What Are the Most Common Social Anxiety Symptoms?

Social anxiety is an emotional experience that feels uncomfortable, unnatural, tense, and even frightened when dealing with people. In serious cases, people with social anxiety disorders face a variety of daily activities: walking, shopping, social activities, and even making phone calls. Not only do they have difficulty communicating with "authoritative people," they also have trouble communicating with ordinary people.

Chinese name: Social anxiety

Applied discipline: psychology
Application range: Personality psychology

Introduction to Social Anxiety

A socially anxious person not only experiences anxiety emotions in a real situation, but after leaving the social situation that makes him anxious, he also constantly analyzes and "plays back" the anxiety situation in his mind to strengthen the social anxiety mood.

When socially anxious individuals interact with others, they are often accompanied by physical symptoms such as sweating, blushing, and panic.

In order to avoid situations that lead to social anxiety, people usually reduce social interaction and choose a lonely lifestyle.

Social anxiety is a negative emotional experience, and its formation process is more complicated. Frequent frustration, lack of social support, strong sense of self-awareness, low self-esteem, imitation, and suggestion may all strengthen social anxiety.

Social Anxiety Definition

Such people are common in daily life: some people are particularly afraid of cats, some are afraid to go out, others are overly nervous and shy when socializing. One hundred years ago, people never regarded these problems as diseases. A person called a "coward" is most likely to be considered a personality defect. It is also considered normal for a child to be timid, and parents do not worry too much about it. In fact, from the current point of view, excessive shyness and timidity are indeed a disease, and cannot be simply regarded as a weakness in personality. Because when this kind of disease is serious, it can directly affect your life, work and life development. This type of disease is classified as neurosis and is a common psychiatric disease.

Social anxiety disorder is the continuous and significant fear of one or more social situations that are exposed to strangers or may be watched by others, and seriously affects the normal life of patients.

Strangers and social occasions generally refer to: introducing yourself to strangers; meeting with authorities; talking with people on the phone; receiving visitors; accomplishing one thing while being watched, speaking in public, eating, etc.

Lasting meaning: Most people feel a little nervous when they see strangers. This is a normal human response. It can increase your alertness and help you understand each other faster and better. This normal tension is often short-lived. As the relationship deepens, most people will gradually relax and then enjoy the fun brought about by the interaction. For patients with social anxiety, this tension and fear are always present and cannot be alleviated in any way. In addition, continuity means that the patient will experience this tension in every social situation and every time he interacts with people.

Significant meaning: Everyone feels nervous when entering a new environment. Although nervous, we can still control our behavior very well. For example, during the interview, we feel nervous, but we will answer the questions correctly, maintain our best image, and finally get a job we are satisfied with. People with social anxiety suffer more than normal tension, and sometimes they feel a strong fear of death. This fear is difficult to control, enough to make the patient escape or no longer enter social situations.

Overview of Social Anxiety

Diseases that cause excessive tension and fear in social situations are called social anxiety disorders. The age of onset of social anxiety disorder is relatively low, and it is more common in adolescents (13-19 years). It is a common mental disorder in China. 2-5% of people have at least one episode in their lifetime, the prevalence of women is slightly higher than that of men, and 95% of patients develop disease around the age of 20.

Social anxiety disorder is a chronic disease that rarely resolves on its own, with 13% of patients suffering for life. Patients with social anxiety disorder are often associated with other mental disorders. According to surveys, 49% of patients have other types of anxiety disorder, 28% of patients use alcohol to relieve tension, and 11% of patients have obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The following groups are more susceptible to social phobia: * single or independent; * low level of education; * no stable occupation; * suffering from other mental disorders; * alcohol and alcohol dependence; * substance abuse

Social anxiety symptoms

The symptoms of social anxiety include mental and physical symptoms.

Mental symptoms include fear, fear and anxiety.

Physical symptoms include rapid heartbeat, sweating, shivering, stuttering, blushing, muscle tension and nausea, and diarrhea. (Take a social anxiety self-test, or go to Dr. Celeste to talk to you about it and consult a professional psychiatrist)

One aspect that cannot be ignored is the vicious circle of social anxiety disorder. Some people may say, "Since you know you have social anxiety disorder, avoid social activities is fine." Actually, it is not that simple. Look at the following diagram:

Fear of being evaluated Lack of social skills Lack of social reinforcement, lack of social learning experience Avoiding specific occasions Fear of being evaluated (vicious circle)

As can be seen from the figure above, simple avoidance can lead to a series of problems, such as fear of being evaluated and lack of social skills, and this lack will lead to an increase in avoidance behaviors and further aggravate the symptoms of social anxiety. Therefore, simply evading the condition by avoiding it is tantamount to "drinking thirst and quenching thirst", and will only lead to an increasingly worsening condition. Only active treatment is the best way to deal with social anxiety.

To avoid the above situation, on the one hand, it is to strengthen the learning and strengthening of social skills, on the other hand, to overcome the social tension, fear and physical discomfort through drug treatment, to face various social situations easily, and to avoid avoidance behavior. This way you will further increase your chances of learning. A virtuous circle has formed.

Overview of Social Anxiety Scale

Social anxiety can be defined as feeling uncomfortable in front of others. Although the scale is called a measure of social anxiety, the scope actually exceeds the anxiety itself. Occasions described on the scale include unfamiliar occasions, being watched, embarrassing events, talking with strangers, public speeches, and a large group of people. Not only measures subjective anxiety, but also difficulties in speech expression and behavior. The social anxiety scale can be used when a short comprehensive measurement of social anxiety and related issues is needed, but studies using this scale should keep the following two points in mind: (1) because the scale is short, its reliability is relatively high Most of the other scales discussed in this chapter are low; (2) The entries in the scale are quite extensive, and the emotional and behavioral components they assess involve shyness, distress, utterance, and speech

Social anxiety self-test

One: Are you afraid to feel shy or embarrassed in front of others or not to talk to others or unwilling to do something?

2: Are you unwilling to be the focus of attention?

Three: Are you afraid that others will find you stupid or worried to look shy?

If you have two of the above three situations, you may be suffering from social anxiety; if these situations have made you want to hide at home and do not want to contact any stranger, you may need to consult or treat Already.

Social anxiety prevention

Since the age of onset of social anxiety disorder is low, prevention of social anxiety disorder should be started from a baby. The literature reports that social anxiety is related to heredity and parental behavior. Therefore, it should be brought to the attention of parents.

Some foreign countries have studied the development of social phobia: (learned sexual anxiety, genetic factors, excessive protection of parents exercise of lack of adaptive ability in childhood) + (special experience of parental rejection or criticism, embarrassment or shame Anticipatory Anxiety) = Avoidance

It can be seen that the mistakes that parents make easily in the process of educating their children may increase the possibility of social anxiety when the children grow up. In particular, the traditional Chinese education method is either doting on children in principle or beating and scolding by the adult's temperament (China has had the ancient saying of "no fight and no success" since ancient times). In fact, if a child suffers from social anxiety in such an educational environment, he is so smart. At present, the quality education and emotional intelligence training that people pay more attention to coincides with the viewpoint of attaching importance to and preventing social phobia.

Social Anxiety Treatment

Social anxiety hypnosis

A psychoanalyst hypnotizes you, digs deep into your heart or memory, sees if you have experienced some kind of distress, and tries to find the source of your illness. This treatment is long and expensive.

Social anxiety compulsive therapy

The doctor asks you to stand on the street full of traffic, or makes you stand in front of the opposite sex you are afraid of, and uses huge psychological stimulation to force you to treat you.

Social Anxiety Situation Therapy

Let you in a hypothetical space, constantly simulate the scene of social phobia, and constantly practice the episode of recurring symptoms, the psychoanalyst will continue to encourage you to face this scene, allowing you to adapt to this kind of production Anxious and stressful environment.

Social Anxiety Cognition-Behavior Therapy

This is a treatment that instills ideas. The doctor keeps telling you that this kind of fear is abnormal. It allows you to correctly understand the process of human interaction and teach you some methods of social interaction. Specifically, it can have the following content:

Social Anxiety Emotion Management Training:

This is a variant of anxiety management training in cognitive-behavioral therapy, which includes the following steps:

(I) Identify and label anxiety clues

Identification and confirmation of social anxiety is a prerequisite for effective response to social anxiety.

In the face of uncertain threats and known dangers, people are more worried and afraid of uncertain threats. Even if the identified threat is even greater, because people know where to deal with and prevent its expansion, and how to take remedial measures to minimize losses, they can reduce anxiety and make people relatively safe. sense.

But it is different in the face of uncertain threats. People do nt know where the threat comes from, how serious it is, which direction it will go, and what kind of consequences will be caused. Therefore, a new threat will be added to the panic of the threat. Of panic-completely overwhelmed, so much that it seems that they can only sit still.

Therefore, the identification of the threat itself has a decompression effect.

So is the debate on social anxiety. So what are the signs of social anxiety?

When we suddenly feel heartbeat, shortness of breath, chest tightness, cold hands and feet, coldness or fever all over the body before dating, or in social situations, we feel worried, scared, nervous, irritable, or even want to cancel a date or leave a social occasion, this is social Anxiety manifested.

We need to quickly identify our social anxiety based on what we have learned and the two clues above, and then say to ourselves:

"It doesn't matter, I just have a little social anxiety" or "It doesn't matter, this is social anxiety, I can handle it" "Relax, this is nothing, but it is a little social anxiety" and so on.

"Tagging" or naming emotions can clarify many vague things. In addition to reducing stress, it can also increase people's sense of control over emotions. In addition, it also helps people to focus on problem solving, and helps people to take constructive actions without falling into a panic about social anxiety and being unable to extricate themselves.

(2) Implementation of relaxation law

After identifying and confirming that you have some social anxiety, it is time to relax for yourself.

Available options are "deep breath relaxation" and "imagination relaxation".

(3) Assess your anxiety

Refers to assessing whether your anxiety such as tension, worry, and fear matches the interpersonal situation you actually encounter, that is, whether your situation is worthy of your anxiety to the current level. This assessment leads us to discover that our emotions are often overreacted.

For example, classmate Xiao A made a common-sense mistake when talking about football with everyone, which caused everyone to laugh, and then everyone continued to chat, but then Xiao A felt very anxious and thought that he had lost his face. Since then, Little A has been worried about this and no longer participates in classmate chat.

If you make an objective assessment of this matter, then this kind of chat between classmates is not important. It is not great to say the wrong thing. Even if it is an important occasion, it is not worth making excessive common sense anxiety for it.

Obviously, Xiao A's anxiety is excessive.

So why do our emotions react unreasonably?

(4) Identify your internal conversation

Taking Xiao A as an example, at this time, he should carefully identify what internal conversations he had just had, and how the potential self-requirement after these internal conversations caused his anxiety.

Xiao A's internal conversation may be: "I was too lost face just now, and I don't even understand such common sense." "How could I be so stupid and lose face on such a problem?" And its subtext is: "I must There is perfect performance in front of people, and now that I am done, I can never be perfect. "

(5) Replace anxious self-talk with constructive self-talk

Like the small A in the above example, constructive self-talk can be used to relieve anxiety:

-"It's nothing, it's a very small thing. Everyone just laughs. No one will go to their hearts."

-"It's nothing, don't think of others so mean, everyone just thought it was fun."

-"Nothing, no one can do omniscient."

-"The mistake has been made, and it is useless to worry about it. In the future, pay attention to learning."

-"This fact is not worth the trouble, just let it pass."

(6) Take constructive remedial measures

If Xiao A still feels uneasy, he can take constructive remedial measures not only then but also in the future.

For example, he was still actively participating in classmate chats at that time, and at the appropriate time shifted the topic to topics that he was good at and that were sure to interest everyone. Afterwards, he can preview a few topics that everyone will like, and then start a chat at the appropriate time, or he can simply learn to be an active listener.

Express your emotions appropriately

(1) Be able to properly express positive emotions towards others

Such positive emotions include: like, appreciate, praise, gratitude and so on. Teenagers with social anxiety are often ashamed to express their likes and appreciations to others, and to praise others as flattery. As mentioned earlier, everyone likes those who like themselves. If you praise someone from the bottom of your heart, others will be happy.

The expression of gratitude is equally important. Some people think that others have done something for themselves, just remember it in their hearts and don't need to say it. However, if you do nt say it, others wo nt know it, and you mistakenly think that you lack gratitude.

The principle of expressing emotions is: what is wrong with others, discuss the matter and seek truth from facts. Here are some reference sentence patterns that you can modify according to your own situation and practice them in a role-playing manner.

-Expressing like: "I like your sincerity, which makes me feel relaxed when I get along with you."

-Expressing appreciation: "I appreciate your point of view, it is unique."

-Express thanks: "Thank you for your help, I feel much better now."

-Express concern: "May I do something for you?"

(2) Be able to properly express their negative emotions towards others

Such negative emotions include: dissatisfaction, anger, disappointment, anger, etc.

We usually think that we must restrain and conceal our emotions such as dissatisfaction, anger, and anger, or it will affect interpersonal relationships. In fact, good interpersonal relationships are not maintained by restraint and cover-up. People who are sincere need not hide their dissatisfaction or even anger. Speaking out is not only conducive to timely resolution of interpersonal conflicts, but also to release their negativeness in a safer way. mood.

Of course, there are two prerequisites here: one is to make sure that your dissatisfaction is not a trivial matter, and the other is to express it in an appropriate way. The principle of expressing negative emotions is the same as the principle of expressing positive emotions, that is: do things to the wrong person, seek truth from facts, and talk about things. The reference sentences are:

-"You feel uncomfortable doing this."

-"The XXX thing you did, made me feel hurt."

-"I feel angry at what you did with XXX."

-"I don't like the way you talk to me."

-"You don't keep your promise, it disappoints me."

(3) Can accurately understand and respond to the emotions of others

When others express emotions and feelings towards us, we are indifferent, which will cause the other party to have a strong sense of frustration. Therefore, being able to accurately respond to the emotions and feelings of others will make people feel comforted, happy, and even grateful.

For example, sentences that understand and respond to others' positive or negative emotions are:

-"I'm so happy for you ..."

-"I'm glad you let me share your joy ..."

-"You're distressed, this kind of thing is really difficult to handle."

-"You feel embarrassed, I understand."

(4) Able to share happiness and share distress with others

There is a saying that one happy talk will become two happy, and one pain will become half pain.

At this point, some male students have such cognitive barriers:

-Talk to others about their annoyance.

In fact, as long as it is moderate, it will still meet the needs of others.

-Talk to people who are afraid to look down.

On the contrary, the courage to share your pain is the performance of self-confidence and Thaksin. It is confident that you can solve problems and that others can understand and support yourself.

In addition, everyone will have distress and even pain, which enables people to understand and feel the pain of others, and to reach out their helping hands when necessary.

People just look down on people who talk and don't take any constructive action.

-Afraid people say they can't bear it, unlike a man.

We really can tolerate irreversible events, but we cannot tolerate emotions, otherwise accumulation will have a great destructive effect to a certain time. Bad emotions are like rubbish, and people who can accumulate more can't stand it.

Of course, you ca nt just dump garbage and say bad emotions. As long as you choose the right person, time, and expression method, you can vent your negative emotions in a constructive way, thereby making your manly image. Become fuller and more real.

Most of the methods can be used for self-help, and can also be used as a reference for social interactions among adolescents.

You don't need to practice every method with a perfectionist attitude, you only need to refer to it according to your needs.

In addition, the training of social skills is not only to effectively prevent social anxiety, but also to give everyone more freedom of choice: from then on, your decision whether to participate in society will be entirely up to you and no longer subject to whether you have Social skills, if you like to socialize, then these common sense and skills will allow you to enjoy socializing and make you a more popular person; if you do nt like socializing, these skills are also sufficient in non-attendant social occasions Allows you to perform social etiquette with ease (social, no anxiety). From then on, you can freely decide to socialize or not socialize according to your own will, and decide whether to spend more time with others or with yourself.

Social anxiety medication

This is currently considered the most effective treatment. It is mainly aimed at your disease because of a chemical imbalance in your body, so use some types of drugs to adjust the balance. For drug treatment, the main focus is to relieve anxiety of patients. B-receptor blockers and antidepressants are commonly used. Among antidepressants, SSRI is most commonly used. SSRI stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. Studies have shown that serotonin is a neurotransmitter in the body and is a "liaison" between cells. Bad mood changes in people are related to the uneven distribution of serotonin. SSRI can adjust the uneven distribution of serotonin, so it can improve people's bad mood.

Currently, Celerte is the only SSRI drug currently approved in the world to treat social anxiety. (Please refer to the Xerox manual) It was first used in the United Kingdom in 1991, and has since been launched in many countries. At present, at least 50 million people around the world take Xerox to treat mental disorders. A clinical trial involving 183 patients with social anxiety disorder was conducted in the United States. These patients were divided into two groups, one taking Xelote and the other taking placebo. The dosage is 20-50mg / day, and the course of treatment is 12 weeks. The test results showed that the rate of symptomatic improvement or significant improvement was 5% in the Celerte group, but only 22.9% in the placebo group. This shows that Xylor has a very good effect in treating social anxiety.

A recent study in the United Kingdom showed that Xylorth was administered at 20, 40, and 60 mg / day, respectively, to treat social anxiety. The results showed that 20 mg was the most suitable dose. On the one hand, it shows the effectiveness of Xelote. On the other hand, the low dose reduces the incidence of adverse reactions and reduces the cost of medication for patients.

Social Anxiety Physiotherapy

Transcranial microcurrent stimulation therapy is a completely different treatment method than traditional drug therapy and hypnosis therapy. It stimulates the brain by low-intensity microcurrent, changes the abnormal brain waves of the patient's brain, and promotes the brain to secrete a series of diseases related to anxiety and insomnia There are closely related neurotransmitters and hormones to achieve the treatment of these diseases. It has no side effects and dependence of drugs. It is currently recommended by hospital doctors and has a good reputation among patients.

Social Anxiety Self Therapy

1. Don't deny yourself, keep telling yourself "I'm the best I" and "born naturally I will be useful."

2. Don't demand yourself, you can do what you can, as long as you try your best, it doesn't matter if you don't succeed.

3. Don't recall the unpleasant past, let the past pass, there is nothing more important than the present.

4. Treat others kindly and help others as the basis of happiness. When you help others, you can forget your troubles and prove your value.

5. Find a person to talk to. If you have any troubles, you must speak up. Find a reliable person to talk about your troubles. Maybe someone else can't help you solve the problem, but at least it can make you vent.

6. Give yourself 10 minutes of thinking every day and keep summing up to be able to continue to face new problems and challenges.

7. Go to a place with a lot of people, and let the continuous flow of people pass in front of you, trying to give people a smile

8. Don't "watch others live, show others", ask yourself what my life goal is? who am I? Am I making progress every day? Learn to know yourself correctly, accept yourself happily, give priority to self-evaluation, and treat others' comments correctly.

9. In social communication, let yourself be frank, sincere, confident, full of vitality, and fully show your personality charm, you will win success;

10. Exercise the affinity in interpersonal communication. The world has entered the era of cooperation. The charm of a person's personality is wisdom and inwardness. Learning to "combine one hundred people" is the requirement of social interaction in the new century. The clichés and the old notions of "every acquaintance with less than a thousand cups of wine, not too much speculation."

11. Live positively and autonomously, freely, and seek happiness for yourself. Negative emotions, such as anxiety and irritability, are not helpful for solving any problem. You must also learn to be calm, optimistic, brave, and confident. It is a mental medicine to overcome anxiety.

Social Anxiety Self Therapy

1. Catharsis therapy. Express your own tension, such as the psychological trauma, unfortunate encounters and long-term tension, anxiety, fear, etc. that you have suffered in a certain situation or at a certain time in the past, and vent your inner pain.

2. Let it go. When compulsive thinking occurs, do not resist, restrain, or force yourself to not think, but let it be. The compulsive thinking emerges, regardless of it, let it go, adopt an attitude of ignorance, fear, and resistance. Do what you want, don't think about it, and don't evaluate it anymore. After a period of effort to overcome the anxiety caused by this, the compulsive symptoms will slowly disappear. ^[1]