Millions of people suffer from social anxiety and it comes in many different forms. Much of the time, people who have to deal with social anxiety experience excessive fear of being judged negatively. This can lead to them having a limited number of friends and being alone most of the time. For those suffering from social anxiety, there are few ways for you to cope and live a more fulfilling life:
Stay Away from Negative Coping
There are negative strategies for dealing with social anxiety that can be disguised as coping mechanisms. It can actually have the opposite effect and make your anxiety even worse by leading you to further isolation. Strategies such as drinking alcohol to loosen up could make your anxiety worse and much harder to properly deal with. Although it may seem appealing, try avoiding it in order to successfully mingle and become more comfortable in social instances.
Talk About it with Friends
Although your closest family and friends likely already know of social anxiety, consider telling someone specific. You can send a message or arrange a time to talk about it. Even if you’re nervous, try to explain your situation as best and clearly as possible. Share your symptoms so that they can have a greater understanding of what you are going through. Having a person in the social setting you are in that knows and understands your condition can make it much easier.
Breathing Exercises
When you can feel your anxiety rising, it can often feel uncontrollable as it builds up more and more. If you are feeling your social anxiety getting the best of you around people, try breathing exercises to help calm you down. Simply breathing slowly and deeply from your abdomen can ease your anxiety. You can practice breathing exercises while lying in bed and resting your hands on your abdomen. As you breathe in deeply through your nose, count to four, and when you breathe out, count to four again. By practicing this calming breathing, whenever you start feeling anxious you can know how to calm yourself down.
Be Okay With Being Uncomfortable
When you have social anxiety, there are going to be times when being anxious is unavoidable. But this shouldn’t stop you from doing the things you want to do, even if it makes you feel anxious. Even with the unpleasant sensations of some social situations, you will feel better about yourself if you go on and do what you think is important.