Social phobia is not a disease, you can handle it yourself.

Colleagues chat during lunch break: On this day, when talking about the May Day holiday, colleagues suddenly asked Xiao Li, "What do you think?"

Xiao Li, who was unprepared, suddenly went blank. What should he say? He felt that everyone was watching him, and the air was as silent as death.

After vaguely saying "I don't know", the topic continued, but Xiao Li couldn't calm down. He repeatedly thought about his reaction just now, thinking that his colleagues must think he is stupid and slow.

At first glance, Xiao Li's panic seems to be caused by a colleague's sudden question, but in fact? Is it normal for colleagues to chat? Xiao Li's panic actually comes from his heart.

If you have had the same reaction as Xiao Li in similar situations, you are likely to have "social anxiety disorder".

Although "social anxiety disorder" sounds like a disease, you don't have to be too nervous. As long as it doesn't interfere with your life and appears for more than 6 months in a row, it is not a medical disease.

"Social anxiety disorder" has a more popular name-"social phobia", referred to as social phobia.

To tell the truth, I am also a social phobia patient, so when I saw the book "Social Stress-free", especially when the cover also said "Self-help Guide for Social Phobia Patients", I did not hesitate to take it home.

The cover of this book looks so relaxed, and the title says no pressure, so I naively thought I could read it easily.

However, reality is always cruel. This is simply a boring report paper. If it's really paper, at least it won't be that long, but it's a book, so it gives me the feeling that it's elongated like pulling a dough, but it's just elongated, at least it's thinned, and it won't lose its chewing power. But the problem is that the author stretches by constantly filling in the same content in different positions ... God knows how painful it is for me to read obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Although this book is boring, the author Gillian Butler is very professional in psychology and the methods put forward are very constructive. If you want to know how to solve the social fear barrier and don't want to read lengthy academic analysis, you can choose to read only the second part of the book, the last chapter summary and the third part, or continue reading this article.

Is shyness the same as social phobia?

Before we know how to improve social phobia, we must first find out whether we are social phobia or just shy.

Shy people are often clumsy in social situations, nervous in front of leaders or the right opposite sex, and afraid to express their opinions.

These manifestations look like social phobia, but actually shy people are not necessarily social phobia. Although some people's social phobia disorder is related to personality, it cannot represent all social phobias. The root cause of social phobia is that you put too much pressure on yourself when you are in contact with others. If you are shy and have the following characteristics, you can classify yourself as "social phobia".

1, uncontrollable hindsight

Both social phobia and shyness may lead you to say inappropriate words or behaviors in social situations, but one feature of social phobia is that even if it happened a few days ago, it will keep replaying embarrassing scenes in your mind and make self-criticism every time you think about it. Even every time I go to a similar occasion, I can't help but recall the embarrassment at that time, which led me to make the same mistake again and form a vicious circle.

2. Have your own safety behaviors.

Safe behavior refers to the behavior that occurs every time you feel anxious, in order to avoid attracting others' attention. The specific performance varies from person to person.

For example, when you are small, you will blush when you are nervous. In order to hide her blushing, she would lower her head and cover her face with her hair to make a "protective cover".

When Xiao B receives the invitation to the party, he must make sure that there are no acquaintances to go with him, and there must be acquaintances around him to feel at ease.

As soon as Xiao C feels that the party atmosphere is getting cold, he will start telling jokes. Silence will make him nervous and think it's his fault.

From the example of Xiao C, we can also see that the external manifestation of social fear is not necessarily avoidance or shyness, but also the beginning of trying to enliven the atmosphere and promote dialogue.

The salespeople you talk to in Kan Kan may also be socially phobic. Once his conversation is interrupted, he will be at a loss.

3, will imagine the outside world.

Another major feature of social fear is that it always fantasizes that others have a poor evaluation of itself and is convinced of it.

Here are a few examples. If you have the following psychology, you are too concerned about the outside world:

Walking on the road, I always feel that others are watching you and judging you in my heart.

When chatting with a group of people, if you say a word and then become silent, you will start to think that they don't like listening to you.

Once I was asked by a teacher but couldn't answer, I began to think that all my classmates thought you were stupid.

Social fear may not appear until adulthood.

Many people think that social phobia is generally related to childhood experiences (family environment or school bullying).

But don't think that you didn't have social phobia before, and you won't have it in the future. If you suddenly develop these symptoms as an adult, don't take them seriously.

Because a person who has never experienced social phobia may suddenly become social phobia because of loneliness after experiencing some events (such as moving to a new environment after job hopping or shrinking after retirement).

Don't worry too much when you find that you have "social phobia". Non-pathological social phobia disorder is actually quite common in the population.

Moreover, if you want to overcome the obstacles of social phobia, you don't need to dig deep into your inner scars like treating mental illness, or you need to find out the specific reasons.

As long as you use the following methods to adjust yourself, the probability of overcoming it is still great.

Solutions to social fears

Now, put down the books you are reading about communication skills and turn off the articles that teach you how to get along with others.

Deliberately learning social skills is not helpful to social terrorists, because what social terrorists need to solve urgently is not communication skills at all, but to release excessive pressure on themselves.

Since social fear generally has the habit of "self-reflection", it is better to make good use of this and deeply reflect on your behavior.

Ask yourself three questions first:

What problems or troubles did your social phobia bring?

What are your "signs and symptoms" of social phobia?

What do you want to change?

All the ways to overcome it have a general direction: according to your own analysis, choose the exercises you need to do, design the corresponding improvement supervision forms and schemes, track the progress, and make timely adjustments according to the trial results.

If you really want to overcome your social phobia, you should set aside special time to solve it just like learning a new technology, and don't let anything else become a bad reason for procrastination.

The following is a detailed introduction of the three methods provided by the author according to the characteristics of social terrorists:

1, reduce self-concern

The best way to deal with the vicious circle of "always reflecting on yourself involuntarily" and "constantly thinking of previous embarrassment in similar scenes, which leads to making mistakes again" is to reduce self-concern.

Exercise 1: divert attention.

Find an environment that is not disturbed by social anxiety, such as lying in bed, walking alone or taking a car, so that your attention can be completely focused on yourself for two or three minutes. Then turn your attention to other things and keep it for two or three minutes. Keep practicing cycling whenever possible until you want to divert your attention.

When you pay attention to yourself, you can pay attention to your physical state, feelings and emotions, and you can also pay attention to the comfort of clothes. In short, don't think about anything but yourself.

When paying attention to the outside world, you can choose a static object nearby, observe its color, material and function, and also observe the people around you, but not what he is thinking, just observe his appearance or clothes and other related things.

This exercise will help you get out as soon as you realize that you are about to fall into a vicious circle.

Exercise 2: Find special occasions.

When you ask yourself questions, you should be able to sum up some situations that will cause social fear. Recall your actions and thoughts on a single occasion, down to all the details.

For example, little memory: as long as he is alone with his ex, he will suddenly get nervous. If the seniors talk to me, my face will start to turn red and hot at once. Usually at this time, I will look down at the floor until I believe that my predecessors will never see my face before answering. If my predecessors continue to approach me, I will step back, even turn around, and even knock over the cup on the table once.

Researchers have found that social terrorists have less memories of the specific details of their surroundings than others, and they always pay too much attention to themselves and others. The tension brought by imagination makes them subconsciously feel that the present environment is also very dangerous, which makes them even more uneasy.

In view of this, you can deliberately try to recreate the situation that will cause anxiety. When talking, don't focus on yourself or the other person, but pay more attention to the surrounding environment. Trust in similar situations will help you stay calm in the future.

Generally speaking, this exercise is almost impossible to succeed at one time, so you can make a training plan for yourself, summarize the failed links after each exercise, just like when reciting, and strengthen your memory of weak points. I believe that there will be obvious improvement after repeated practice.

Exercise 3: Stimulate curiosity

If you are afraid of practicing, you can first find a familiar person who won't cause you social fear obstacles and ask him to help you do two-way experiments. You can chat as usual, and the content is not limited. In the first five minutes of conversation, you should ask yourself to pay attention to your inner feelings, such as your heartbeat, body dynamics or thoughts in your head. After 5 minutes (or I personally think it's more natural to talk after the topic is over), stop the conversation and rate yourself on a scale of 0~ 100: How many points can you give to the conversation? How anxious are you?

Then continue to chat, but ask yourself to pay attention to each other's things, such as clothes or appearance, listen carefully to what he says, and observe all the places you are interested in, as long as you don't think about yourself. The same is true after the end.

Comparing the two scores, the latter score is generally higher. It is inevitable that you will be distracted during the experiment. Try a few more times. The key point is how to learn to use your curiosity freely in the experiment and reduce your excessive concern for yourself. If your score is getting better and better, your inertial thinking will realize from the change of your score that it is beneficial to shift your attention to external things.

2. Change the way of thinking

The general idea of social terrorists is:

Think that you have taken on too many responsibilities;

Imagine what others think of you;

Set too high a standard for their social performance;

I always feel bored.

In view of these ways of thinking that will cause excessive pressure, the author provides strategies for change:

Step 1: Record the thoughts in your mind.

Prepare a notebook, preferably with you at any time, and record every anxious scene like this:

Scene details: where and what happened, such as attending a class reunion on Saturday night.

My feelings: For example, I am nervous, at a loss, and don't know how to answer the phone.

The thought in my mind at that time: for example, everyone else looks comfortable, and only I look like a fool.

The more accurate the description, the greater the help.

Step 2: Consider alternative ideas.

Find a quiet moment, take out your notebook and question the ideas you have written down. Think about whether there were any other ideas in the scene at that time.

For example, in the first step, "Only I look like a fool", you can think like this: At that time, everyone was busy chatting, who would have time to observe me? Besides, how can I possibly know what they are thinking? Nobody stared at me for more than 30 seconds!

Ok, write down the alternative ideas of each scene you find, take this notebook with you, and remember to review your alternative ideas in advance when you are about to go to similar occasions.

3, change the safety behavior

Because safe behaviors always appear when anxiety is triggered, if you can control safe behaviors, you can also avoid entering a state of social fear.

Changing your own safety behavior is actually very simple. Find out your own safe behavior and analyze the harmful consequences: for example, when you are not confident in your answer, your voice will become very small, but the other party may ask you to say it again because you can't hear clearly. This safe behavior of lowering your voice will cause you to have to answer again, thus losing confidence even more.

Then think about how things will develop if you don't trigger this kind of safe behavior: if your voice doesn't drop, the other party won't let you say it again.

Let your heart realize that safe behavior will not help you, but will make you more anxious. After that, the next thing to do is to consciously control yourself and prevent safe behavior.

If you find yourself more anxious after starting to try, don't worry, losing the "protective cover" is a normal stress reaction.

Some safe behaviors may be uncontrollable, such as shivering. Ignore them first, try more exercises mentioned above, and focus on changing thinking mode and reducing self-concern. When the other two aspects are improved, I believe that the safety behavior will also be alleviated.

relaxing exercise

What I said before is deliberate practice in thinking. At the end of the book, I also mentioned a mindfulness relaxation method used by the body, which will also help to alleviate social fears.

Relaxation requires learning. Relaxation is not only a physiological skill, but also an attitude and a tonic. For social terrorists, learning to relax is particularly important.