part0006

I first met Sarah at an anxiety workshop for university students in the Autumn of 2016. She was sitting at the back of the room, in the far right-hand corner, a large gap of empty chairs separating her from everyone else. I always attempt to make eye contact with everyone in the room during my workshops, but every time I looked in her direction her head would bow and I couldn’t catch her eye. During the group exercises, rather than joining in with the others, she stayed in her seat in the corner, preferring to take notes or stare at her phone.

After the workshop had finished, and I’d answered questions from students, she was still sat in her seat in the corner, so I walked over and introduced myself. She looked up at me; her face and neck flushed, and told me her name in a whispered voice. I asked her why she had come to the workshop as gently as I could, and after a few tears her story came flooding out.

Sarah’s social anxiety was so debilitating that she didn’t attend her classes on the first day of university, knowing it was possible that the lecturer would ask students to go around the room and introduce themselves. Just sitting in a room, waiting to introduce herself to strangers who will stare at her, makes her feel physically sick. She’s aware that her voice sounds shaky and her face reddens when speaking in public. Sarah knew she wouldn’t have been able to think clearly because her anxiety in those situations is often intense, and she might have made a “stupid mistake.” She once even blanked on her own name.

So she skipped the first day of classes and then got scared about being the only new student at the next set of classes. It had spiralled out of control and she hadn’t attended any lectures during the first three weeks of university. Sarah was informed that if she didn’t attend within the first four weeks she would have to leave the course, so booked an appointment with her doctor to discuss her anxiety. As the first available appointment was two weeks away, on the advice of the course administrator, she had signed up for my workshop. So here she was. She said, “It just feels impossible to beat. ”

As a former lecturer I often heard stories from students about how anxiety had impacted on their academic work and often their lives outside of university too. Answering questions in lectures was terrifying for many and taking part in group work and class discussions often caused sleepless nights. Then there was the dreaded class presentation; the majority of students feared them, and many even excused themselves from them with medical notes referring to severe anxiety.

Having suffered from anxiety myself, I empathized and understood many of their fears and struggles. I could also provide them with the powerful hope that it’s possible to change your relationship with anxiety and manage it in a way that not just helps you to survive at university, but enables you to thrive, while still living by your core values and being true to yourself. I could explain how someone like me, who was scared of speaking on the phone and terrified of social gatherings, could now lecture in front of more than 200 students.

In cases of severe anxiety, I always advised students to seek help from the university support services or their General Practitioner. I also discussed strategies that could help them with their anxiety and get their coursework back on track. As more and more students approached me, I worked on a guide to help with everyday anxiety that students could take away with them after their appointments. I designed the guide to be preventative — to stop early symptoms developing into clinical problems — but also to go beyond that; to build confidence and help them become unstuck and move forward with all the things they needed to do to pass the course and get on with their lives.

Students who didn’t suffer from anxiety, but had heard the exercises were helpful in building more confident and positive lives, approached me and asked to have access to the guide. The guide developed into an online course and then a book on overcoming general anxiety.1 Following the publication of the book and related public workshops, I received many requests for more specific help with social anxiety. So I set to work on a new book that tailored the information and exercises to help those for whom social anxiety was a particular problem. You’re reading that book right now. It’s based on the same principles of the previous book, but focuses on applying them to social situations that provoke anxiety.

Although my background is working with students, the approach used in this book isn’t age or student specific. It includes background information on how social anxiety can develop in people of all ages, alongside preventative and interventional exercises derived from a breadth of research on managing social anxiety and shyness, and building confidence. I’ve used these exercises in workshops for those suffering with social anxiety in colleges, the workplace, and everyday life.

The approach uses evidenced-based exercises from the areas of mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and positive psychology. Social anxiety can paralyse us, and sometimes dealing with the briefest of social interactions can seem insurmountable, so the information is reduced into small chunks, with brief chapters that can be digested easily and quickly. With a workbook format, the book is a toolkit for overcoming social anxiety and also provides practical help for calming and reducing panic attacks.

The book starts with some background information explaining why and how social anxiety develops and then highlights the evidence the book’s main principles are built on. Although it may be tempting to skip these parts, understanding your social anxiety and being convinced by evidence that the exercises work should help to bring change to your life more quickly, while also increasing your motivation to apply the practices. The theory section is concise and won’t take long to read. However, you can start at the practical exercises if you really want to get started right away.

The principles and practices you will learn in the book go beyond managing social anxiety. They will also help you to become unstuck, build confidence and really start living. Overcoming social anxiety isn’t easy, but it is possible with courage and commitment.

There will be times throughout the book that you will be asked to things that make you feel uncomfortable, but discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life. The exercises will walk you through these difficult actions step-by-step, allowing you to develop courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, courage is fear walking.

Sarah is now coming towards the end of her first academic year and enjoying life at university. I introduced her to skills and exercises that gradually changed her mindset about her social anxiety, and with support and courage she is overcoming her social anxiety and looking forward to the next two years of university life.

I wrote this book to be read easily and quickly, with the intention that you can begin to understand your social anxiety and apply the practical exercises as quickly as possible. So I recommend you read the book in its entirety to begin with, practising the exercises along the way. This should give you a feel of what works best for you. It is worth keeping in mind it may take time for some of the practices to reveal their full potential, this is why they are called practices. While you will see some immediate positive changes after many of the exercises, others will take a little more time before they reveal their true power.

Many of the exercises don’t require huge changes; they are small nudges that will push you in a more peaceful and confident direction, making a positive long-term impact over your social anxiety. While you may think it would be best to make huge changes quickly, you’ll find that change is more successful when done at a calm and steady pace. Think tortoise not hare. Doing too much too soon is sometimes problematic, overwhelming, and can cause discouragement.

Self help books often see change in terms of grand goals and complete transformation in a short period of time, but research points to the opposite being more effective - small conscious tweaks that are aligned with personal meaning and values. These small everyday changes can make a huge difference over time and turn out to be far more powerful than attempts to make massive changes over short periods.

This book is real, practical, and effective. Methods that promise instant and magical transformations lose their impact when we have to leave our comfort zone and the fairy dust blows away. The benefits of doing the exercises will build over time. Soon you will find your relationship with social anxiety changing for the better, along with a growing sense of peace, and the courage to tackle social situations and interactions you previously avoided.

The exercises included in the book have been tested and scientifically validated on various populations. I’ve included references and links to these studies where applicable. However, there is no such thing as an ‘average person’ and you may find that some exercises work better than others. Only by applying these exercises in the real world will you find out which ones are most effective for you. So test out the exercises for yourself and see what works best. When something works well, use an evolutionary-style approach and consider how you can change it further so it fits in with your values and lifestyle in a way that makes it even more effective. Don’t be afraid of testing different approaches out, and don’t worry, if after giving it some time, an exercise doesn’t work well for you – just see it as part of the process of finding out what does.

In this part we’ll discover what ‘safety mode’ is, how it can diminish our lives, and what we can do to break free from it. We will also explain how and why social anxiety and shyness develops, what it feels like, when it can be useful, and when it becomes a problem. We will outline the two different pathways to anxiety and discover why some popular anxiety treatments will fail as they only consider one of these pathways.

This will be the start of the practical journey. It’s about considering and understanding who you are, assessing how balanced your life is, and preparing you to make changes. We’ll also introduce exercises that will create a solid foundation by calming the mind, increasing energy, and preparing you for the mindfulness skills introduced in the next section.

Having built a foundation, we will now look at strategies that will help you change your relationship with anxiety and allow you to manage uncomfortable thoughts and feelings as they arise. By understanding how your thoughts and feelings work, you’ll be able to create a calmer, clearer mind when interacting with others. This part will introduce you to three key skills from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: defusion, expansion, and engagement. Applying these skills will help you effectively deal with anxiety that occurs both before and during social situations.

The dress rehearsal is now over, it’s time to use the skills you’ve learned in the real world. Social anxiety often leaves us feeling stuck and unable to take action. We don’t do the things we would like to do, and avoid taking action on many of the things we need to do, often making difficult situations even worse. In this part you’ll learn a step-by-step process that allows you to expose yourself safely to the social situations you most fear. You will also learn how to weave the practices into everyday life in a way that becomes sustainable over the long-term. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone and we will leave it here.

Anxiety can sometimes feel so overpowering that we either panic or freeze, so this part contains short and simple exercises that focus on reducing the extreme symptoms of anxiety. It includes exercises that can be practised when feeling particularly anxious, stressed, or on the edge of ‘losing it’. We will also outline what can be done to reduce the effects of panic attacks and how to eliminate future episodes.