Removing the use of avoidance and safety behaviours

When we are socially anxious, we tend to avoid social situations (e.g. parties; speaking in front of small groups, asking for a refund etc). However if we keep avoiding the situations we fear, we never get the chance to prove to ourselves that we can cope in them and our confidence remains low. Similarly, whenever socially anxious people do enter the situations they fear, they tend to use 'safety behaviours' (e.g. sticking tightly besides a good friend at a party; staying silent when in a small group to avoid looking foolish etc). Although these behaviours seem to help in the short term, upon closer inspection they are actually unhelpful. This is because they stop people from learning that they could have coped fine without relying on such precautions. Instead, someone may believe: "I only coped during that party because I had my best friend besides me" so their confidence remains low. Therefore, like avoidance, safety behaviours stop us from learning that we can cope in such situations and our anxiety towards them continues.

 Because of this, the best way to reduce our anxiety towards social situations is to gradually confront them, without relying on safety behaviours. Of course, confronting social situations can be daunting, especially given that our anxiety levels often rise when we do so. However research shows that if we can stay in a situation that we feel anxious in for long enough (without using our safety behaviours), gradually our anxiety will reduce. It is almost as though our body and mind become 'used to' the situation and our anxiety begins to fall. This may take around 30 minutes or more but often happens more quickly. More importantly, if we subsequently confront a similar situation again, the amount of anxiety we experience is likely to be less and less on each occasion. Not only this, but it is likely to pass more quickly each time too, until the point that the situation causes us little or no anxiety. Take the exmaple below:

Someone who was anxious about spending time in the town centre because they feared that everyone would stare at them.

·         They made themselves go to the town centre and stay there until their anxiety reduced.

·         They then repeated that task everyday that week. Their anxiety became less and less each time they did so as their confidence grew

.Of course, not all the scenarios we fear last very long (e.g. having a brief chat with your neighbour in the street). But again, if you repeatedly allow yourself to become involved in a short conversation, rather than avoid it, you can begin to prove that you can handle these scenarios much more effectively than you think and your confidence will soon rise. Having said this, confronting social situations may still be a daunting thought.