The super-obvious method to dissolving social anxiety

[Livingthequestions]

Overcoming SA is simple. Yes it is a tough, painful process, but simple nonetheless. Here are the things you must do every day if you ever want to get out of this cage that is ruining what could be a beautiful life

-Think Positive. The entire cause of SA is negative thinking. From now on, replace each and every negative thought that pops into your head with something positive. It does not matter if it sounds cheesy or untrue. Do it.

-Be healthy Eat healthy foods and very little sugar. Get enough sleep but not too much. Exercise. Relax. Get in touch with nature, and all of us with SA know we could use a little sun

-Do more, think less. Pretty self explanatory. You won't even have time to worry if you focus on staying busy.

-Confront your fear. This is the scariest part. Thankfully, if you are following the other steps, this one will be much, much easier. Take baby steps, don't rush. What's important is to confront scary social situations on a regular basis. After doing this for some length of time, one day you will suddenly notice that the situations that use to make you panic don't anymore. The most important part of this is positive thinking. Never ever think anything negative about a situation no matter how horribly you think it went. Find the positives and note your accomplishments. Be damn proud of yourself for just putting yourself out there. Who cares how it went?

It may be common sense, but few people are willing to make a move. So now I'm telling you to get out there and do something about it! Will you do what it takes? Be brave. Be strong. Keep moving forward

 

[Shyangel]

Thanks for the great post, Living. I feel a little more confident now....Maybe I can do it. I'll keep trying to think that.

 

[gazelle]

Thank you for sharing this and I totally agree with you, healing SA is both a physical and mental procedure.

 

[Doromizu]

I think you just hit nail on head. But it so hard to just stick to eating health food.. :: let alown confront fears..

 

[nopark]

I logged in today just to reaffirm this post. There's no pill to pop, and there's no book you can read, and there's no amount of talking you can talk. The one thing you need to do is do. And of course, that's the hardest damned thing in the world.

For me, the two most important steps were Livingthequestions's do more, think less but also accept who you are. "Think less" for me meant I had to stop being so introspective--living in my head was becoming harmful--and I had to stop trying to imagine what other people might be thinking of me, because my mind inexorably led to dark thoughts.

"Accept who you are" means exactly that. You're fat, you're thin, you're goofy, you're intense, you're quiet, you're loud. Whatever it is, everyone has something they want to change or they want to avoid confronting. But if you avoid it, or focus too hard on it, it'll haunt you and impede your progress. The day I admitted to myself that damnit, yes I do like guys, my life instantly improved.

I quite like the serenity prayer found in many programs. It goes something like "accept the things you cannot change, and change the things you can." You can change your SAD behaviour. Try not to let tertiary garbage cloud your vision.

After I got going, things started to pop into place. As they say, starting is the hardest. Once you're on a roll, there's no stopping you.

 

[Hoppy]

10 bloody characters

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
-George Bernard Shaw

 

[Lea]

You know BS, this doesn´t make you rid of SA, only helps to get through life/live with SA. I´m trying to do this but still have SA just like always, this is not a cure, it won´t change your illness/personality.

 

[twiggle]

I think there are some good points here. Maybe it won't dissolve the problem entirely but it will definitely help and tbh if something can prevent you from thinking about SA 24/7 then it's worth doing.
Thank you for the post.

 

[ohheybbyitscorixx]

I think this depends on the person. Negative thoughts are a symptom, not a cause, of SA. If you treat a symptom of a cold, the cold does not go away. I've been through therapy enough to realize most people who "replace" negative thoughts with positive ones just end up depressed because it's not working and they feel like they failed. The eating healthier thing might be a good thing. Sugar makes you hyper and nervous. Also, healthy food gives you more energy! Some people might want to be careful on confronting their fear. Everyone who has this diagnosis isn't the same. Some people can push themselves too much, and end up way further back than where they first started. This list might work for someone who just has SA. But I noticed a lot of people with SA have other diagnosises, and other root causes for their problems that have not been addressed. However, it wouldn't hurt to try these points before you start questioning if it's for you or not

 

[montejocarlo]

*thumbs up*

 

[Feathers]

I think the most important would be:

Find support/back-up!! A support group can be informal, friends, mentors, people who love you etc. (Ideally in RL too!!)
Barbara Sher says you can do great things with good backup - even if you might have negative thoughts and imperfections!!

Also, if people might have other health or mental health problems, it may take a while to figure out what 'healthy food' might be for them! (Of course the obvious is to cut sugar etc.)
There may also be environmental factors (indoor and/or outdoor pollution, iffy chemicals and/or just 'crazy relatives/bosses' or 'difficult people' in the family/near environment or such...)

You can also learn from negative thoughts/fears and make'em into 'projects'...

So, it can be a process...

 

[theslowesthand]

Negative thoughts are a symptom, not a cause, of SA

I actually believe the exact opposite (ie that SA is a symptom of negative thoughts). Why i belive this is that since thoughts create feelings, shouldn't also neuroses (negative thoughts) also create anxiety disorders (such as SA) (???)

Edit: So my suggested approach, for those who really want to beat SA (which doesnt include me as yet!), is to work on their thoughts (specifically their "self-talk"), but even more so on their beliefs (which i believe the thoughts "trigger" .. which in turn creates the negative feelings & consequential negative actions/lifestyle)

 

[The Observer]

I'd personally remove the whole "positive" thought process from this. Going around everyday telling yourself "I am this or that" and not actually believing it won't do you much good. You don't believe it and neither does your egoic mind so its no wonder so many people dont do it or last at it very long.

People with SA spend much of their thinking time in the past, going over bad or negitive stuff that happened or replaying over and over interactions that took place between them and someone and often over analyzing their actions. They also tend to think about things in the future or events that have not yet happened, playing out how it might go in a worst possible scenario.

I'd say its better to try forget the past and live in the moment or "now time" cause really thats all there is.

 

[ohheybbyitscorixx]

I actually believe the exact opposite (ie that SA is a symptom of negative thoughts). Why i belive this is that since thoughts create feelings, shouldn't also neuroses (negative thoughts) also create anxiety disorders (such as SA) (???)

Edit: So my suggested approach, for those who really want to beat SA (which doesnt include me as yet!), is to work on their thoughts (specifically their "self-talk"), but even more so on their beliefs (which i believe the thoughts "trigger" .. which in turn creates the negative feelings & consequential negative actions/lifestyle)

Thoughts and feelings are separate from each other. For example, you can control your thoughts, but not your feelings. If you learn mindfulness, you can bridge a gap between your thoughts and feelings, and realize your thoughts are just thoughts, weather negative or positive. Also, there is a difference between feelings and actions. For example, I can feel very angry. So angry, that I want to kill someone. But I do not have to kill someone.

 

[The Observer]

it goes both ways, thoughts envoke feelings and vice versa so you are both correct. Adding my two cents to this, I'd agree with thesmallestloser statement about people working on their thoughts and changing how they think and watching their self talk. This is nothing new, It's been wrote about in many self help and psychology books over the years. Its good to share it hear anyways

 

[ohheybbyitscorixx]

it goes both ways, thoughts envoke feelings and vice versa so you are both correct. Adding my two cents to this, I'd agree with thesmallestloser statement about people working on their thoughts and changing how they think and watching their self talk. This is nothing new, It's been wrote about in many self help and psychology books over the years. Its good to share it hear anyways

I still strongly believe that thoughts do not make your emotions. If that were true, we'd essentially be able to "snap out of it", almost like wishing away the SA in our minds. I believe everyone feels differently, though, and everyone's brain is different. With some people with more severe SP, changing their thoughts do not help, so it's worth it to add that. With some people, it makes them more anxious or depressed for trying. But, if it really does work for you (as I've seen with some people with either less severe or shorter bouts of SA), then more power to ya!

 

[Newtype]

You know BS, this doesn´t make you rid of SA, only helps to get through life/live with SA. I´m trying to do this but still have SA just like always, this is not a cure, it won´t change your illness/personality.

You are impatient. I've done everything the topic creator wrote and my SA is almost gone. It takes time and a lot of mistakes. There is no magic potion. If I wanted to just "get through life/live with SA" as you say, I would just do what I did in high skool and college, which is to make myself small, avoid conversations and live in fear every day. Also, if you think that your personality will change if you don't have SA, you are wrong. You personality is always the same, it's just that your SA is preventing you from expressing it.

 

[deleted #89]

Social anxiety is a learned behavior which means that it can totally get " untangle"

 

[theslowesthand]

I still strongly believe that thoughts do not make your emotions. If that were true, we'd essentially be able to "snap out of it", almost like wishing away the SA in our minds

I think generally they do, but we do have a few "shortcut paths" in our brains, which makes us react (with feelings) without any need for thinking. One such mechanism i believe is the amygdala, which produces fearful/adrenalin-charged feelings automatically, when such stimuli presents itself, completely bypassing the conscious mind. Another is the part of brain which deals with scent/smells.

The trouble is, with trying to stop our negative/irrational thoughts, is that they're so deeply-entrenched in our brains (by way of deep-seated core-beliefs), that they're almost impossible to stop .. unless you can directly & successfully alter these core-belief & their associataed memory circuits. If you can't, then they'll forever be creating a constant stream of negative/irrational/fearful thoughts, whenever certain situations exist .. or even all the time in severe cases.

 

[The Observer]

I still strongly believe that thoughts do not make your emotions.

Think about it, Love is an emotion for a example. To feel love don't we have to at some point think about the person we love? The more time we spend with this person the more times we think about this person the stronger our love gets. So from that example you can see how thinking, (thoughts) put us in an emotional state (Love, Happines)

another example with rage this time.

I'm standing in a long line at a store wating to be served, a guy cuts in front of me. I say "hey! get to the back of the line" he responds with a string of foul mouthed obscenities. I have to process that information and think about how I am going to react to it. Let's say I do nothing cause he is far to big for me to "take" I might go about the rest of the day in really agressive mood and pissed off full of rage because I could not do anything about the guy who cut in front of me.

The thought = emotion, comes into play in this scenareo when you decide to let your thoughts return to the event in your mind and then become angry as a result.