- What's up my homies?
Welcome back to the channel,
your home for all things that I say.
Today we are talking about social anxiety.
My last video was a comedy video making light of
what it can be like to have social anxiety
where even the simplest social interaction
can turn into a catastrophe in your mind.
Today, we're going to talk more, a bit more seriously,
as seriously as I can talk about anything,
about social anxiety and what it is
and maybe what you can do to work on it a bit
to improve the situation.
I think it's worth pointing out
that I am not a psychologist.
So if you are actually dealing with social anxiety disorder,
talk to a pro who can help you out who's trained
to work with people who are experiencing this issue,
they can really help you a lot.
Social Anxiety is a condition that can be improved
with some work and a little bit of magic.
Here's my theory, untested by science,
social anxiety is kind of on a scale.
And down here we have the super extroverts
who don't have any nervousness in any social situation,
what is wrong with them?
Why aren't they nervous, I don't get it.
Then a lot of us, a lot of the human population,
is somewhere in here,
it's normal to get nervous going into a social interaction,
especially with strangers, especially if it's unfamiliar,
you don't you know, you're going to a party
where you don't know anyone, etc.
That has elements of social anxiety,
but that's not a disorder to be nervous.
Then you get over here,
and this is where it starts to be like a problem.
And you start to avoid stuff,
because you don't want to have to deal with it.
And then, at this end with the scream emoji,
that's where it's like full blown disorder,
you don't want to make eye contact with people,
you don't even want to
talk to the cashier at the checkout line,
like really extreme stuff.
And the thing is, when you're when you're more down here,
you might have nervousness going into a social interaction.
But then once it's started, you're going to be like,
oh okay, I can handle this and the nervousness goes away.
But when you're further up here,
the anxiety doesn't diminish,
it stays there throughout the interaction,
perhaps even getting worse.
And the problem is, when you're up in the disorder level,
you will avoid lots of situations in life,
and it can really do some damage,
do a number on your life,
because you're like trying to move around,
more or less, mundane, on occasion, interactions,
because you know, you're going to get so nervous about it,
so anxious.
What is social anxiety, to start with?
What are what are some signs and symptoms
that you are on this scale?
It really comes down to intense fear
of judgment from others, they're not going to like you,
a fear that you're going to be embarrassed
in a social situation, when it gets bad,
you start to become afraid of the fear,
and you, it's like a compounding anxiety, where you're like,
they're going to be able to tell that I'm anxious.
And when I try to talk to these people,
they're going to hear my throat close up, and you know,
they're going to see me shaking, so it gets even worse.
Some common situations, let me refer to my notes,
some common situations that people with anxiety disorder
are going to try to avoid, first of all,
just interacting with strangers, that's a big one,
going to parties, a lot of us don't like that,
but it's like asking some asking some of the social anxiety
to go to a party is like asking them to
walk through the lion exhibit at the zoo with
steak tied around their chest.
Just everyday things like going to work can be a chore,
making eye contact, that's a difficult one,
dating, oh man, entering a room
where there's a bunch of people already there sitting down,
oh my gosh, I hate that so much,
returning items at a store, because it's awkward,
it's like oh, my gosh,
the store is going to think I don't like their product,
I'm causing them a big problem,
anything where it's sort of like,
I worry that this interaction could go south very quickly.
People with social anxiety disorder
might just avoid those all together.
You might see yourself in a few of those.
Now, I talked about myself, I used to be much worse,
I would say if I had to put myself on this scale,
when I was younger, when I was like a teenager,
I was probably more like here,
I did not like talking to strangers at all.
I avoided social interaction at all costs.
I didn't really like to make eye contact with people.
And generally avoid stuff.
And I'm not sure how it happened, but after a while,
I think I kind of just forced myself to,
to push it, to do things I didn't like
that I was uncomfortable with.
And I would say I've slipped down into this range somewhere.
Maybe I'm being too generous with myself,
but what can you do to overcome it?
Now, for those of you who are lower on the scale,
it'll be easier.
For those of you higher up,
you're going to need to take very small baby steps
in order to start to chip away at the anxiety.
Before we continue though, let's support this channel
with a quick commercial break.
Thank you very much for sitting through that.
So one of the first things to realize is that
social anxiety, while you can't control it
is coming from this place of being too stuck
in your own mind.
Because rather than actually interacting
in a social situation, you are constantly
aware of yourself and just making sure
that you are doing okay,
that you're not embarrassing yourself.
And then you catastrophize on top of that,
to be like this is going to turn out terribly,
Mm life is going to be over after I do this thing,
after I returned this lawn mower to Home Depot,
that's going to be it, it's going to be so uncomfortable.
The socially anxious brain is having an
overactive fear response to stuff that isn't that bad.
This isn't for me to say to you that
you need to just get over it.
But there is this element of it's not actually
objectively real, it's real to you.
It's in your brain.
But it's a very subjective fear, right?
So in general, the best way to start fighting social anxiety
is to realize that it's, it's up here.
That's the issue.
You may have had issue, instances in the past where
people didn't judge you, you were embarrassed,
people made fun of you,
that might have triggered your social anxiety.
But those instances tend to be less big of a deal
and less common than we make it in our mind,
the general idea is to stop looking inward
during these interactions and to focus outward,
to focus on the other people rather than
constantly checking on ourselves.
Check with the other person,
see what they are thinking, what they're doing.
Don't worry so much about yourself,
are they at ease?
Are they having a good time?
Some small things you can do,
like depending on how bad it is,
if you are really far up here, this end of the scale,
you got to start really small,
this is where a professional will really help,
but some ideas, stuff like just try to make eye contact
with strangers for just a short amount of time,
like a half second, start really small,
that's all it is, just a little bit eye contact,
you can go a little further,
when you're ready, just say hello to strangers.
It's two seconds of your time,
and look that there are good places to do this,
and bad places to do this.
Don't go on the New York City subway
and go out into the Bronx and do this.
But,
you know, some place where you feel like the vibe is good,
where you feel at least a little bit comfortable,
you can start to implement these things.
When you're ready to take it a step further
give someone a compliment, just say hey, I like your shoes.
Something simple.
People like compliments also, generally.
So they're, they're usually going to react positively,
like oh my gosh, thank you.
Now here's what you don't want to do,
which is why you need to take it slow is because
if you don't go into this,
like this giving compliment thing,
like it's some battle you have to be prepared for,
cause then what's going to happen is
you're going to get nervous about doing this thing.
You're going to start to get too in your own head,
and then when you compliment someone
it's going to be like nice shoes,
and then they're going to react like what?
Do you see how social anxiety can have this effect of
spiraling out of control because of the nervousness?
So don't over plan it.
And pick easy targets.
Pick people who aren't going to be
that big of a deal for you.
You can start with you know, start with little kids,
like they don't care.
Or start with old people.
They're generally nice.
You know what I mean?
You don't have to start with
a very attractive member of the opposite sex.
Just start with the easy pickings and don't think about it.
Just be like when the opportunity presents itself,
just immediately be like, hey,
or nice pants you've got there.
Actually don't compliment their pants,
that's a little bit too personal to start with.
Work your way up to the pants.
You can even just do stuff like ask people a question
if you need directions somewhere,
maybe you don't even need directions.
Maybe it's, you know where you are, be like, hey,
can you tell me where the library is?
Oh, hey, where is this street?
Just simple stuff, just it's practice,
it doesn't have to be anything big.
We're talking about practice.
Even those of us who don't struggle
at this end of the spectrum,
even if you're sort of just over here,
this can be just good, simple practice,
and you can get advanced, you can start doing it a lot
where you just say hi to a bunch of people that you pass,
you can just start handing out compliments left and right.
Basically, what you could call green lighting everyone
where it's just like, hey, I'm open to talk.
It depends on how comfortable you are,
how much you want to push it.
But these are some some basic things you can do.
When you get into a situation where you can talk further,
you know, at more length with someone,
try to try to show a genuine interest in them,
and in showing your interest in them
you can't focus on yourself as much,
see this is the trick,
trick yourself into not focusing inward,
and focusing outward on stuff.
And don't think, oh, can I can I carry this conversation?
Can I keep it going?
Don't worry so much about that aspect of it.
Just try to just try to go small, show genuine interest.
I think the biggest thing is to not think.
Don't think too much.
The thinking is where the problem is.
So the less you can think the better.
If you see someone and you're like
I should say hello to them,
and it takes you 10 seconds before you say hello,
that gives you plenty of time to think
about the situation and let your anxiety get out of control.
But if you're just like,
I'm just going to do it as it comes,
and then someone walks by and you say hello,
no time to think.
It's just a reflex, you just put yourself out there.
Some planning can help when you're going into a situation,
some preparation, not planning so much.
If you're going to go to a party,
you're going to have to interact with some strangers,
for example, rather than like try to plan out
what kind of conversation can I have,
I'll say this, then they say this,
because it's going to fall apart immediately.
Just look up some stuff that is interesting.
Look at the weird news or the general news,
just do some reading, do some research,
so that you can find some topics that you can pull from
so that when you go into these situations,
and the conversation seems to be low, you can be like,
you know what I read?
That the armadillo population is moving further and further
or to be grammatically correct, farther north,
isn't that interesting?
It's just a weird thing to bring up,
and suddenly it's like, oh, no, I didn't hear that,
and then you can talk about it for at least a few seconds.
As much mileage as the armadillos can get you.
The thing about conversation is,
once you bring up one thing
it'll remind someone of something else,
and it'll start to go back and forth quite smoothly.
But the point is, don't plan, just prepare,
because when you plan for a conversation,
it will not happen that way and you will feel lost.
And another good thing to do is to think about,
what do you actually afraid of happening
in these situations?
And then afterward be like did it actually happen?
Because I think we get, we catastrophize,
like I said before, we think the worst stuff
is going to happen, and it doesn't really,
and we get worried about being embarrassed
about being judged, and even if we're in a situation
where people kind of act, you know,
a bit standoffish toward us, it's not as bad usually
as what we catastrophize it to be.
It's like fairly normal for people to just kind of like,
not be interested in another person and not want to talk
or to be put off by your vibe a little bit.
There's nothing personal about it.
That's just, that's just how it goes.
We do it to other people, people do it to us.
Whereas I think the catastrophic embarrassment
in our mind is like, this person will never talk
to me again, and they will tell all my friends,
wait, do I have friends,
they're going to tell all these other people,
I'll be ostracized, I'll be a social outcast.
I'll be a leper.
That doesn't really happen.
Sure, we can get a little embarrassed.
But the worst case scenario,
how often hasn't really happened?
So look at look at it realistically.
It's also worth noting people really don't care
about us as much as we think they do.
They just don't.
Maybe they do judge us.
I mean, we're always judging everyone around us
all the time, not necessarily judging in like a
damning sense, but judging just in the sense
of trying to shape up who we think the other person is.
And it's not that deep of a thing for most people,
we just, it's like, okay, whatever,
that person's a little weird,
I'll give them some time to come back around, whatever,
you'd be surprised to know how little
other people actually care.
And that can be quite relieving,
because it's like I can, I can do whatever I want.
Okay, don't do whatever you want.
But it's like I can just, I can,
I can be a little nervous, so what?
I can maybe embarrass myself a little bit,
most people don't care.
And most people, if they are decent human beings,
will try to help you out a little bit,
throw you a little bit of a lifeline,
they're not going to go out of their way,
okay, they're not going to dive in and rescue you
out of the icy waters.
But they will try to give you a hand to help you along
because nobody likes being in a awkward conversation
or they don't, no one likes being in a situation where
the other person is bombing conversationally,
I know when I'm in a conversation with someone
who's extremely anxious and nervous,
doesn't really bother me, I'm just like, oh,
they're anxious, so let me help them out,
let me ask them some questions,
let me engage them a bit to try to pull them out of it.
There are lots of people out there like that,
who will help you out if you're anxious in a conversation.
So don't give up hope
if you don't find those people immediately,
if things start to go awkwardly.
Don't worry about it.
It's cool, it's cool player.
So ultimately, this is something that you can overcome.
Social anxiety can get better,
you don't have to live with a crippling
amount of social anxiety.
Like I said, if you are way up here on the scale,
go see someone.
Ain't no shame in that, go see a professional,
they can help you out.
This isn't it, it can get better.
But you have to work at it, you can't just let it go.
Actually, if you let it go, it gets worse.
I'm sorry to tell you social anxiety,
if you isolate yourself will slowly degrade and get worse.
So you just got to work at it slowly
to make it better, to make it less of an issue.
I'm also going to put a link down somewhere,
description, the comment, whatever,
to the Mayo Clinic article about social anxiety
that I used as a source for this video
so you can read more about it,
get some more info, and hopefully beat this thing.
Thanks so much for watching.
Check out some other videos over here.
If you missed the comedy sketch, it's this one right here.
You'll like it, I think, I hope.
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Till next time, stay cool, and attractive.