Living with a social anxiety disorder is not easy at all. Anyone suffering from it can struggle with many small things that people won’t understand. It could get hard for anyone on bad & challenging days when you’d feel drained every possible way.
Anyone can suffer from a social anxiety disorder, whether it’s a college student, a housewife, a teacher, or a Chinese B2B marketplace owner. So don’t ever feel ashamed or stigmatized if you want to seek some help.
First thing first, if you have been diagnosed with social anxiety or you have severe symptoms of it, always seek professional advice.
What we will tell you here are a few tips to cope with social anxiety for the time being. These tips will help you cool down yourself and gain control over yourself in the situation. Afterward, if the panic attacks, or anxiety flairs then you should seek professional counseling.
However, without any further ado, let’s look into how you can cope with social anxiety disorder and relax.
7 Ways to Cope With Social Anxiety Disorder
Everyone is built differently and have a different kind of breakdowns or meltdowns. We have listed down a few diverse methods that can help with coping with social anxiety attacks for the time being. One of these methods could help you for sure. All of the methods we are going to discuss don’t include taking any kind of drug or anything else.
So let’s learn how you can fight social anxiety!
1. Breathing Exercise
Anxiety can affect your breathing and make it fast and shallow. Just this change can make you feel very uncomfortable. If you face problems with breathing then this simple breathing exercise can help you a lot.
Follow this breathing exercise step by step:
- First of all, sit down in a comfortable position, keeping your back straight.
- Let your shoulders be relaxed.
- Put one hand on your chest and the other on your belly.
- Slowly breathe in through your nose for about four seconds, While doing so, the hand on your belly will rise but the hand on your chest shouldn’t move because you’re just inhaling.
- Keep your breath held in for about two seconds and then slowly let it out through your mouth for about six seconds.
- Repeat.
This is an effective way to stop a panic attack or a breakdown and a good breathing exercise. You can practice it whenever you find it hard to breathe or the air starts to feel thicker.
If this didn’t help you out fully then let’s move forward to our next tip for coping with social anxiety disorder.
2. Muscle Relaxing Exercises
There are many types of research that have proven that doing some physical activities like jogging can help you lower your anxiety. Other than that, progressive muscles relaxation can be very beneficial in controlling anxiety as well. It means that you have to flex and release groups of muscles and keeping your attention on the feeling of muscle release.
On the other hand, Yoga can help you overcome your anxiety as well. Yoga involves breathing techniques and muscle-flexing exercises that can help you lower your heart rate and blood pressure.
Having Yoga in your daily routine can help you lower your overall anxiety as well.
3. Preparing Yourself for Situations
You don’t know when exactly anxiety can you and make things unbearable for you. For that, you can prepare yourself a little bit to help you avoid such situations. You know what would help you and we could bother you so try to gather some stuff for the bad days.
For example, if you’re going to a party and you’re scared that you won’t be able to blend in then try to read comics, newspapers, or magazines and try to find some topics to talk about. If you are nervous or something then you can try the breathing techniques and do some yoga beforehand.
4. Be Easy On Yourself
You don’t have to take big steps at once.
You have to start small and be easy on yourself. For example, if you have a problem with crowded places you can have a restaurant dinner or a picnic at a public place where you can eat with your friends or family. Make eye contact with strangers and try to make small talk with them. Just go with the flow, talk about their and your interests and hobbies.
If you get along with a stranger you can go on activities with them; like some mutual interests such as going to a library for reading something or going for a golf game or maybe just go jogging with them. Widening your social circle can help you come over your social anxiety as well.
5. Divert Your Attention
The more you stay inside your head the worse your anxiety will get.
We know that it could be very hard to divert your attention when it comes down to anxiety but you can try and be present in the moment. Try to observe your surroundings, talk to someone or just try to listen to them.
Taking your mind off yourself might be a bit hard but it actually helps very well. So do give it a shot.
6. Resolve Negative Thoughts
We know we just told you to distract your thoughts but talking back to yourself can help too.
The best way to resolve your negative thoughts is by writing them down.
For example, you can first write your problem or situation i.e.
“The current situation makes me anxious and I can’t deal with it”. Then you can challenge it with a positive thought i.e. “I have been through such situations before and I have made it out of them, it is hard but I can make it through”.
This way you’ll be tackling your social anxiety disorder and negative thoughts by yourself in an easy way.
Conclusion
Mental health is important and often overlooked by people. You should take care of yourself, have some fresh air and seek professional help immediately if you have any symptoms of anxiety, depression, or any other psychological disorder.