Managing Well in Social Situations
For almost all people, social situations bring up an element of anxiety - for some the anxiety is as minor as pre-event jitters, for other it can be as extreme as a panic attacks and avoidance of all social situations entirely.
Social anxiety is one of the most common forms of anxiety, and it’s something the clinicians at the practice work with people to overcome on a daily basis.
While treatment of social anxiety (however extreme) is best done in a manner that is specific to you and your situation, there are some general tips that can be helpful for all of us:
Notice your (over)thinking
When researches and clinicians have looked at what separates people who experience heightened social anxiety and those who don’t, they found that people with social anxiety tend to engage in intense thinking about the social event (or situation) both before, during, and after it. They called in ‘anticipatory rumination’ and ‘post-event processing’. These thoughts before, during, and after the event are often:
- more negative – that is, their thoughts are are more critical, comparative, hopeless or worried in nature
- more self-focused - that is, their thoughts are more focussed on what they are saying, wearing, doing, or how they are acting or being perceived by others (rather than what those around them are doing)
- and more ‘threat’ based – that is, their thinking is biased towards assuming things might (or will) go wrong
When we notice our patterns of thinking, we are more equipped to manage them.
Identify the core worries
Spend some time thinking through what is making you anxious. Perhaps allow all your anxious thoughts to come to you and don’t push them away – just observe them as you would cars down a street, or leaves on a stream. Perhaps you might find writing down your thoughts helpful. Other people might want to discuss with a friend, family member, or therapist what is making them anxious.
For example, you might be anxious about: saying something stupid, or being asked a particular question, or not knowing who to speak to, or not dressing appropriately, or getting lost on the way there, or having a flushed or sweating face (or hands), or not knowing anyone there, or getting sick from the food, or feeling trapped and unsure how to leave, or being judged by someone for something…
By identifying the anxious voice in our brain we are better able to manage and challenge the ‘what if…’s as they arise. Perhaps use some of the skills used in therapy – cognitive challenging or cognitive defusion to minimise the impact these thoughts have on your feelings and behaviour.
(Helpfully) plan the event
If your social anxiety is more mild, doing a bit of pre-event planning can help alleviate some of the stress.
For some people, arriving early can be less anxiety-inducing. It gives you more time to find the place you’re going to, it means you can deal with traffic or public transport delays with more patience, it means you might have a few minutes to do some mindfulness or breathing before you enter the event.
For others, extra time before the event might be more anxiety inducing. For these people, spare time might encourage that anticipatory rumination mentioned above, and it might be more helpful to arrive slightly later so that you know you won’t have time to over-think before entering.
Maybe you want to identify some people you know who are attending the event, or do a practice drive of the route before you go, or scope out parking or public transport options. Maybe you want to think of some questions to ask prior to the event, or practise answering some likely questions. Helpfully planning the event can assist in addressing your specific worries.
However, there are ways that we can engage with or plan social situations that can make our anxiety worse (not better) – read below on Avoidance and Safety Behaviours.
Recognise thought distortions
As mentioned above, people with social anxiety often have thinking that is more negative, self-focused, and threat-based. Identifying the ways in which our thinking might be distorted is a helpful way of correcting our thinking, and perhaps making us feel less anxious.
For example – you might spend hours planning and changing your outfit before an event, becoming increasingly anxious about what to wear and what people might think of you. But spend a moment to see if you can remember what a friend wore to an event 1 month ago – you probably can’t. So, logic follows that others probably can’t remember what you wore either. Similarly with worrying about saying something embarrassing – can you recall a situation from the last social event you were at where you judged someone for what they said, and can you remember exactly what they were saying? Most people can’t.
Avoid avoidance
Avoidance is often short-term gain for long-term pain. Avoiding an anxiety-inducing event or situation always makes us feel immediately better in the moment. However, when researchers and clinicians looked at what makes social anxiety worse, they found that continual avoidance of social situations often just perpetuated the anxiety for individuals, not solved it.
With the help of a support person (professional or personal), set some realistic goals about how, what, and when to attend certain social events. Slowly build up from what you feel most comfortable (or least uncomfortable with) and set a slightly new challenge each time (perhaps an event with more people, or remaining longer at the event).
Remember to check your thinking after the event, and to not engage in post-event negative processing! See the section of Self-Compassion below.
Correctly label (or re-frame) the feeling
How we label the sensations in our body impacts how comfortable we are with them. For most people, anxiety is uncomfortable, whilst excitement is manageable. However, anxiety and excitement share many similar bodily sensations – shaking, tingling, sweating, flushed face, elevated heart rate, increased breathing, and feeling ‘jittery’. Many people experience those physiological symptoms before an event, however if we’re able to label those feelings as the emotion ‘excitement’ rather than ‘anxiety’ or ‘fear’ we are better able to manage and ‘ride the wave’ of the feelings.
Identify your safety behaviours
Another core element of social anxiety is safety behaviours. Safety behaviours are things we might do or not do to make ourselves feel safe or to take away some of our anxiety, however, in the long term, they often make us feel worse. A safety behaviour might be (but also might not be) – needing to always attend an event with a person, always needing to have drink in your hand, wearing many layers of clothing to hide sweat, drinking a lot prior to an event, standing near an exit at all times… Doing one or all of these things can have the short term benefit of reducing anxiety (e.g. you don’t have to turn up alone if you always arrive with a friend, the alcohol takes the edge off your shaking if you drink before, you don’t feel as trapped if you stand near the exit, your hide your sweat by wearing a jumper, etc.). However, over time, safety behaviours can make our anxiety worse – such as when you don’t have a friend to arrive with or they cancel last minute, or maybe you need to start drinking more alcohol to manage the anxiety or you avoid events where you can’t drink, or wearing lots of clothes makes you sweat more.
Identify possible safety behaviours and work towards removing or reducing them (or at the very least, monitor to make sure they’re not having an adverse effect). As you remove or reduce the safety behaviours, expect that the anxious voice in your brain will make the anxiety peak – but remember that it will subside! Challenge thoughts that you might have about what will happen if you remove or reduce the safety behaviour.
Have some self-compassion
Lastly, it’s helpful to focus a sense of compassion and gratitude towards yourself, particularly if you’re working at challenging your thoughts or avoidance. As mentioned above, those of us with social anxiety are often very self-critical. Managing and challenging our social anxiety is an effortful process! Switching your internal voice towards one that recognises your own efforts, praises your attempts, forgives yourself for setbacks, and allows failures and imperfection. Set aside 5 minutes after each event or attempt and spend some time thinking through ways you surprised yourself, or were proud of yourself.
