Social Anxiety

On this page there is information on methods to use for overcoming social anxiety.  These methods are discussed further down the page.  I overcame this problem by changing my thinking and the way I experience the world using these methods, and I hope that you can too.   These are all natural, internal approaches to get to the root of the problem.  Medications are not discussed (although some herbs are mentioned at the bottom) here and I encourage anyone who is dealing with severe issues to contact a health professional as well.  A psychologist that you get along with and can talk openly with is highly recommended.  Given the nature of the problem talking with others is not always an option, it is for this reason I provide the information on this page.  Even if you don’t consider yourself to have social anxiety or panic attacks, but find yourself feeling judged or awkward in social situations there is likely some content on this page that will help you.

Introduction

Social anxiety is something I went through for many years, and it took away a good portion of my life.  There is a path out though, and hopefully there are some methods that help people overcome this issue on this page.

I currently work in many online groups and provide email counseling for those who are dealing with social anxiety.  It is a very wide spread problem and affects more people than you imagine.  It also does not seem to be limited to one sort of society, country or ethnic group.  I have worked with people from all different countries, backgrounds, upbringings…so don’t feel ashamed if you are going through this, it happens, and you can overcome it.  It also affects both males and females.

When I finally decided to talk with someone and share my anxiety with a few friends it was a hard decision, but ultimately it was a great decision.  I hope that if you are experiencing anxiety you will contact me or share what you are going through with those you are close to.  This in itself is very therapeutic and will reduce your anxiety around those people.

I have also posted content on this site relating to anxiety.  Much of it is intertwined with other articles and topics.  Overtime I will amalgamate all the information I have written on this topic (and there is a lot spread across many websites) and make those resources available to you on this page.

I wish you the best in your journey, and please know, above all, that there is a path out of anxiety, and your new life awaits you.  I am here if you need me.

~Cory Mitchell

THE ARTICLES BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM EMAIL CORRESPONDENCE AND ARTICLES I HAVE WRITTEN FOR SOME FORUMS.  THAT MEANS THERE MAY BE SOME BOUNCING AROUND BECAUSE I MAY HAVE BEEN RESPONDING TO A SPECIFIC QUESTION OR COMMENT.  SO EXCUSE THE INFORMAL NATURE OF THE ARTICLES; HOPEFULLY SOON I AM ABLE TO STREAMLINE THE INFO BUT FOR NOW I WILL SIMPLY CONTINUE TO TRY TO COLLECT WRITINGS ON THIS PAGE AS THEY WERE ORIGINALLY WRITTEN.

Quick Intro to Social Anxiety Reduction:

My problem was that I felt everyone was always judging me, would think what I would say was stupid etc. So the therapist I went to told me to see if this was actually true. I was in university at the time, and she told me make a comment in class (but this could be as simple as saying hello to someone, smiling at someone, or having a small chat with a cashier etc) and not think about myself but actually look around at other people to see what their reaction was. Of course I found that most people were in their own little world. They were not judging me. In other words, I had convinced myself of a false belief, and needed to start to give myself experiences that indicated that people were not judging me.

Next, we worked on my thoughts. Right before I wanted to do something – meet someone, speak up, go to an interview, talk to a stranger (basically anything social) – a negative thought would flash through my mind. I would sometimes spend considerable time building myself up to do something, only to be sabotaged by my own thought right before I was about to it. This is what I now call a secondary thought. Often it goes unnoticed. So I was told to pay attention whenever I had a feeling of anxiety and listen to every thought that was running through my head. After doing this, I found thoughts flashing through my head like “no one wants to hear you” “no one cares what you have to say”…thoughts like that.

After I realized this we worked on changing those thoughts… first by the process I talked about above (looking for evidence that it is a false belief, and that people actually do want hear what I had to say, wanted to be with me, etc).

Then the real work began (actually it was pretty easy, but does take a lot of conscious effort). I had to focus on the positive experiences and also feed myself a continuous stream of positive thoughts about myself. Even if I didn’t believe that people really wanted to hear what I had to say, I told myself over and over again that they did. Whenever I remembered I just swamped myself with positive thoughts including what I liked about myself, things I could be proud of, what I had accomplished, all the things that were good in the world and good about other people… It does not matter if you truly believe it or if you think some of these things are really not that great. You tell yourself anyway. Force yourself to tell yourself positive thoughts about yourself. Even say them out loud if you want.

This was what really helped me. It took only a few weeks to start seeing significant improvements.

So the most important thing is to start to look for evidence CONTRARY to what you are feeling. There is evidence everywhere that suggests people think you are valuable, whether you believe it or not. Evidence exists in the fact that friends are there for you (even though they don’t understand), family loves you, people still talk to you…look for evidence contrary to your negative feelings about yourself and choose to embrace those things.

Old habits die hard, and it is easy to revert to old thinking.  But in each situation look for a positive and continue to flood yourself with positive thoughts about yourself.  Every time you notice a negative thought in your head, push it aside and put try to think about something positive.  The negative thought will come back, but keep pushing it away and replacing it with a positive thought.  Over time, likely several weeks you will notice a major improvement if you are vigilant in doing this.  And while several weeks of this may seem like a lot of work in doing this…if this is to be overcome several weeks is nothing to regain control of your mind and body.

In addition, build yourself up as much as you can, whenever you can. When in a negative state things constantly add to that, and basically we see more and more negative, digging ourselves deeper. So we need to reverse that by feeding ourselves a constant stream of positive thoughts about the world and about yourself. Think about all the amazing and good things in the world and about yourself. Think about these positive things as much of you can. Eventually, after you have done it for a few months, often, this will become automatic. You will start to automatically see all the amazing things about yourself and about the world.

Let me know if you have further questions or if any of this does not seem to make sense. This is what I used to get myself out of anxiety, and could have lived quite happily. I continued on though and started to look into some spiritual aspects of life (not religion) and this continued to make improvements in my life. But I suggest doing the above. It does not require much actual work, and I think you should be able to see some improvements quite quickly.

I discuss some of these further steps, as well as a more in depth look at the “secondary thought” process in the Spiritual Psychology category of this site.

But again, post your comments and individual queries, because you will likely find that myself or someone else has gone through it. Also sharing anxieties and fears and hearing positive responses to them (this is a good place to do it) is also a therapy in itself as it lets you know you are not alone in this and people actually DO care and understand.

Shyness Is Not to Others What it is to You:

I can tell you this right off the bat, you CAN feel normal again, and you will. It will take a bit of time and effort, but we will get you through it. I did see a therapist for a short time, and she helped out, but if you are uncomfortable with the idea, I am sure you will be able to overcome this on your own…and I will give you the ideas that the therapist gave to me. I will say this though… If you do have access to see a therapist, and somehow you can see one for free, it would probably help as well. But in the mean time I will give you the information and ideas that worked for me.

I am totally free of this now, and so I know you can be free of it too.

First, we need to realize that this shyness comes from the thoughts we are always having. If we feel shy, then we become physically shy, and when we feel shy we start to think about it, and that makes us even more shy and anxious. So we need to stop that cycle somehow. How I did this was by purposely placing positive thoughts about myself into my head. I forced myself to think about everything I liked about myself. I did this every moment throughout the day when I remembered. I especially did it when I was lying in bed, and when I woke up in the morning.  I am talking complete over-kill, over the top almost upbeat self-talk.  We are trying to undo likely years of negative self-image, self-doubt or negative perceptions.  So we can’t “under do” the positive thinking at this stage.

I created this positive view by basically by bombarding myself with any kind of positive upbeat thinking I could. This includes things I like about myself, what I am proud of, good things in my life, good things in the world, good things about other people, good people in my life….I just keep repeating all these good things over and over to myself. It didn’t even matter if I believed them all, I said them anyway, and eventually I came to believe everything positive I said.  Since social anxiety comes from a negative self thought I did not feel right about telling myself these positive things.  And I didn’t believe what I was saying to myself…and I often said this would not work.  But here is the vicious cycle – those are negative thoughts!  So push through, continue to give yourself a mountain of positive thoughts even if you think it won’t work and slowly those positives will become the truth.

This is a little harder than it sounds, because you will need to force yourself to do it. But if you do it, you will feel better quicker. And the more you do it, the better you will begin to feel. If you have thoughts like “this is stupid” or “this won’t work” just push those thoughts aside and keep thinking good things about yourself.

………

The next thing I did was actually look outside of myself and see if there was a reason for me to feel embarrassed, anxious, shy, etc. Let my give you an example of this. In your email to me, you said that your friends sometimes say things, or make comments/jokes when you get shy. There is something interesting there….these people are still your friends and they still hang out with you. Think about that for a second.

Your shyness is not as big deal to others as you think it is. They still hang out with you, and while they make a comment or a joke, they don’t have a problem with you and it does not really matter to them that you are shy.  It is no different than a friend having a bad haircut which you bug him about, but ultimately you still like the guy are good friends with him.  Joking around is part of life…and it will be a fun part again soon.

Think about this for a second. If one of your friends got embarrassed or anxious in a social situation, what would you do? You might make a comment, even a joke, but likely you really wouldn’t care. It is not a big deal. Life will go on, and you probably won’t even remember the incident. But of course when the embarrassed or shy person is you (or me when I used to feel this way), you think everyone is judging you and this makes it even worse.

So I came to realize that other people weren’t judge me. They may make a comment, but really, it was only me who was making a big deal out of this most of the time.

So for the most part others were dealing with their own problems, and my shyness was not as big a deal as I thought it was. If you really look around, you will see this. Even if you don’t right now it is ok. People are not judging you like you think they are. Trust me on that. The main person that is judging you, is you. And we can stop that by the first thing I mentioned. …force yourself to think good thoughts about yourself. Tell yourself you are great person, that people like you, that you are confident….anything that you can think of which will make you feel good.

Even if you don’t really believe all these good things you are telling yourself, say them anyway. And keep saying them. Eventually, you won’t have to force these thoughts. You will start to just naturally feel good about yourself…you will feel more confident around others, and you will feel at ease in social situations.

Cory Mitchell

Other Symptoms: Turning Red, Quivering Lips, Racing Heart, Nervous Smile/Can’t Smile, Talk to One’s Self to Find Comfort, Nervous Laughter

These symptoms were addressed an email I recieved from someone who contacted me online after reading some of my articles.  Here was my response to question on the above symptoms.  The person wanted to know if these were normally associated with anxiety or if these were seperate issues.  Here was the response….

The laughing thing you described is a part of social anxiety.  The mouth trembling is related to an anxiety response. Same with the turning red and tearing in the eyes. So you don’t have to worry about this creating more problems, or being another problem. As you start to work on the things I mentioned these will all go away.

The turning red thing was my biggest frustration. It drove me crazy, but, once again when I started to think about it I realized that no one really cared when I turned red. They may joke about it or something, but no really truly cared that it was happening except for me. I notice people turning red now, and I think nothing of it. So if those same people saw me turning red they would also probably think nothing of it either.

As for the second thing you brought up, I don’t think this is a problem unless it really interferes with other activities you are doing. But let me say this…and take from it what you will, as some people don’t believe in this stuff and that is totally fine. But I am very spiritual type person. We all have spirit guides that accompany us through life. I talk to these guides…but generally it occurs in what would simply appear is a conversation with myself.

So since you are doing this, whether you believe it is just you talking to yourself, or possibly a “guide”, use this to your advantage. Like you said it generally makes you feel good. So use that to your advantage. Since you are talking anyway, start to incorporate some of the “positive thinking” I mentioned in the last email. Talk about this stuff with yourself, guide, imaginary friend or whatever you want to call it. But also try to focus the conversations on how you can start to overcome these issues.  Have a dialog with yourself on how to overcome this, why you want to overcome this and what life will look like once the issue is overcome.

Certain things happen for a reason. This talking to yourself maybe one way which will help you over come this…. if you use it to find answers. So in these talks search to find some personal answers, and keep the talk positive. There is nothing wrong you for doing this. It is a natural thing, and we all do it to a certain extent.

So use it to your advantage in anyway you can think. Put positive thoughts and words into the conversation.

Cory Mitchell

Positive Thinking is Slowly Helping…But I am still overwhelmed when I actually get in a social situation…

The positivity thing will take a while to work. But it will work. What happens, is at first you will be positive only when you think about it. But when you are in a social situation, likely you will revert to the negative thoughts. This brings about nervousness, anxiety, and and increased heartbeat.

The more you practice positive thinking the more natural it will become. Thus, no matter what situation you are in you will automatically think positively about the situation. But this does take some time.

I personally did not take any medications.

There is one other thing you should do. And I was going to bring this up down the road because doing the other things I mentioned are important (at least they were in my recovery).

The next thing to do, is when you are in a social situation, focus all your attention on the other people. If you have any thoughts about yourself, or how other people view you, push those thoughts aside and try to focus on the people around you….especially if someone is talking.   Force yourself to become extremely interested in your surroundings.

Really focus on the good qualities of the people around you. Focus on how they are breathing and how other people are relating to them. Keep focusing your attention on the people around you. Slowly, this will also help you to have less negative thoughts, and will also decrease the anxiety and increased heartbeat because you will not be thinking about yourself. Even when you talk, don’t think about yourself. Just let your idea or words flow out of you.

This takes the attention off of ourselves, and places it onto the outside world. What causes anxiety is ourselves. We create anxiety for ourselves. So when we start to take the focus off of ourselves and try to give all our attention to the world around us, we can no longer create anxiety in that moment where we focus on something else. It is impossible to be totally focused on someone else and also be anxious about ourself.

Likely you will move between these two things at the beginning…meaning you will focus on someone, but then start to think about yourself and become anxious. But each time this happens, try to move your focus back to the outside world.

All these processing take some time. So don’t get discouraged. We need to remember that anxiety has been created over years of our life. So it will take some time to get over it. We need to reverse years of how we view ourself and the world.

Cory Mitchell

Other Thoughts

Anxiety can be increased by other choices we make in life, not simply how we are thinking directly in relation to our self-image.  A healthy diet can greatly reduce anxiety.  For instance, stimulants such as coffee or sugar can make anyone feel a little more jittery and make the brain overactive.  Please note I am not a doctor and so I am simply pointing things I have noticed in regards to how certain things affected me.  Coffee or sugar is likely not the cause of anxiety, so all the above ideas should still be incorporated, but changing some habits in other areas of our life may aid us in those processes.

Also, commonly we know some things are not good for us or make us sick and we eat them or do them anyway.  Overall, this simply adds to our anxiety because we have more to worry about.  By changing choices in our life we can eliminate some of our anxieties simply because we are no longer partaking in things we are know are not good for us…this may include unhealthy relationships, food choices, drugs, alcoholism etc.  Some things may seem like they are helping they are helping us…such a as eating lots of “comfort food”, using alcohol to deal with social situations or staying in a bad relationship because we are not sure if we will find someone else (or potentially many other reasons).  But deep down we know we are lying to ourselves and that what we are doing is only adding fuel to the fire.  Just as with our though processes, we need to choose to break the cycle.

Also, things such as pesticides and processed food can have a taxing affect on the body.  This draw resources away from the brain, and also makes the body feel less well, which in turns creates an overall lower sense of well-being.  Thus, until I got over these issues I focused on healthy choices such as lots of vegetables.  Coffee is not bad, but a herbal tea instead such as Camomille is a an anti-inflamoritory and has a soothing, mellowing affect on the body. Taking care of our bodies and brains by eating well and drinking lots of pure water or spring water can help to increase our overall sense of well being.

Exercise is commonly known to be a mood elevator.  While the exercise is happening I have never found this (it is hard work!) but I definitely notice that exercising regularly has a substantial impact wellbeing both mentally physically.

Herbs to Aid With Anxiety

It should be noted that I have not tried most of these herbs and thus do not know their efficacy.  They are provided here as an additional resource.  It is very highly recommended that the “mental” methods  described above are used first, or in conjunction with a possible herbal “helper”.  The following is provided for information purposes and does not constitute medical advice.  I have only included the names of the herbs.  Dosing information or additional information can be garnered from the product.

Seredyn promotes relaxation, reduce worry, and relieve anxiety symptoms.

Mind Soothe used in the treatment of depression, insomnia, OCD, Panic Disorder, and anxiety.

Pure Calm relaxation qualities and may bring relief from anxiety attacks.

Catnip tea has soothing effect, relieves anxiety.

Fennel tea relieves gastrointestinal upset such as stress induced induced gastrointestinal problems.

Kava helps minimize anxiousness.

Hops relaxing effect on nervous system.

Motherwort helps stabilize emotions, has calming effect.

Passionflower to promote relaxation and calm.

Skullcap:  Helps relax and nourish nervous system and induce sleep.

St. John’s Wort: Helps restore emotional stability and ease depression.

Valerian: Sleep aid and is a relaxant.

Ashwaganda: Ashwaganda is the primary strengthening tonic in Ayurvedic medicine.

Bugleweed: Soothes your nerves.

California poppy: Strong herbal tranquilizer.

Chamomile: A gentle nervine.

Feverfew: Calms your nerves. Relieves migraines. Feverfew can help with anxiety-induced headaches.

Ginkgo biloba: Improves circulation to the brain. It elevates the mood for those depressed.

Ginseng: Taken in combination with royal jelly, ginseng is a great energy booster and lifts the spirits.

Meadowsweet: Relieves headaches related to anxiety and stress.

Lemon balm: mild relaxant.

Mullein: Soothes anxiety.

Many people find relief from anxiety by using aromatherapy.  Commonly used essential oils for anxiety:

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Best wishes in all your life endevours,

Cory Mitchell