How to overcome social anxiety

1. An introverted person can have no social anxiety-I am only introverted, but I have no social anxiety. I don't want to take part in those activities, but I won't be afraid. However, an introvert or extrovert may have social anxiety and fear, which is good. And if a person really becomes an introvert, there is no need to change.

In fact, there is a three-second difference between a person with social anxiety and a person without anxiety.

The fundamental source of social anxiety is a voice in your head, which has been judging you: you are terrible and you will be laughed at by others.

The characteristic of internal judgment is to underestimate yourself and overestimate the importance others attach to you.

2. People's judgment on themselves is completely different from others' views on themselves. So what do you need to ask yourself when you have such inner doubts? Is "does that work for you", that is, is this inner self-judgment useful for you?

Many of our worries and anxieties about what others think of us have never happened. If you immerse yourself in it, it will backfire. It wants to help us live better, but it doesn't make us live better.

When you are confused, you say that I behaved badly that day and everyone will laugh at me. I'm finished. I can't see anyone after school. At this time, you need a voice to stand up and say: Who will laugh at you? what he would have said？ Are there many such people? How many/much? On what occasion? Under what circumstances? What would he say? When you look for the direction of the "reference" very seriously and make it concrete, you find that the worst case is nothing, which is "substitution"

Just to be clear. What we often worry about is a vague feeling. Just like my wife said at home that day that they would introduce a new policy, these employees will definitely have opinions, which is so annoying. I just read this paragraph, and then I asked her, who? Who has a problem with that? What's the opinion? what he would have said？ Then she thought, thought for a while, and she said, it seems nothing. You see, this is a typical replacement method, that is, when you can find out what the worst result will be in a prescribed way, who will say what will happen after he says it? This is called "catastrophe".

The idea of disaster is a vague feeling, that is, inexplicable irritability, and I don't know what to do. But once you ask clearly, it will be disastrous. Even if it happens, only one or two people will say one or two ugly words. It doesn't really matter. Has not brought much change to our lives. This is the first move, very effective, called replacement.

What can really change effectively is to embrace our anxiety, that is, you should learn to sympathize with yourself and build that understanding coach in your mind. How to realize self-pity? First learn "mindfulness". Mindfulness is very important. By seeing something, smelling something, touching something and listening to something called color, sound, smell and touch, these things can bring us back to mindfulness and bring us back to the present. You will find that there is not so much trouble back to now, and we are often troubled by many things that have not happened. Therefore, learning to maintain "mindfulness" is the first step to calm us down.

Then I often do some self-friendly behavior, that is, tell myself in my heart: you are making progress, this is an opportunity to learn, and you have worked hard. And you did better than last time. I believe you will do better next time.

The third is to tell myself that human nature is * * *. I probably understood this when I was in college. I often make a fool of myself when I take part in debates, and then suddenly I find that no one can remember the part where I made a fool of myself. How did I realize this? It's because when I watch other debaters argue, I find that what I remember is often the best time of this person-this person is very good, this person is very good, and it was really good at that time-but I can't remember when he lost, when he said the wrong thing. Later, I thought, since I am like this, I am afraid that others will be like this. So I slowly felt the goodwill of the audience, which is called understanding that human nature is * * *. Just as you will treat others, others will treat you often, so if you can do it and make yourself a kind person, you will be more aware of the goodwill of others.

We always do "eat melons" and always feel that it is a very painful thing for a person to be "eaten melons". But in fact, if you really understand human nature, you will find that you are tired of eating melons for two days. As soon as these two days passed, this matter passed and that person returned to be a normal person. In this way, you will know how so many big stars who have been "eaten melons" finally return to normal life step by step, and he finally becomes a normal person. This is "human nature is * * *".

Understand these three things-mindfulness, self-friendliness, and understanding the universality of human nature, and you can learn to embrace, and you can learn to be kind to yourself and refute your inner judgment.

4. "Inner judgment just wants you to do your best, but it lets you know this in an ineffective way, so please reason with it, tell it how powerful you are, and remind it that friendliness is better than criticism. You have to tell your inner judge. Now I have to forgive myself and face some fears. "

If we are dominated by this inner judgment all day, we will not have the courage to face the real fear, and we will not be able to deal with the real problems and think about how to say proper words in social situations, because you are fighting the voice in your head. Where did that sound come from? It may come from your mother's inheritance when you were a child, or it may come from your childhood experience. So all these things run through it, let us know how to solve the inner judgment: learn to replace it, make it clear, and then learn to embrace it. At this time, you will be more gentle and kind to yourself.

5. "How to act? You have to pretend that you can do it first. " If you tell yourself in your heart that you just can't do it, then you probably can't do it; But if you pretend you can do it first, you have a chance.

There is another case: people ask a famous talk show star-his talk show is very humorous-and ask him: Why do you like being noticed so much? He said it was because I was shy. Do you think these two sentences are contradictory? You are shy. How can I hope to be noticed? In fact, there is no contradiction at all, that is, there are many such people who perform well in front of 10 million people, but are shy in front of10 people.

Think about Stephen Chow. Stephen Chow's movies are typical nonsense. He can do whatever he wants. He is very open-minded, but he becomes reserved in private interviews. He even said that he was an autistic, which is typical of choosing to get more attention in order to avoid being shy. What is the principle? It's called role-playing. In other words, if you tell Stephen Chow, a very introverted and shy person, you should be generous. He can't, he can't suddenly become very comfortable and generous in his daily life, because he has this kind of anxiety. However, if you tell him that you play this nonsense role, you are not you, you are a role. He doesn't care, so role-playing can effectively help us start pretending that we can do it.

This is a very effective method called "the importance of structure", and the structure is presented by the role. Here is an experiment: a group of people are waiting for treatment, some have social anxiety, and some don't. At this time, an actor was arranged to come in, and this person was responsible for chatting with everyone. You see, people with social anxiety don't like chatting with people. So at this time, when you ask him how he feels, those people say that they are very annoyed and really emphasize to chat with me. He will feel uncomfortable.

But if we assign a task to everyone, we say that you need to know the family characteristics and their occupations of the people around you while waiting for treatment. When you assign such tasks to each patient, you find that everyone's anxiety is greatly reduced. Why? Because he has a role, he has a structured arrangement that will make him feel comfortable.

You find that no matter how introverted a person is, he can talk to Kan Kan because he has solved the problem. This is his task, and he must chat with each other in these eight minutes. Therefore, this structured method can effectively help us solve our inner anxiety and make your anxiety drop rapidly.

So how do we apply this technique? No matter where I go, ask others to arrange eight minutes for me. No, you need to learn to find a role for yourself. It says that there is a girl who works in a hospital. She is very introverted. You know, the biggest disadvantage of introverts is having meetings. Whenever there is a meeting, others are arguing, talking and talking about their views in Kan Kan, and she thinks my voice is weak, so forget it. Needless to say, you will feel very uncomfortable and painful, and many opinions have not been expressed, which has become a small transparency of the company.

As a result, one day she got a feedback from a patient. The patient said, thank you very much for the last thing you helped me fight for. Very good. Thank you! This incident gave her great inspiration, so she added a role to herself, called "I am the spokesperson of patients". When she defined herself as such a "patient spokesperson", she suddenly dared to speak at the meeting because she was willing to say: I would like to say a few words on behalf of patients.

You see, the arrangement of such a small role makes you relax your judgment on yourself, because you don't represent yourself, and you have someone else in your heart. Then do you know why Confucius said that "the benevolent does not worry"? "Worry" is anxiety. Why don't benevolent people worry? Because the benevolent has others in his heart, I am speaking for others. Why should I be anxious? At this time, this role can effectively help us reduce social anxiety.

I'm not saying this to show them how smart I am. It doesn't matter how much I know. You see, whenever I don't perform well, that's when I always want to show myself to be great. That is, when you are always thinking, "How can I make them think I am great?" Your speech must be in a bad state, you are grandiose, you are shouting, and your voice will be very tired after you finish.

If you feel uncomfortable at first, we need to set a structure for ourselves: what role am I here to play? When you are here in this role, you will easily feel at home.

But I would like to remind you that you should not create an escape structure for yourself. What is the structure of escape? You go to the party and say that my task today is to help everyone wash the dishes. This is the structure of escape. Once this structure is built, you will hide and wash dishes, and you won't talk to people, so you need to give everyone a structure.

6. If you choose to escape when you are anxious, it is easy to directly enter a relaxed state.

But do you know what the price is? The price is that you have to do it again next time. Then you will miss many social opportunities, because you will always run straight here. But if you are willing to hold on, be brave, hold on at this crazy time, don't go, talk to them for a while, and then you will find that you will slowly relax.

7. "Challenge your own list". After doing this kind of behavior often, Jiang Jia came to a very interesting conclusion. He said to me, "I didn't expect that I could hear the other person say' yes' so easily. I realized that I missed countless opportunities for fear of rejection, but in fact I was rejecting myself. " He paused, and I can already see this pause, that important moment, from one visitor to another and myself. Then his voice was full of surprise and he said, "The world is much better than we thought!" "

Doing this slightly embarrassing thing will make your heart stronger and stop worrying about the "life buoy problem" all day. What is the "life buoy problem"? It was the lifebuoy that pulled you underwater. It keeps you from floating and staying there forever. You dare not let go. Life buoy stands for safety behavior, and many safety behaviors will be misunderstood.

I've also heard that I'm proud. Not proud at all. But it is your excessive self-protection and the pursuit of safe behavior that keep you from making a fool of yourself. You always dress yourself up as a great person, which makes others think you are cold, arrogant, lofty and so on.

So when you can learn to voluntarily give up these safe behaviors, you will become more comfortable.

For example, even if you go to a party and the dress is not ready, you don't get the notice and don't know that people are going to wear formal clothes. You're the only one who attended in sportswear. It doesn't matter. Think of it as an opportunity to exercise. Confucius praised Luz, saying that Luz wore terrible clothes and stood with those who wore fox skin, so that he could be completely calm and clean.

If we can treat these embarrassments calmly, there is a good chance that you will be the most memorable person at that party. The charm of calm mood is very important, so facing your fears, finding your own safe behavior, and then changing it through repeated exposure and repeated practice is the most effective action. So when you go back, find out your safe behavior first, and then make a plan for yourself. Every time you attend a party, arrange a structure for yourself and assign a role. I believe you will become more calm.

7. Finally, the author lists many traps about social anxiety, including one * * * six traps.

The first one is "I must always monitor myself and my anxiety". In fact, we should focus on doing things, not on internal judgment.

The book Flow says: If you feel bored doing something, it is definitely not the matter, but the way you do it, so divert your attention from the inside out.

The second trap is "My feeling is my appearance". Sometimes I meet a speaker and I say it's really good. He says, huh? No, I'm so nervous. In fact, you can't see his nervousness at all, but he will feel that everyone in the audience can see his nervousness and can't wait to find a crack in the ground. Sometimes blushing is invisible to others. This thing is called "transparent illusion". A large number of people have the illusion of transparency and feel that their inner thoughts are clearly seen by others, but in fact, others can't see them, and others think you are calm and calm.

The third trap is "people will judge me". But in fact, people will soon forget you, which is true. What you should worry about is that others will forget you, not that others will judge you all day. Nobody has that much leisure time. Confucius said, "My husband is too busy for me." I don't have that much leisure to judge others all day.

The fourth is "We must be perfect". This trap will bring us "fear of missing", that is, to dare to be mediocre. Your mediocrity may give others a deeper impression; And a person who works too hard will make others feel that they can see through it at a glance, so it is important to behave normally. We can't know what others will say about us. You can't control that thing It has something to do with his experience, his values and the psychological trauma he once had. How can you make everyone like you? No matter how well you do, it is possible that more than half of the people in this world don't like you at all, even hate you, or hate you.

So what we can do is to dare to be mediocre, just keep normal, and don't think others are better than me.

The fifth trap is "My social skills are extremely poor". If you think your social skills are extremely poor, it will affect your social interaction, so you should know that poor social skills are the result of anxiety, not the cause. It is because you are anxious that your social skills are poor. Don't reverse this causal relationship, so don't label yourself as unsociable and anxious-no, everyone has their own lovely side. Some people are not very talkative, but they are very popular, so it is important for you to show your inner self and be friendly to others.

The sixth one is "drinking can relax me". The author says drinking is complicated. Some people, in order to participate in social activities, drink three cups first and get drunk. Get yourself drunk. Hey, tonight will be easy. In fact, this is a trap. If social anxiety and alcohol need to update their relationship status, it must be complicated. In fact, some studies have found that people with higher social anxiety drink less, but there are more cases of drinking risk than those without anxiety. In addition, they are more likely to have what researchers call alcohol-related negative consequences, such as absenteeism, injuries and uncomfortable sexual experiences. These people with social anxiety will bring you a lot of pain if you try to cover up this anxiety by drinking. It will get bigger if you don't drink it. This is a serious problem, so don't try to relax yourself by drinking. This is an escape trap.

Finally, the author gives a core suggestion, that is, you don't have to worry about what others think of you. What you need to do is be kind to others and open your heart.

A very important principle in social interaction is proximity and repetition. What are proximity and repeatability? A good neighbor is better than a brother in a neighboring village. With colleagues, it is possible that they will help you more than your relatives Because relatives are far away, colleagues are close. Where is the repeatability? If a person wants to be friends with another person, it is impossible to simply know and send two emails. It takes at least six to eight in-depth conversations to become friends. People who often meet at parties may not be friends, because you simply say: hi, meet again. You can communicate and chat six to eight times before you can become friends.

If we want to gain friendship through proximity and repetition, you need to play a leading role. That is, you should take the initiative to assume some roles of some parties: for example, everyone in the community should set up an industry Committee, and you said that I would help you organize logistics, or I would help you take charge of this statistic. These jobs will give you more opportunities to repeat with others, and then do more information disclosure. Disclosure of information doesn't mean revealing all privacy, but you need to let others know where you come from, what education you received, what school you went to, what your family was like when you were a child, and what your family probably did ... As this open quadrant gets bigger and bigger, you will easily become more popular.

Another way is to show your love for others. Everyone likes to associate with people who like themselves, so if you want to be popular, don't always find fault with others. You have met good people and good behavior, so you should always speak out. It doesn't matter whether you like it or not. Only when you say it can the other person know, so that you can become a warm and friendly person. Therefore, if we have an idea in mind: to care for others and give them warmth, it doesn't matter how much we can give back. At this time, your social relations will definitely improve.

8. "The clearest message we get from this 75-year-old research is that good relationships make us happier and healthier. Those who have richer social connections, that is, those who are more closely connected with family, friends and groups, are happier, healthier and live longer. " To make this point clear, he also mentioned that the men who were most satisfied with their marriage relationship at the age of 50 in the study were healthier at the age of 80.

Please note that socialization does not refer to numbers and quantity, but to quality. What matters is not that kind of social relationship. You don't have to get married or have a partner. On the contrary, the most important factor for a healthy and happy life is to have warm interpersonal relationships. From middle school to old age, warmth means kindness and trustworthiness, which will promote contact. Grant's research also tells us that contact can bring happiness, health and longevity. You don't have to be cheerful, outgoing, confident or popular. All you have to do is be kind. You already have this thing.

So throughout this book, you will find that the most important thing to overcome social fear is kindness. When we are kind and warm, more willing to actively change ourselves and have a lifelong growth mentality, overcoming social anxiety will become one of the greatest help to your life.