When chatting in many online groups, I often hear people describe themselves as saying, "I am a social phobia." I can speak freely online, but when it comes to meeting offline, I tremble. " . The only connection between us on the network is a network cable, and I can cut off this connection at any time, which is impossible in reality.
Or that's why we are so addicted to the internet and enjoy greater freedom and control. But this right comes at a price, one of which is the "social fear" mentioned above.
In the near future, VR will become a reality. What is this thing? This is a virtual device that allows us to experience all the real feelings at home, such as the on-site fitting function when shopping at home, face-to-face communication with doctors at home, and the real experience of watching a football match at home. .......
When "virtual" gradually becomes "reality", we should pay special attention not to hide in the online world because of social fear, and not to let the freedom and convenience of the online world replace the communication in the real world.
"Social fear" can also be called "social anxiety", which is one of the manifestations of anxiety. In the book "Self-help Manual for Anxious Personality", the author Anna? Williamson said, "Social anxiety is a special kind of anxiety, which is a person's fear and discomfort in social situations that may be evaluated by others."
Anna? Williamson is a famous TV presenter in Britain. More than ten years ago, she suffered from anxiety, and her emotional breakdown went to the other side of her life. It took her more than ten years, not only to get rid of anxiety, but also to become a psychological counselor and an executive of NLP.
In the book "Self-help Manual for Anxiety Personality", Anna, as a patient and therapist, turned her experience and understanding of coping with anxiety for more than ten years into practical guiding steps, hoping to eliminate the public's sense of shame about mental health problems and help anxious readers gradually overcome anxiety, establish self-confidence and find a happy life.
1. Is anxiety equal to illness? Do you wish you had anxiety? I think your answer must be "no, I don't want to". We are afraid of being labeled as "eccentric" and "crazy", because in our view, anxiety = serious mental illness; However, the fact is that each of us may encounter anxiety at some point in our lives.
Therefore, it is necessary for us to correctly understand the phenomenon of anxiety. Anxiety is actually a normal emotion. It is the gradual accumulation of mental stress, and finally a person can't cope with it physically and psychologically, and then shows some symptoms of stress, such as blank brain, pounding heart, sweaty palms and so on.
Anxiety is actually a self-defense mechanism. In primitive times, primitive people were surrounded by danger. When he feels threatened, his body will automatically enter the protection mechanism, his eyes will be bright, he will be alert to the surrounding environment, his heart will beat faster, his breathing will become faster, and so on. His body and mind will be stimulated, and he will always be ready to deal with threats: fight, escape or stay put.
This mechanism has always existed in the brain, but the brain can't distinguish between imaginary danger and real danger. Therefore, when the danger imagined in the mind is real and clear enough, it will cause anxiety and prompt the brain to respond. For example, if you are afraid of the crowd and constantly imagine terrible things that may happen in the crowd, and it is always accompanied by fear and fear, then this anxiety will continue to strengthen and then become more and more anxious.
So the existence of anxiety makes sense, but if it is a signal when we don't need it, it is an anxiety problem that we are afraid of and need to solve, such as social anxiety, which we will talk about next.
Second, how to get out of the strange circle of social fear Social fear is a special kind of anxiety, which is caused by the brain releasing anxiety signals when it is not needed. It has a specific scene, that is, when a person is in a social situation that may be evaluated by others, he will feel uncomfortable such as fear.
Its typical feature is that it is particularly concerned about what others think of it. People with social anxiety are often afraid that they will be embarrassed, criticized, rejected and humiliated if they don't perform well enough. However, our own development and improvement of communication ability depend on communicating with different people, so we need to overcome social anxiety and fear.
In the book, the author gives some skills to help us overcome these problems:
1. Weigh social interaction and make plans.
Many times, why do we feel anxious is because we don't know what will happen, who will appear and what the result will be, which will make us nervous. Therefore, increasing our understanding of the upcoming social activities will help us stay calm.
A, before entering a social occasion, learn about social information, such as the surrounding environment, participants, themes and so on.
B. By answering the following five questions, you can clearly see how you feel about what you are going to experience, so that your emotions can remain objective and you can make a positive judgment.
What will it be like to participate in such and such activities? What will happen if I don't participate in such and such activities? L What won't happen if you take part in such and such activities? L what won't happen if you don't participate in such and such activities? What's the worst case scenario?
Thinking about these questions before taking part in activities can help you recognize the reality, reduce the feeling of losing control, and reduce the anxiety caused by various negative trivial matters.
C, prepare the appropriate conversation material library in advance.
The most common social anxiety is that the brain suddenly goes blank and can't communicate with people, resulting in embarrassing and embarrassing feelings, which in turn will deepen anxiety and form a vicious circle. Therefore, in order to avoid this situation, we can prepare several appropriate dialogues, questions and even stories of our own interest in advance according to different occasions, which can also alleviate the anxiety at the scene.
One thing to note is, don't choose closed questions that only need "yes" or "no", but choose open questions that can be discussed or answered. For example, "How was your day?" "What do you think of such an event?" "Can you tell me something about what you just mentioned ..." And so on.
2. Act as a social expert or other people observing the scene.
First, play a social expert
People with social anxiety find it difficult to express themselves at first, especially shy people. Then let's change to an interesting method: role-playing, find a social expert you admire, understand his behavior in social situations, and play this person as an actor.
This method requires you to know this person, then learn his behavior skills, try to figure out his way of thinking and so on. The advantage is that you don't need to force yourself to open your heart, and you don't need to focus all your attention on yourself, which will cause more pressure. On the contrary, you can gradually build up your self-confidence in the process of imitation and play, and then gradually replace your own characteristics with what you borrowed.
B, observe others at the scene
Turning your attention to other people and things, chatting with others and gradually integrating into the scene environment are effective ways to relieve anxiety. Observing the people around you, you will also find that many people have a certain degree of anxiety, which will relieve you of a lot of pressure like others.
Step 3 make an escape plan
Escape plan, that is to say, you can leave at any time in social situations. It's entirely up to you. In social situations, you can pay attention to the gates and emergency exits, and then choose where you want to stand or sit, so that you can leave quickly when you want to leave.
Although you have realized that anxiety is a normal emotion and an automatic protection mechanism of the brain, and even tried the above suggestions and methods, you may still have the feeling of "running away at once", and you don't need to feel guilty about it, because it is not easy to get rid of social anxiety.
When we are in anxiety, collapse and despair, reading is a way to solve problems, but what we need is not obscure professional books. After all, we can't concentrate on digesting a lot of theoretical knowledge when we are anxious.
What we need are words that are easy to read, words that can comfort us, books that we can try to put forward skills and books that we can feel understood. The Self-help Manual for Anxiety Personality is such a book. The author calls this book a pocket guide, which is easy to understand and straightforward. It shares practical personal experience in coping with anxiety and gives suggestions and skills that can cope with common anxiety after practice.
In this book, besides the social anxiety mentioned above, there are also contents about anxiety, insomnia, panic attack, depression, self-paralysis, physical discomfort, exercise and diet anxiety. As a guide book, it involves all aspects of life and is worth reading.
Anxiety should not be labeled as a cure, nor should it be defined as your mental illness. As the author said, "anxiety is healthy and normal-as long as people can treat it in the right way." What we need to do is to learn how to treat it correctly.