What is Social Anxiety
Social Anxiety deals with the fear of being/interacting in social situations. Social anxiety is a spectrum, which can range from shyness to straight up avoidance or awkwardness that can interfere/negatively affect social performance. In the book, "Anxiety 101", Matthews and Zeidner breaks down social anxiety into two classes, "interaction anxiety and audience anxiety" (32)
Interaction anxiety- deals with "contingent interactions", in which one must "be continually responsive to the action of others" (Matthews & Zeidner, 32).
Audience anxiety- they type of anxiety people experience when they have to perform or present something for a group of people.
Myths/Side Notes
Here are the most common myths about social anxiety and some extra information.
People with social anxiety don't like to talk
It's not the fact that people with social anxiety don't like to talk. They still like to share their opinions too. It's more so that they find it difficult to communicate.
People with social anxiety are shy
Even though shyness can be seen on the social anxiety spectrum, social anxiety does not equate to shyness. People usually experience an episode of shyness when dealing with a new situation. Social anxiety is a bit more complex than that.
People with social anxiety are anti social
Being anti social means to not want to socialize with or be around other people. People with social anxiety are more so afraid of saying things that will cause people or judge them or words that can hurt the people around them.
Medication is the only option
For one thing, medication is only used for extreme cases. There are non-drug treatments that can be used to treat low or moderate anxiety.
People with social Anxiety are Lonely
On the outside it may seem like people with social anxiety are lonely, but they may actually be comfortable with that. They would rather have 2 or 3 meaningful relationships.
Telling/Forcing Someone with Social Anxiety to do Something there Afraid to do
This can actually make things worse. Telling( or yelling at)Â someone with social anxiety to speak can cause a wave of distress, causing them to be more anxious in social situations.
Taking Deep Breaths Can Help you Calm Down when your Feeling Anxious
This works to a certain extent. Constantly tell someone to breath when their dealing with a episode can cause they to get annoyed, make the situation worse, or even cause them to hyperventilate.
Social Anxiety is not that Common
"According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), about 15 million American adults have social anxiety disorder" (Draghici). This equates to almost 1 in 16 people. Social anxiety is not something you can spot, and it's usually not the serve type that everyone associates social anxiety with.
Not everyone who have social anxiety have the same triggers
Since social anxiety is a spectrum and can be classified in so many different ways, of course there would be many different triggers for different people. Not everyone reacts the same way to certain social situations.
Coping with Social Anxiety
In Catrinel A. Stefan paper, "Self-compassion as mediator between coping and social anxiety in
late adolescence: A longitudinal analysis", she list four "approach" coping strategies, which, as the name suggest, involves actively dealing with the anxiety and removing the source of it. The four strategies are:
Problem Solving- a strategy that involves actively trying to change the "threatening situation" or at least try to manage it (Stefan, 121).
Support Seeking- deals with eliciting support(whether its emotional or physical) from other people.
Acceptance- this is when the person comes to terms with what is causing the anxiety without making an attempt to deal with the source.
Cognitive restructuring- changing one's perspective about a situation