Session 64: Managing Social Anxiety

Published Jul 4, 2018, 7:00 AM
This episodes shares strategies that can help anyone who may be struggling with social anxiety disorder. 

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Welcome to the Therapy for a Black Girls podcasts, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy Hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. To get more information, visit the website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. And while I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session sixty four of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. If you're following us on social media, then you probably have already seen this. But July is Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, and we're sharing lots of information and resources across social media and in our weekly news letter to continue this very important conversation. We're currently in day four of the Mental Wellness Challenge, so each day a question is posted across social media that helps you to think about all the small components that go into us being well, so definitely check those out and participate. And we just released the first video in our Black Girls Do Therapy campaign. These videos are helping to change the idea that people who use therapy look a certain way or discuss a certain thing. You can also find that video on all of our social media channels, and a new video will be released each week. This month. Not only is July Minority Mental Health Month, it's also peak summer and that likely means lots of social events and gatherings. This may be incredibly exciting for many people, but if you're someone who struggles with social anxiety, it's probably dreadful. Social anxiety can look a little different for everyone, but it's usually an intense fear of participating in social situations for fear of being judged or evaluated by others. People who struggle with social anxiety may struggle with things like making small talk, though many of us I know don't like small talk, making a phone call, speaking in public, are going out to eat alone. The anxiety often feels so intense that social situations are often avoided altogether. Some of the key characteristics of social anxiety disorder include a significant and persistent fear of social or performance situations, with an intense fear of embarrassment or humiliation, physical symptoms of a panic attack, so things like shortness of breath, sweating, increased heart rate, shaky hands. You recognize that the fear is unreasonable, but you just can't seem to stop it, and these symptoms should have persisted for at least six months. If this is something you struggle with, here are some strategies that you can try to help manage your symptoms. Number one, you can work with your therapist to make an anxiety hierarchy. The idea behind this is that you gradually work through the things that make you least anxious about a situation to the things that make you most anxious. For example, let's say you have lots of anxiety around going to cook outs with friends. Some things at the bottom of the hierarchy might be getting the text that informs you that there's a cookout, or figuring out what you're going to wear to the cookout. Things that might be closer to the top of the hierarchy might be into the actual cookout, are having a conversation with a stranger at the cookout. You would work with your therapists at each step of the hierarchy to develop strategies to manage your anxiety until you feel less anxious about doing the thing at the top of the hierarchy. Now, this is not a quick process. So it may sound like, Oh, I can just do this thing and in a week I'll have worked in the hierarchy. It usually takes a little longer because you don't want to rush the process. A lot of times, what happens with social anxiety is that people try to go straight to the thing that makes them most anxious, and then, of course that ends up in failure, and then you don't want to try it again. So the whole idea is working through these steps gradually. A second thing that you can try to help manage the social anxiety is to challenge the negative thoughts. So, if you're anxious about something like giving a big presentation at work, a thought that might be driving this anxiety is I'll mess this all up and people will know that I'm a failure. So one way that you can challenge these thoughts would be to check your receipts. What evidence do you have for believing any of this? Does your previous work suggest that you've been a failure? Do you tend to mess up work regularly? My guess is that the answer to any of these questions is no, So chances are that won't happen this time either, And sometimes you have to repeat this exercise over and over before you actually can begin to believe um and refute that negative thought. A third thing that you can try to help manage social anxiety is to find low risk ways to be more social. So you could do something like participate in a therapy group. That would be a really good option for allowing you to try out some new behaviors in a very safe environment. Even participating actively in an online space like the Thrive Tribe might allow you to try out some new behaviors. You might also try something like improv classes. Group fitness classes are group volunteer effort. And then the fourth thing that you may try to manage your social anxiety is to have a consultation with a psychiatrist or another medical professional who prescribes, because they can give you some good information about whether medication might be a good option to help you manage your symptoms. I know we talked about this a lot in session thirty eight with Dr Hodge, all about slaying your anxiety, So if you have not checked out that episode, then I definitely encourage you to do so. But we talked about the fact that one of the most important parts of developing a strategy for managing anxiety is to get away from avoiding the thing that makes us anxious. So you want to not avoid anxiety tricks you into believing that this thing is big and scary and you should, of course stay away from it, and then you do so. You never learned the skills to realize that this thing really isn't that big and scary. So whatever way you choose to work through your anxiety, make sure that a large part of it is going towards the thing that makes you anxious and not away from it. If you've had experience developing a strategy that has helped you to manage your social anxiety, we want to hear all about it, so please share that with us. You can use the hashtag tb G in session and share it with us on social media. And like I mentioned, if you want to practice some different ways of being in social situations, come on over and join us in the Thrive tribe. You can request to join at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash tribe, and do remember that there are three questions that you need to answer before you are entered into the group, and if you're looking for a therapist in your area, make sure to visit the directory at Therapy for black Girls dot com slash directory. Thank you all so much for joining me again this week, and I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take care, doctor I doctor actor actor actor actor

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The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a license 
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