How To Understand and Live With Social Anxiety

By HowExpert

How to Understand and Live with Social Anxiety emphasizes the idea that social anxiety is not a disorder, not something that needs to be fixed, but a developed conditioning of the mind to think and believe in negative realities. The book, through a step-by-step process, helps readers slowly understand their mental illness within the distinctiveness of their own context and gives them the tools to rewire their thought processes.

At the book’s end, readers who actively practice some or all of the seven helpful steps will find that they feel more in control of their social anxiety, and therefore, more in control of their life. WC: 105

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• Language: English
• Publisher: HowExpert
• Release date: Oct 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370352036

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How to Understand and Live with Social Anxiety

HowExpert Press

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Table of Contents

Introduction

Step One: Pursue Healthier Choices

Step Two: Find your Method

Step Three: Focus on the Big Picture

Step Four: Challenge Your Anxiety

Step Five: Love Yourself

Step Six: Strengthen Relationships

Step Seven: Seek Help

About Expert

Introduction

Social anxiety is the third most common ailment among Americans (Afraid of People, 2002). Symptoms of social anxiety can differentiate from person to person, giving way to multiple, deep-seeded issues, or even a mild fear of social interaction. Everyone will, at times, experience inadequacy, doubt, or stress, whether it’s having to give a presentation at school or in your place of work, or meeting and talking to someone you don’t know, but for people suffering from social anxiety, these negative feelings may permeate their everyday lives. Typical scenarios can become sources of powerful fear, such as interacting at a check-out counter when shopping or attending a birthday party where many of the attendants may even be close friends and loved ones. The issues developed through the cognitive development and chemical makeup of social anxiety occur even in non-social situations. Sufferers may develop chronic headaches or migraines due to stress, poor sleeping habits due to constant thought or worrying, and a devastating sense of failure or embarrassment as well as an overwhelming fear of the unknown future. Often times, these symptoms are associated with other problems in life or are over-generalized and labeled simply as stress either by the person affected by social anxiety or by others in their life. Social anxiety is often minimized, simply called extreme shyness, or even ignored for many reasons.

One reason is that it is relatively new within the medical and psychiatric communities. The mental health issue didn’t even have a name until the late 1980’s, with Dr. Michael Liebowitz’s introduction of Social Phobia. Due to its relatively new status, the treatment of social anxiety is still being researched, both medically and therapeutically. Another reason for social anxiety’s lack of recognition from those suffering as well as the general public is because it isn’t easily understood. Many believe it is a contrived clinical diagnosis – simply a heavier way of saying painfully shy or stressed out. Often those suffering with social anxiety will hear phrases that demean their situation, such as: Face your fears, or Just don’t think that way, or Try being happier. This culture of generalizing mental illnesses as something that can change easily or quickly, can cause the sufferer to feel as if they are the problem. They aren’t. And, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), supporting this social atmosphere has proven detrimental with more than 30% of individuals struggling with social anxiety or social phobia choosing to not seek professional help for as many as 10 years or more (Social Anxiety Disorder). A statistic most likely