Unfortunately, we also experience these reactions when danger is not present, when danger is not as serious as you might think, or when too much anxiety interferes with good coping.
Overcoming Social Anxiety (Hope, Heimberg, & Turk, pp. 13; 19)
Reducing anxiety is a critical step in overcoming social anxiety and the above symptoms since as anxiety decreases, social behavior improves. Anxious thoughts and fears about social situations can be paralyzing and can cause someone to avoid social interaction at all costs. If their fears become less scary and certain situations stop causing them to feel anxious, there won’t be as many barriers to leading a life filled with meaningful relationships. Here’s a list of things that if improved, go a long way toward decreasing someone’s social anxiety:
- Having negative beliefs about social situations and other people
- Having negative beliefs about oneself
- Making negative predictions about the outcomes of social situations
- Avoiding certain situations or people based on these negative predictions
- Focusing on potential social threats during the social situation
- Making negative evaluations of performance after the situation has passed
The following lessons on changing your thoughts will help you address these tendencies.