Anxiety

have you ever felt a wave of anxiety when going out in public .have you felt as if people were looking at you ,talking about you, laughing at you .if so then you've come to the right place today .we're going to speak about how to deal with this sort of social anxiety to begin. now let's first talk about the purpose of social anxiety there's actually a benefit to having it. you see social anxiety is there to protect us from rejection back in the day being rejected from the tribe was essentially a death sentence .so you had to be extra careful about how people viewed you. you had to maintain a good reputation nowadays this is not really the case because there are a lot more people and the world is much safer being rejected .no longer means death yet this trait has remained people with social anxiety. often feel like they are being judged all the time this is actually caused by intentional biases .which is the psychological tendency that we humans have to focus on certain things .while ignoring others for example when you're hungry you will find it hard to think about things other than food ,if you are anxious you will find it hard to think about anything other than the idea that people are judging you. your brain will be super focused on social signals around you and your interpretations of these signals will most likely be negative luckily for you.

here are three tips to help overcome this issue the first tip is to understand the spotlight effect the majority of people believe that others are paying attention to them .much more than they actually are the truth is everyone is in their heads thinking that they're being judged a hundred times over. when in reality it may only be once or twice by keeping this in mind .we can look at others and think to ourselves ah they're probably thinking about themselves right now. whenever you start feeling anxious outside you can remind yourself of this principle .you can also flip this effect and become one of those rare individuals who actually are focused on others more than themselves. this will give you an advantage in your future social interactions which actually brings us to the sponsors of today's article.


let's say for example you are a perfectionist and you stutter a bit while having a conversation with someone else your mind suddenly gets swamped with the idea that you messed up and that this person now thinks less of you in this situation you can use cognitive restructuring by reminding yourself that everyone stutters from time to to time and that the spotlight effect exists so chances are this person didn't even notice it's also helpful to try your best to be aware of what negative thoughts appear the next time you go out when you get back home write some of them down and then use cognitive restructuring to convince yourself to prove to yourself which of these thoughts are not true for example if you often think nobody wants me here when you go to an event you can counter that by remembering that someone did in fact invite you so they must have wanted you there by writing this out you'll be able to look at things in a new light the next time you come across this specific negative thought outside and finally the third tip is exposure therapy you need to expose yourself to the things that make you anxious if you run away from a fear it will only get bigger the next time you face it because you've provided evidence to your body and mind that this thing is scary and dangerous enough to run away from on the other hand if you face your fears over time your body will start to realize that it is not a life-threatening situation nation and the amount of anxiety that you feel should gradually decrease over time you can take baby steps here if the anxiety you feel is Extreme you can start off by saying thank you to people who naturally have to interact with you such as cashiers or bus drivers then when you feel comfortable enough doing this without feeling anxious you can move on to making small talk with random strangers who happen to be around you for example making a comment while waiting in line
who happen to be around you for example making a comment while waiting in line for something you can slowly ramp up the amount of interactions you have and also the depth of these interactions over many months at a pace that you find comfortable which should help you with your anxiety over time I hope these three tips were helpful besides that stay tuned.