Do you face social anxiety on a regular basis in your life?
If so, you may be sick and tired of it, and for good reason.
Social anxiety is basically the phenomenon where interacting with other people in a social context causes you so much anxiety that it threatens to undermine your ability to enjoy those interactions or to even function within society to a constructive level.
For some people, social anxiety is a minor irritant.
For others, it's actually a crippling set of fears that sometimes keep them from even wanting to socialize at all.
And for obvious reasons, this can be very problematic. So in today's blog post, we're going to describe five tips that you can use to help you overcome the problem of social anxiety in your life, so that you can get past it and get on with a successful, thriving social life that'll add numerous benefits to your daily existence, and help you to enjoy yourself more.
Let's dive into it.
1. Trace It Back
For some people, social anxiety has been a lifelong phenomenon.
But for others, they can sometimes trace it back to a specific time or event when they learned to be afraid of socially interacting with other people.
Maybe at some point, you faced rejection or embarrassment—and this led to you feeling anxious about social interaction from that point onward.
Sometimes, if you can trace your social anxiety back to a source, this can help you to work through it and to figure out a way to minimize it moving forward.
2. Understand That It’s Normal
This may not sound like good news. But the truth of the matter is that social anxiety is a lot more normal than most people realize. In fact, it's so normal that almost everyone deals with it to some degree, at some point in their life.
Sometimes, realizing that something is a relatively ‘normal’ problem for most people can help you to feel better about it.
So give yourself a pat on the back, and try to reassure yourself.
You're not the only one who deals with this issue, and you can overcome it.
3. Help Yourself Through Exposure Therapy
Sometimes, the best way to overcome your fear of doing things is to actually face those fears and conquer them.
Once you become aware of the fact that social anxiety is hurting your life, it might be beneficial to challenge yourself to face those fears and to practice getting through them on a regular basis.
For obvious reasons, this isn't always pleasant.
However, it can be a fantastic way to move your life forward and get used to going through the types of situations that cause social anxiety to begin with.
And this can lead to you developing a system for how to neutralize it, avoid it, or even solve it altogether.
4. Try To Set Yourself Up For Success
Sometimes, you need to set yourself up for success in order to achieve a positive result.
And this can be especially true with social anxiety.
For example, you may need to give yourself a pep talk before walking in to give a speech, or you may need to take a deep breath and center yourself before introducing yourself to someone new, etc.
Sometimes, facing situations that usually cause social anxiety can help you to back engineer when the problem starts, which can lead to you being able to formulate plans for how to set yourself up for success in the best manner possible.
Sometimes, practice is just required in order to figure out a solution.
5. Try Using Cannabis To Take The Edge Off
Cannabis is becoming legal in more and more states.
And it can be a surprisingly effective social lubricant.
In many ways, it's better than alcohol because it doesn't leave you with a hangover. Plus, it produces far fewer negative effects in life.
You could even microdose with cannabis edibles or tinctures to help you overcome some of that anxiety and be more comfortable interacting with people.
Who knows? This could be the magic key to solving the social anxiety problem in your life for good.
(Note: If you need some help figuring out the right dosage for you, check out this handy tool.)
Conclusion
There you have it.
Our five favorite ways to overcome social anxiety to help you produce the best outcomes in your life.
You've got this.
Now just get out there and make it happen.
