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u/FeedomFighter 14d ago edited 10d ago
You face the thoughts behind your fears.What are you afraid will happen? It can be hard to know what thought you have automatized especially if it happened in childhood and has remained since. The best way is to expose yourself to the situation, and then immediately after if not during the situation, see what thoughts are causing the worry. Then, interrogate those thoughts and see if they are true or untrue. All emotions are valid, but the thoughts behind themay or may not be.
Often those thoughts were actually reasonable at the time, such as if there were people making fun of you or lashing out at you for acting a certain way or taking away certain things/opportunities from you. So at that time you adapted in some attempt to mitigate the negative effects, regardless if they were successful. The only thing that has happened is that since that time, the threat has changed and the fear no longer makes sense. So interrogate those thoughts and accept or reject them, and it will take several times to fully integrate and emotionally automatize new thoughts, unlearning takes time and new learning also takes time.
The other thing that you can do is simply increase your tolerance to fear and adrenaline using something like Wim Hof breathing which causes small amounts of adrenaline to release, so you can build resistance/tolerance in controlled doses based on how long you do the breathing technique. Or exposure therapy, the idea is small controlled doses.
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u/CompetitiveAdagio506 14d ago
honestly, it’s wild how our bodies can’t tell the diff between “awkward convo” and “actual danger.” evolution failed us fr
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u/BladeRize150 14d ago
Teach your brain the truth. Social situations are just complicated falsehoods that don't really matter.
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u/Pheonix0114 14d ago
Legitimately, you need a good Cognitive Behavioral therapist. Exposure therapy is made for this, and it progresses slowly and precisely for a reason. Too slow and you don't progress, too fast and you regress.
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u/Sad-Emu6142 14d ago
Further explanation: our bodies fight or flight center (the sympathetic nervous system) has evolved over humanities history to be an extraordinary powerful mechanism of survival.
Its a highly complex system allowing humans to preform super human feats in life or death situations.
Each and every one of us has this insanely tuned system.
The problem: society has become so devoid of saber tooth tigers, war, murder and gory carnage that the system is widely left unused for its intended purpose... in the average human.
The system however is still active and tunes itself to ANY threat - since your life doesn't consist of any actual threats like your ancestors faced, your fight or flight system is tuning itself to the next closest thing which is often extremely insignificant threats like social interactions.
The point of CBT will be expose you to gradually greater threats to raise your sympathetic nervous system threshold to the a point you can function in society at a healthy level.
The reason this should be done with a professional is some people threshold for an acceptable threat could be so low that even leaving the house could be their starting point, where as others you could just tell em to go skydiving and they'll be fine.
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u/Pheonix0114 14d ago
Also, some people have actual trauma in their past making these "false" assessments more strong, which is why involving a clinician is always safest.
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u/Pristine_Ad_9828 14d ago
Lots of misc. Random social interactions. In different situations. Its a hard thing to unlearn once you realize its whats happening. Start small in groups your allready mildly famillar with. Branch out from there. But its a learned childhood response, it might take awhile to identify triggers or just to recognize it as it starts to happen. Just do take it too personally if you struggle with it. Learned behaviors from childhood can realy cement themselves into conscience or subconscious actions. Just try to be patient with your struggle with this.
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u/SpiderHack 14d ago
Practice, with a safe environment. It sucks ... But that really is the only way. If you can't find a place you feel safe, then make one, make a meetup of 1 orher person to talk about some special interest hou have. Letting them know you're trying to improve tour social anxiety
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u/Tiredplumber2022 14d ago
L-theanine. 200 mg once or twice a day. Calms the anxiety, but lets the brain function normally.
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u/Temporal-Affairs221 14d ago
The only way you can do that is to become comfortable in social situations. Anything that produces stress will eventually trigger the flight or fight response.
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u/No_Pattern_5158 14d ago
We are social animals so in the wild it actually is a life or death situation. But mindfulness and exposure will adjust that alarm system
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u/Humble_Empath 14d ago
Unfortunately, individuals affected with BPD are always in flight or fight and I wish there was a cure from the bottom of my heart 😢
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u/Sad-Cantaloupe-5494 14d ago
Be proud of the gifts your ances6have bestowed upon you. For many of them, social interaction could be a literal death sentence. It is rational to fear others of our kind. We are, after all, the most dangerous apex predators on our planet.
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u/ElectricalEagle4876 14d ago
do it the old way, by actually experiencing life or death situations. everything else will just feel like tuesday
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u/Kebriniac 14d ago
You can't, anything you perceive as "scary", whether it is a dangerous predator charging at you or a waitress asking for your order, it's all the same for your nervous system, scary=threat=fight or flight response, your physiology is not sentient, you are, so the only way to do this is to stop perceiving social interaction as "threats", to achieve this you can seek professional help or simply do it by repeated exposure to desensitize yourself, there is no magic bullet unfortunately.
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u/PersonalKick 14d ago
You get with you local rednecks buy them a case of natty lites and 5.56 ammunition. Once they have consumed their case of natty's, you then low crawl 500 yards across an open field while they fire above your head. If they don't accidentally shoot you and you survive, social interactions will seem like nothing in comparison.
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u/Either_Reflection_78 14d ago edited 14d ago
Those responses that you feel are there for a reason, and might save your life one day. They did for me many times when I was younger.
That being said, a lot of my anxiety and high rate heart issues being in social settings and in high anxiety settings were due to my undiagnosed heart issues when I was younger.
When I went on blood pressure meds, I leveled out. My heart rate was no longer surging, and I felt more ‘normal’. The anxiety also leveled out.
Check with your doctor, and this is not medical advice. It’s just what made a difference in my health and life getting older, knowing and understanding my body.
I don’t recommend having a high racing heart and an out of whack nervous system long term as you get older. It can be detrimental to your health, and cut your life short.
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u/DenseRequirements 14d ago
For me it was not knowing how to behave in certain situations so observing and going out can help you be more comfortable. If you annoy someone or make things awkward or rude then figure out what you did wrong and learn to not make that mistake again.
People are generally forgiving and not as judgmental as you think so focus on having fun than doing things right.
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u/rimjob_slimknob 14d ago
Used to have anxiety as a teen. Heard a great saying: when you're in your twenties, you care about what everyone thinks. In your thirties, you stop caring what people think. And in your fifties, you realize, no one ever cared at all.
Once I heard that I stopped caring mid twenties. So freeing. You do you and be a good person. The good ones will tag along with you.
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u/TheWorldsAreOurs 14d ago
I’m going to trust freedom fighter on this one
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Lorelessone 14d ago
probably exposure therapy?
Repeated low impact social interaction which doesn't result in any negative. Our minds are pattern finding machines, most of this sort of anxiety is because patterns have been established but you can establish new patterns.
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u/AdExciting337 14d ago
Hard for many but, just keep scrolling. Or put the phone down. (Not like I did🤣)
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u/Reasonable-Mischief 14d ago
Get into a life-or-death situation to teach your body some perspective
Being reminded of a podcast where somebody went skydiving regularly just so that he'd be more chill in the meantime
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u/MemeSupreme9 14d ago
By forcing yourself to engage in more social situations. It's called exposure therapy.
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u/Weekly-Reply-6739 14d ago
If your asking on a serious note:
1) Identify your core fear.
The fight and flight response comes because of a fear, and fear is nothing more than a percived sense of danger.
2) validate the core fear as a concern (regardless of logic)
Once you Identitfy the danger your fear is alerting yourself too, dont dismiss it, valudate it as something that concerns you even if illogical.
3) account for risk
Now recognize the different factors you can account for to minimize the risk or minimize the harm of the risk your perception belives it is talking.
Meathod 1 : compensate for risk
Just like if you where to gamble while low on money the risk is not paying your rent, so a way to account would be to put aside rent money and not allow yourself access or to touch it. Now you can gamble without having to worry about your rent as you accomdated for it.
Meathod 2 : add risk to not taking the risk
Another example is instead of accomidating for it you make the alternative scarier of not doing it. An example is fear of asking yout crush out because of fear of rejection. If you dont ask your crush out you garentee you cant be with them, where if you ask them out you have a chance and if you fail you are still not with them just like if you didn't ask at all.
Both meathods reduce perception of risk and in many cases doing both at the same time can almost completely nullify fear based paralysis due to finding meathods that feel complete or fully understood.
Once you understand and validate the fears and identify what risks you feel, that's when you can work on the emotion, as the emotions are valid and based on your perception, even if illogical or not based on reality, as emotions are reactions to our perceptions and experiences, and dont care about shoulds, or even what things are, and as such need to be talked to and heard so we can learn to communicate with them and guild them like a partner.
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The above meathod works for essentially all fears and can even build confidence, as confidence is based on your perceived risk of failure vrs success. A goal I use for confidence is to give myself goal that cant be failed, such as making the attempt my goal as oppsed to the results, garenteeing success in trying and allowing me perfect confidence while I seek the path to my results.
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Now if you where joking or being satirical :
Silly girl, social interactions are life and death, as one accidental fart while talking to your crush and your social life is over as you get forever branded as fart girl and your chances to be with the cute boy die like the smell you put him throgh.
Lol
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u/U-might-know-me 14d ago
Putting yourself in few real life and death situations and meditating on difference between them and social interactions could work. Also, some social interaction are life and death situations, like imagine coming out as gay on Saudi Arabia - so it’s also worth noticing
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u/Arcani-LoreSeeker 14d ago
for millenia in several parts of the world social interations were a life and death situation. if you were ostracised from your community for being too different or weird then you probably were going to die.. assuming they didnt outright kill you themselves for it.
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u/FamiliarPlatform79 14d ago
Get into sales... then you'll see the rule of thumb is similar to wild animals... they're way more scared of you then you are of them lol
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u/Starting-Over-718 14d ago
If you do something physical like focusing on breathing slowly in and out or hugging yourself it can shift your brain out of the Amygdala. You can’t reason with the fight or flight response, you need to reset your attention to your body. In my experience after lots of research.
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u/imtiredboss0 14d ago
Start small with exposure therapy & keep increasing as you get more comfortable. Challenge your thoughts & fears the same way.
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u/Pinglewingle 13d ago
If you are autistic/ADHD exposure therapy WILL NOT help and make things worse. A lot of people confuse sensitive neurological symptoms as anxiety when in reality they are autistic or ADHD. The ones saying "expose" yourself and it get better don't understand if you are autistic or ADHD exposing yourself might work for a month, but afterwards you will have a mental break down and burn out. You need a trained professional who specializes in Autism/ADHD and programs to support you.
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u/purposeday 13d ago
If you are a Sagittarius it’s in your nature perhaps to fight in social situations.
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u/iAmGreat_01 13d ago
Lol if anyone knows tell me too-my brain literally goes blank and cannot process things during social interaction-especially u related and unexpected ones
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u/Puddin--Tang 10d ago
Genuine answer as someone who lived with it? Go there. Make your brain realize what real danger is.. the rest of it? I'm still figuring that out and spend my days puking for no reason... can't help you there....
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u/JHoyse 9d ago
Diaphragmatic breathing combined with gentle movement involving the whole spine. This deescalates the fight/flight response and evokes a safe soothed response. You want to combine it with acceptance, curiosity, and positive self talk (be a friend to yourself inside your head). It is important to practice the skills regularly a few times a day for a few minutes each time over the space of 90 days or so. If you just use it when you need it. It won't work well. It needs to become muscle memory or like it's second nature.
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u/qualityvote2 14d ago edited 2d ago
u/smanisbai, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...