Answer:
Hi! If you want to try some self-help, the following steps should help eliminate (or significantly reduce) your social anxiety:
1.Breathe properly - if you control your breathing, you control panic. As soon as you notice the signs of anxiety, check your breathing: breathe in slowly through your nose pushing your tummy out (to the count of 5 or so). Breathe out slowly and for a bit longer (to the count of 7 or so) through your mouth. Do not breathe rapidly or shallowly (in the chest area). This will soon restore the balance of oxygen and you will feel a lot better.
2. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy! CBT is proven to be the most effective thing for anxiety. It takes a bit of work, but it is super effective. You can speak to your doctor about taking a course or you can take a course for free online at: http://www.livinglifetothefull.com/elear... It has been funded by NHS Scotland and has had great results thus far.
3. Try relaxation exercise tapes (progressive muscular relaxation). They really help if you practise often enough. This site has instructions on how to do it without the tapes (and other useful info): http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resource...
I hope you feel better soon. Best of luck!
1. Everyone, even the professional organizations, have a difficult time understanding what "social phobia" is. The largest anxiety association in the world almost always misuses the term -- and when it tries to give a case study or a story about a person with "social phobia", it invariably turns into a story about a person with agoraphobia, an entirely different anxiety disorder.
2. The people, organizations, and sites that lump "the phobias" together are doing a real disservice not only to this problem (which, by itself is the LARGEST anxiety disorder), but to the "true" phobias: specific phobias, such as fear of snakes, blood, insects, etc.
3. Social anxiety is all-encompassing. People with social anxiety fear social situations and events, they do NOT fear having panic attacks. They fear the high amount of anxiety experienced before, during, and after a social event.
4. Social anxiety and agoraphobia are light years away in terms of operational definitions. Social anxiety is a fear of social activities, events, and the people associated with them, which leads to high levels of anxiety, and, therefore, motivates the socially-anxious person to avoid them.
5. Agoraphobia results as a reaction to panic attacks that occur frequently and in many places, thus making the person with agoraphobia feel unsafe when leaving their "zone of safety". The fear is of having a panic attack, not a fear of social situations and other people.
6. When an organization or group lists social anxiety as a part of the "phobias" it is a clue that they probably do not understand social anxiety, its complications, and its distinctiveness from the other anxiety disorders. This is particularly sad, given the huge numbers of people who live with social anxiety.
7. The word "phobia" is inappropriate to this condition, and brings to the imagination a type of chronic sickness that is permanent. Social anxiety, on the other hand, is successfully treatable, providing that cognitive-behavioral group therapy is a part of the program.
8. How can the largest anxiety disorder, one that affects 7-8% of the population at any given time, be lumped together with other anxiety disorders, thus diluting its already misunderstood status? Is this not a slap in the face of people who are in great need of help for a specific, clearly definable, anxiety disorder?
9. The term "social anxiety" (social anxiety disorder) is more precise, clear, and understandable.
http://www.anxietynetwork.com/whywe.html...
start by going to the end of your block and then watch tv shows that people care about each other in
I have always considered myself to be sociophobic. In highschool I barely spoke with anyone. I'm still very bad at starting conversations with the opposite sex. But I found through therapy and time, I've learned to be much more outgoing. It was really hard for years, but I got through it.