Overcoming Social Anxiety

by fastoa on March 30th, 2009

As a social animal, we need to communicate with other people. The communication will come in different forms like talking and through body language. From the time we were born, we already had our share of socialization through our family. However the problem in social communication would be the traits we find hard to get by. Shyness is one of the factors why we have problems in our socialization.

Overcoming social anxiety would depend on the problem of the individual. Sometimes, it is easy to talk them out of shyness, but there are people who simply can not. These are the people who has deeper personality problem like low self esteem. There is also fear of any sort like making mistakes or meeting new people. Overcoming social anxiety or social phobia can be guided with self help books or with professional help. Self help books are good for people who are not comfortable in talking the problem with other people. Although it is good, professional help would be one step in meeting and mingling with other people aside from your family. There are also therapy and medications available with the assistance of medical professionals.

The most common social anxiety disorder would be the public speaking or performing in front of audience. If you feel like having jitters or butterflies flying around your stomach before speaking in public, then it is one sign. On the other hand, if you feel overcoming it by feeling that the nervousness dies down and your hands or knees are not shaking after few minutes, then you do not have any social problems. Those who suffer from it are experiencing a very bad feeling until they reach the point that they do not want to do it anymore. The normal thing would be to have jitters but the abnormal thing would be to shake so much that you cannot speak anymore.

What are the things that trigger these negative feelings? It could be the person is thinking that people are seeing him or her in the negative way. If you think like this, it will naturally make you nervous. Another is assuming that the worst can happen to that very way when you are to deliver a speech. It would be another factor if you personally think that audience is judging your whole personality when you are in front of them. When all of these happen at the same time, it will really blow things up in that very moment.