Learning to Handle Social Anxiety

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“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.” – Babe Ruth

Whenever I hear this quote I tend to focus more on its literal meaning rather than its greater significance. I frequently keep myself from playing the game not necessarily being worried I’ll strike out, that’s inevitable, but the entire embarrassment of the situation... people watching me... waiting for me to mess up... and then laughing at me! It's just not something I look forward to doing. Not just in baseball or other sports though, but there are many situations where I do the same thing. I keep myself out because of the thought of what could go wrong. I probably gyp myself out of a lot of great activities.

Yes, I’m a therapist and even I struggle with social anxiety. Social anxiety is when you have a constant discomfort in social situations where you constantly wonder whether you are being judged by others. Here’s a few tips for those of us that do have struggles so we can work on letting our fears go and join in some most likely fun activities.

1. Learn to relax

Practicing relaxation techniques, specifically before an anxiety-provoking situation could help alleviate a lot of tension. Do deep breathing exercises or a short progressive muscle relaxation session. There are many relaxation videos that can be found on YouTube.

2. Gradual exposure

“Baby steps” anyone? Don’t feel like you have to conquer it all right now. Make a list of the least to most anxious situations and gradually practice exposing yourself to them.

3. Practice positive self-talk

A lot of us use “thinking errors.” An example is overgenalization, which is coming to a general conclusion and attaching it to everything. “Everyone is staring at me” or “Everyone thinks I’m stupid.” Really? Everyone? What about - “is anybody actually thinking that?” Probably not. Most people are actually probably thinking the exact same you are and are more focusing on themselves instead of you. Train yourself to talk yourself and your anxious thoughts down.

4. Don’t feel like you have to handle this alone

Surely there is someone who can help talk you through your gradual exposures and be your support system. Maybe you even have a friend who struggles with something similar. Utilize supports and friends! Just knowing you’re not alone can do wonders.

5. Keep practicing!

Never give if you feel like even this is too much or it isn’t working. It’s ok to involve a professional sometimes as well. And one failed chance doesn’t mean complete failure; always try again. You deserve a chance for freedom from anxiety in social situations. Just remember “never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”

6 Steps to Calm Your Anxiety

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There are about 9.5 million people in the United States alone that suffer from anxiety. Anxiety is an intense state of worry or stress. Everyone experiences anxiety to some degree or another, but there are also times when anxiety becomes too overwhelming for one person to handle. This exercise can help you with any amount of anxiety.

Each section has a few questions. Be sure to write your answers down and keep a record. Do this exercise multiple times, not just once to really start to understand and then regain control of your anxiety.

1. Understand the Situation

Ask yourself questions such as: what is happening? where are you? who are you with? 

After writing down your answers over time you might notice that certain situations are similar or many of the same people might be involved in your severe anxiety states. Once you find a similar pattern you might be able to make some life changes surrounding certain situations and people. Hopefully you might be able to complete get rid of certain anxious situations, but if not you can learn ways to calm your anxiety before you go into these situations. 

2. Process your Emotions

Questions: What emotions are you feeling right now? What is the intensity level of your emotion on a scale of 0% to 100%.

Emotions affect your thinking, behavior, and actions. Emotions and feelings are incredibly powerful and a lot of people tend to cover them. These emotions have an important purpose of sending us a message. By processing and understanding your emotions you will become to understand your anxiety and yourself a lot better. One important thing to remember is do not bottle your emotions but process them because too many intense emotions make your anxiety worse.

3. Notice What’s Happening in your Body

Notice what is exactly happening to your body right now? Where are you feeling your anxiety? What happens to you normally and what might be different about your body specifically in this situation?

Our bodies react to everything that happens to us. Anxiety might even affect you the most in your body and create severe physical and even painful effects. By understanding your body you can take control of individual anxiety symptoms by knowing how your body responds and then how to combat each and every symptom.

4. Think about the Unhelpful Thoughts

Ask these questions: What is going through your mind? What is disturbing me? What do these thoughts mean to me? What do these thoughts say about me in this situation? What am I responding to? What ‘button’ is this pressing for me? What is the worst thing that could happen from this situation?

These are the thoughts that probably plague your mind the most. These thoughts are also the underlying and typically unstated thoughts. Make sure that you are truly understanding and processing every aspect of this situation as well as the underlying thoughts about it. The unhelpful thoughts can hurt us the most and by processing these thoughts you can get to the root of the problem and make necessary changes to alleviate these thoughts in the future.

5. Create a Balance Perspective

Use these questions: Is this fact or opinion? What would someone else say about this situation? What’s the bigger picture? Is there another way of looking at this situation? What advice would I give someone else in the same position? Is my reaction proportional to the actual event? Is this really as important as it seems?

It’s the unhelpful thoughts that really exacerbate the anxiety; these questions above can help you balance out or even possibly get rid of your anxiety all together. Create a balanced perspective about what is making you anxious. Think about both sides of this situation. Normalize what is happening for yourself. For example, if social situations are what cause you anxiety think to yourself “Of course I’m anxious about talking to a large group of people! This is a scary thing! But just like every other time, I can channel my anxiety and turn it into a positive and get through this one meeting. Then everything can go back to normal.” Balance is where you can take control of your anxiety.

6. Understand How You Handled the Situation

While you are in the moment ask yourself: How am I handling the situation? What are the consequences?

This is where you would decide to act. Really think carefully about how you are currently handling the situation. Learn to take control enough that you can analyze both the good and bad consequences of your behavior in response to the situation.

After when the situation is over and in a non-anxious state ask: What could I have done more effectively to contain my anxiety? What things might be more effective in the future?

Learn to handle anxiety in different ways. Research others ways people have handled their anxiety and try it out for yourself. By trying a myriad of ways to control your anxiety you might find ways that help you or other ways that aren’t as helpful. Do what works for you!

By using these 6 steps in severe anxiety situations, making a record, and answering each question you will slowly be able to regain control of your anxiety. Continued practice will make this process easier each time you complete these questions.

Mental Health Awareness: Decreasing Your Stress

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Mental health is our overall psychological well-being. Taking care of our mental health is important because it affects the way we feel, our relationships, and ability to handle difficulties that come our way. Stress is an important part of mental health and can affect all of those mentioned above. Here are a few helpful tips in decreasing your stress level to help your mental health.

1. Identify Your Stressors

In order to decrease your stress level you need to first identify the things that stress you out the most. Are there certain activities or even people that should be on your list?

2. Unnecessary Commitments

A lot of us tend to put other people before ourselves. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it can be a source of stress in your life. Is there a commitment that you can possibly eliminate? Put your commitments that have the most value first and then slowly weed out those that maybe aren’t as necessary.

3. Slow Down

We live in a very fast-paced world. It’s ok to slow things down once in a while instead of rushing through to complete everything that we feel we need to. Take the time to enjoy the things around you instead of rushing so fast you miss it.

4. Relax

Take mini-breaks during your day! Just stop what you’re doing every once in a while – this is part of slowing down. Take the time to do something that you like and take care of yourself. It’s ok to take time for yourself.

5. Exercise

With our busy lives this is a really hard thing to do. Exercising itself is also hard, but it has its positive points. Exercise is a huge de-stressor and gives us an opportunity to work on ourselves and build up more energy to keep up with our busy lives.

6. Eat Healthy

Have you ever noticed how you feel after you eat a huge greasy hamburger? Sometimes it hits the spot, but other times I don’t like the way I feel after I eat junk food. It also doesn’t give you enough energy that you need like healthy food can to keep up with our busy lives.

7. Eliminate the Small Things

There are a lot of things that all of us do that only adds to our stress level. Some of those things might be procrastinating, being disorganized and messy, being late, having to control everything, multitasking, etc. Those are some things that can be easily taken care of and eliminated to make us happier and less stressed.

8. De-Stressing Activities

Pick up some new activities that will help you relieve your stress. Activities may include journaling, meditation, yoga, deep breathing, laughing, listening to music, taking a walk, and/or enjoying your long lost hobby that got lost in the shuffle of everyday life.

Your mental health is important! Decrease your stress level so you can take care of your well-being. You can't take care of anyone else if you don't first take care of yourself.