Dealing with social anxiety can be one of the most challenging things to tackle when you are battling your anxiety problems.
Anxiety comes in many forms – it can be the fear of failure, the fear of a situation playing out in a specific way or even just fear of the unknown. Social anxiety in particular can be caused by many different factors, sometimes many smaller factors combining together to make one almighty problem. Knowing how dealing with social anxiety can really help you punch through your social barrier and interact with people in a way you perhaps never though was possible.
It depends on your own mind and your mindset, so if you are looking for a typical solution that will catch all social anxiety problems, you are out of luck. What is needed to combat social anxiety are three things;
- An understanding of the root cause of your anxiety
- The knowledge and determination to move past this problem
- The triggers that can put you into a state of social anxiety
Some Tips On Dealing With Social Anxiety
Where Did It Start?
If you are able to address the root causes, then you will be able to actually see where it comes from. For many people with a social problem, they blame themselves as they believe that they are just different from the rest. The truth is that it is nobody’s fault – social anxiety can start from an innocuous situation that seemed like nothing at the time. It can be hereditary, and it can just start from overthinking about negative, worrying situations.
Finding The Cause
The knowledge that you need to overcome your root problems really does determine what it was. For example, a common social problem is fear of being attacked especially at a young age and for those who live in rougher areas.
This anxiety can keep people indoors and avoid them from being involved with people their own age. You need to find out the root cause of your anxiety and work towards finding a way to reconcile with yourself about the actual act, and the consequences that it had on your life.
Creating A Solution
The solutions will come from the answer to the two sections above – if you can find the cause, and work out why you feel this way, then making your own solution is not too far away. One of the biggest parts of our minds that is affected by a social phobia is our ability to find clarity.
Situations roll around in our heads constantly, making us feel powerless to make a change. When you can see the issue and the reasons why these issues became apparent, then finding a solution is not going to be too hard afterwards. Again, this depends on your own circumstances and the conclusions that you arrived at in the first place.
Personally, my solution in dealing with social anxiety was to write things down. I write about how I am feeling, worries or problems I encounter. I find getting things out my head and onto paper really helps me when dealing with social anxiety and lets me focus on being more social and engaged in the conversation.
Avoiding Triggers
This is possibly the most important, and yet often overlooked ways of dealing with social anxiety. When you are trying to overcome your anxiety and your social phobia, you will need to know what to look out for and avoid. Based on your own soul searching, finding the triggers in your mind – the things that set you off and really bring on your anxiety – should be easy enough. Think about the moments in social surroundings that have made you feel the worst – this is usually going to be your typical trigger.
How are you dealing with social anxiety?
