To overcome anxiety, especially social anxiety, engage in feared activities slowly and incrementally, rather than avoiding them entirely. Start with small, manageable steps to build confidence and allow your feelings and thoughts to catch up to your actions.
Actively cultivate a willingness to accept some level of uncertainty, even small percentages, rather than constantly seeking complete certainty. This flexibility allows for mistakes and do-overs, which can be inherently freeing and help you move forward.
Replace rigid, all-or-nothing rules about how you ‘must’ behave with more flexible guidelines, such as aiming for a desired trait ‘most of the time’ or being ‘good-ish.’ This creates wiggle room, reduces self-judgment, and allows for human imperfection in social interactions.
During social interactions, deliberately redirect your attention spotlight away from self-monitoring (e.g., ‘Am I boring?’) and onto the other person. Focus on listening closely, observing their face, and engaging with them, which frees up mental bandwidth and allows for more natural responses.
Identify and gradually eliminate ‘safety behaviors’—actions you take to compensate for anxiety, like over-explaining, over-preparing, or being overly friendly. These behaviors prevent you from realizing that your feared outcomes won’t happen, so dropping them allows you to take credit for positive social outcomes.
Proactively discuss your comfort levels and boundaries with others, especially during times of social reentry, to increase certainty and lower anxiety. Additionally, showing ‘small V’ vulnerability by admitting to feeling rusty or uncertain can build trust and connection, as it communicates shared human experience.
When caught in anxious thoughts or post-event rumination, create distance from your thoughts rather than fusing with them. Use techniques like the ‘Hands as Thoughts’ exercise or preface thoughts with ‘I’m having the thought that…’ to acknowledge them without letting them obscure your perspective.
When intellectual understanding alone doesn’t calm anxiety, access ‘back doors’ through your body and emotions. Practice relaxation exercises to reduce physical tension, and with professional guidance, allow yourself to feel the emotions associated with feared outcomes (imaginal exposure) to loosen their power.
If experiencing chronic anxiety that significantly impairs your life, seek a mental health professional you like and trust. Anxiety is treatable, and while you may not ‘fix’ it entirely, you can expand your capacity to cope and improve your quality of life.
Recognize that anxiety symptoms, such as being a ‘control freak’ or ‘perfectionist,’ often originated as necessary survival techniques in past situations. Validate these past coping mechanisms, but then work to update them to better match your current, safer circumstances.
For those organizing social or professional gatherings, set clear expectations and allow time for participants to reacclimate. Consider starting with smaller groups or less intense scenarios before diving into large-scale interactions to ease anxiety.
After social interactions, differentiate between genuine need for repair and anxiety-driven rumination (‘cringe attacks’). If a true repair is needed, reach out; otherwise, practice acceptance by acknowledging that your brain focuses on flaws, or challenge the thoughts by questioning their likelihood or impact.
When discussing vaccines with those who hold different views, prioritize listening with compassion and without judgment, rather than sending articles or facts. Share your own doubts and vulnerabilities to establish common ground and an equal footing, which can be more effective than lecturing.