Social Anxiety: A Guide On What it is and How to Beat it

This is all my understandings and what I have learned

I never thought I had social anxiety, and often dismissed it as a kid. But after reflection and introspection I realized social anxiety is at the core of all my issues.

I used to not say “Hi” to people and dismissed as “I don’t care about them or to say Hi”, however no I was freaking out when I saw someone I knew, my heart rate would go up, and I would start panicking. This was not apathy, this was social anxiety. My fight and flight would be triggered and I would ignore them, rationalizing it as “I don’t care” or “I don’t care to say hi to people”.

What is Social Anxiety?

For people with social anxiety disorder (most of us do not have social anxiety disorder, just some degree of social anxiety) everyday social interactions cause irrational anxiety, fear, self-consciousness, and embarrassment. Symptoms may include excess fear of situations in which one may be judged, worry about embarrassment or humiliation, or concern about offending someone.

Social anxiety develops or occurs when an incident or repeated incident occur at some point of your life in which you learn that attention is negative, and thus triggers your fight or flight. However as we are children, whatever we learn or process we accept as absolute fact because we don’t have developed brains and essentially cannot think for ourselves.

Being in fight or flight while being in crowds or groups of large people can be very exhausting and draining. Also the best state to be in for conversation or interaction is to be relaxed and present. When you start getting anxious this relaxed state gets thrown out of the door and you start self sabotaging.

Understand that at some point you started to associate attention has negative and as a perceived threat, as in the past, attention has led to negative consequences. Understand that it will take time and effort to start disconnecting “all attention” from being negative. Understand that when you walk into a crowded area or go to a social event, your body will start feeling anxious and your flight or fight mode will turn on. It is important to recognize that your body is in fight or flight mode, but it may be difficult to recognize at first. You will most likely want to leave the room and exit the scene, and its okay if you do. Go outside gather your thoughts and come back, and fight against the fear. This is courage: when you are scared or fearful of something but you still do it.

When you are in this state, learning how to calm yourself down is super useful. Breathing techniques are your friend. Inhale twice and do a long exhale, enough times where you feel that you are calming down. This triggers the parasympathetic nervous system and the nervous system reflexively decreases heart rate and dilates blood vessels, thus ultimately allowing more blood into the brain and allows you to calm down and think better. When we are in fight or flight we are in black or white thinking and thus we start catastrophizing and diving deeper into the negative hole we dug for ourselves.

NOBODY CARES

Nobody cares that you have social anxiety, unless they have social anxiety themselves. But there is no benefit in reinforcing each other inadequacies, because being socially anxious is a weakness. Being socially anxious is preventing us from reaching our true potential and being the social human we are supposed to be. Being socially anxious has prevented me from doing a lot of things and I have feel trapped inside my own body, as it refuses to listen to me. Thus it was in my own best interest to learn how to eradicate this irrational fear and learn how to conquer it and become better than ever before. No one has been like “Aww your socially Anxious, then lemme carry this conversation and be your friend,” They probably think your weird for not being able to talk. As a person who has social anxiety I can see when others are struggling, and I do help them out. However if you want to be a King or Queen or a leader, then social anxiety will only hold you back.

HOWEVER BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF. Social Anxiety will not disappear in a few days, in a few months, and maybe not even in a few years, but it will get better if you work hard on trying to conquer your fears. I have been working on my social Anxiety for the last two year, I still have it and to a high degree but I have been taking steps on conquering it and no longer letting it control me

Social Anxiety Vs. Introvertness

I am an introvert or that is how you define it. I no longer like to use these labels because I believe using words like introvert limit ourselves, our potential, and our identity. So I don’t call myself an introvert, I just say that I need to spend several hours a day ALONE with my personal uninterrupted time away from anyone else. Social Anxiety and Introvertness are not mutually exclusive. I know introverted people who are not socially anxious and extroverted people who are socially anxious. Let’s say I didn’t have Social Anxiety I would still choose to spend countless hours alone each day, because I love that shit. I have no problem spending time alone however I hate how I find it difficult to socialize when I want to. I want to conquer my Social Anxiety to be able to talk to anyone WHEN I WANT TO. I want to always have the option of entertaining a conversation or not even acknowledging the other’s person presence.

Social Anxiety Usually Develops into an Unhealthy Isolation

Loneliness literally kills people. Old people getting a pet literally increases their lifespan and their will to live. We live for people we live for others, no matter how much we say we live for ourselves. Without other people to care about and live for, our lives become clouded with negativity and depression. In the past being alone meant you were lost from the tribe and can no longer defend yourselves against threats of lions, other tribes, and colonizers. Thus when we feel lonely it triggers deep fear. Although most likely lonely people won’t get killed by a lion, many lonely people just kill themselves or go do some horrible things, then kill themselves. Friendship, relationships, and connecting with others is a key part of being human. We are apex predators because we have each other, and thus having social anxiety goes against this core part of being human and it is in our best interest to conquer it if we want to live a fulfilling life.

How to Beat Social Anxiety:

Go Outside

In order to conquer your social anxiety the first big step is to go outside and spend a majority of your days around other people. YOU DON’T NEED TO TALK TO ANYONE, just literally be outside, and outside of your house. This means going to the gym, going to work (this is a must so your getting guaranteed socialization if you don’t work remote), going to the office, going to a cafe to do work, going to the mall, going to a park, going on walks is my favorite. Thus when you are outside you are around people, and then you see that nobody even cares about you and your social anxiety is just in your head LMAO.

Smiling

When you are outside, and you see people and lock eye contact literally smile. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now we don’t have to wear masks so you can show your yellow ass teeth to the entire world. Brush your teeth by the way and FLOSS, just floss bro. Smiling is the currency for good vibes, when you smile you literally emit good vibes and transfer it to the other person. When I smile at people they give me big ass smiles back and now we both feel good. I have seen people entire aura just change by me giving them a smile. Just smile at people and your life will change trust.

Eye Contact

Being socially anxious this may be the hardest to do. I know my social Anxiety is bad when I just stare at the ground and cannot make eye contact with anyone. Being able to give and maintain eye contact is super important to appear to look friendly and kind. I would suggest looking up guides on how to maintain eye contact if you struggle with this.

https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/eye_contact_dont_make_these_mistakes#:~:text=To

Giving Compliments

Compliments go a long way in becoming a social person. When you compliment someone you could be making their entire day. A random compliment regarding their shoes may be small to you, but they could be thinking about that all day. The more you compliment people the more good vibes you will spread, and thus people will like you because you make them feel good. The way I practiced complimenting is that I would compliment people’s dog, they literally cannot say anything to you. No fear No risk compliment. When I am in the park I just compliment people’s dog, “Your dog is hella cute,” or if I see a cute girl I am definitely complimenting her dog and definitely her as well LMAO

Delete Social Media or take a step back

Social media creates this virtual substitution for social connection. Although we are watching many videos of people talking as if they were in front of us, we are not socially connecting we are just staring at our magic rocks in our dark room at 3 am. Thus our brain thinks we are seeing so many people but our brain also knows that we are only watching videos or staring at pictures. No matter how many Tiktoks you watch you will never be fulfilled because we are only fulfilled by SHIT IN REAL LIFE, IRL BABY. How many deep life-changing conversations have you had in the TikTok comment section? These apps also take away attention from our friends and people around us. Instead of connecting and becoming closer we are just showing each other stupid memes and videos. This is okay for some people but not for me, as I don’t even consider this hanging out or socializing in any degree. When everyone starts to look at their phones, that is the key that the socialization has died in the group, and it is best for me to leave.

Networking, Public Speaking, Performing on Stage

All of these things can help you get over social anxiety as they all require being in large groups and being forced to connect and talk to people. Rushing Frats are good practice, presenting research, and performing on stage have all helped me build confidence and realize my social anxiety is not a real fear but just a trauma reaction from my past. Networking forces you to talk to strangers without really worrying about personal connection but rather just talking about what you both are already interested in. Public Speaking helps you hone your speaking skills and forces you to become engaging and a good storyteller. I have done many performances on stage throughout my life, although this doesn’t really relate to socializing, it does force you to perform in front of people and will help combat social anxiety, while building confidence and respect from the audience.

Foundational Steps:

No matter what if you want to be social and be at your best state then you must work on getting good sleep, enough exercise, and eating a healthy diet. Working on just these 3 things will improve your life the most. The 80/20 rule comes into play heavy. Just working on these foundational steps we will improve our ability to do all the above steps. If you have slept well you are more likely to leave your bed and go outside. If you eat well then you will have the energy to be social. If you work out hard then you will gain confidence and a better body which will help you be more social.

Thanks so much for reading, let’s grow together 🙂