How To Cure Social Anxiety
How to cure Social Anxiety. Social anxiety is a frustrating condition to deal with. When you’re socially anxious you can’t help becoming nervous around other people. This can cause you to distance yourself from others, or in extreme cases, become a complete recluse. Most people don’t understand that it’s not that you don’t want to interact with others, but that you just can’t help feeling uneasy when you try.
Social anxiety can affect more than just your social life. It can often cause depression, hopelessness, and lower your overall quality of life. If you’re suffering from social anxiety there are ways to reduce it, and possibly eliminate it completely. There are steps you can take to cure yourself all on your own without therapy or medication.
How To Cure Social Anxiety
Exposure Therapy
The best way to cure your social anxiety is not through therapy sessions or medications, but through exposure therapy. Don’t let the word “therapy” scare you. It’s all self guided. You don’t have to go see a therapist. The idea is to gradually accustom yourself to what makes you uneasy. When you become comfortable with a certain level you move on to the next.
It’s important that you start slowly and practice consistently. Don’t get impatient and skip ahead; doing so will make the process take even longer than it has to.
The Routine
Every day, go outside for a walk. Try to go to an area with as many people as you can stand to be around, depending on your level of anxiety. If this is still too difficult, you can try wearing sunglasses or listening to music through earbuds. Doing so will partially disengage you from social pressure and help to relax you.
Take as many days as it takes to become comfortable with this. Moving on before you’re ready won’t help you at all. Get the basics down first. Once you’re comfortable just being around people, the next step is to say something.
Continue to go for walks, but this time greet five people. As you walk past someone simply smile and say “hi”. You don’t need to talk to them, just greet them as you walk past.
Most people will smile and say something back to you. Others will ignore you, and that’s OK. They’re not trying to be mean; they’re probably just too busy or didn’t hear you. Don’t take it personally.
The next step is to ask simple questions. Continue taking your walks like normal. This time, when you greet people, ask them a simple question, such as “Do you know where the nearest bus stop is?” or “Could you tell me what time it is?” If you’ve made it this far, you should congratulate yourself because of the progress you’ve made.
If you’re struggling to complete these exercises, try using mindfulness and breathing exercises to calm yourself down.
When you go out, try to become conscious of your breathing. Think about each breath in and each breath out. This is a relaxing exercise and will work to calm your nerves.
How To Cure Social Anxiety
Moving On
Your job isn’t over once you complete these exercises. You need to keep doing them if you don’t want to fall back into your old ways. Remember, it’s easier to maintain something than it is to build it back up from scratch. You can either maintain the exercises and stay at your comfort level, or you can move on to new exercises to become even more confident. The choice is up to you.
Social anxiety is a crippling condition, but it’s possible to beat it. If you follow the routine everyday and give it your best, you’re almost guaranteed to make progress.
If your wanting to learn how to cure social anxiety, then seeking therapy can be beneficial. You can work with a therapist through our Virtual Reality Platform. This allows you to speed up the process. You will be asked to place a 3d headset on. You and your therapist will discuss the level of exposure to start of with. Your heart rate will be monitored by utilizing biofeedback. Give us a call 407-967-1327. Lets get you back to living a comfortable life.