Five Effective Ways to Treat Social Anxiety
Many people have it but few know how to treat it. Here are five tips coming from a former anxiety sufferer.
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Support System
Every anxiety sufferer should have a solid support system, whether it’s your parents, siblings, friends, or teachers. Picture yourself as a toddler. Remember at the playground, every time you went down the slide, no matter how many turns you took or how fast you went sliding down, there was always someone waiting at the bottom to catch you? Even when they missed and you went sliding to the ground you still knew their intentions were good. That’s how a support system should be, a soft place to land and unconditional support. They may not always know how to help you but them just being there makes you feel safe.
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Positive Environment
Attitudes, just like moods are contagious. If you’re surrounded by negative people long enough, eventually you will become negative, if you’re surrounded by positive people, that will also rub off on you. A person with social anxiety has constant negative thought patterns everyday, in almost every situation. It’s an automatic reaction that they can’t help, therefore, having as much positivity as possible is crucial.
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Talk To Your Doctor
Someone with social anxiety should always seek professional help. Your doctor can discuss possible treatments such as certain anxiety medications and he may refer you to a good psychiatrist. If you really want to beat your anxiety, I would recommend doing both and I’ll tell you why. Relying on medication only is like an overweight person relying solely on weight loss pills. They might work at first and make them lose a bunch of weight, but what happens when they stop taking them? The weight will come back on because they weren’t given the right tools to change their lifestyle and eating habits. In other words, you have to deal with the initial problem instead of just covering it up.
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Don’t Wait For It To Go Away On It’s Own
Social anxiety is an illness, therefore, just like any other illness, it has to be treated. Disregard comments like “It will pass” or “Go out and conquer your fear and it will go away”. These are comments coming from people that don’t really understand the way social anxiety works. The truth is, a social anxiety sufferer can go out and put themselves in a million different social situations in the hopes of “conquering” their phobia and it won’t do any good. Doing that will only increase their fear because they don’t yet have the tools to reverse your negative thoughts. So, telling someone to simply “conquer” their fear will only result in constant negative situations, which will actually discourage them even more.
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Don’t Give Up
The most important tip of all. There are millions of people that suffer from social anxiety, but for every person that has it there is a person that has been cured. If you need encouragement from people that know what you’re going through, there are many live chartrooms made specifically for social anxiety sufferers, a place where people can gather, chat, share tips, tell stories, and provide and receive emotional support. It doesn’t have to be an endless battle!
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