How Teenagers With Social Anxiety Can Overcome Their Discomfort
Do you constantly feel worried about embarrassing yourself in front of other people? Do you get nervous that others can tell you’re nervous? Do you sometimes dread certain social situations or avoid them altogether?
If so, you’re certainly not alone. Social anxiety is very common, and about 1 in 10 adolescents have social anxiety disorder. The symptoms exist on a wide spectrum, with some people experiencing only mild discomfort and others having severe impairments.
At Boreal Therapy Collective, we have therapists with years of experience supporting children and teens who have struggled with social anxiety. Whether you’re a teenager struggling with how you respond in social settings or a parent concerned about your child's well-being, it’s important to know that this type of anxiety is treatable. Below we highlight five strategies to help teens challenge social anxiety.
Recognize (And Challenge) Negative Thoughts
Negative thoughts can distort your reality, and when it comes to social anxiety, simply anticipating negative social interactions can cause you to feel hypervigilant and self-conscious.
Teenagers with social anxiety often struggle with cognitive distortions, including:
Dichotomous thinking ("Nobody likes me!" "I always sound stupid when I talk to others!")
Catastrophizing: ("This event will be a total mess. I'm not going to know how to talk to anyone there."
Labelling: ("I feel so weird, so it must mean that I really am weird.").
Overgeneralization: ("There was awkward silence during our last conversation, and I'll always struggle with awkward silence.")
The first step to changing negative thoughts is recognizing them. Try to pay attention to how you think and feel before specific social events. Do you find a particular social interaction makes you more anxious than other ones? Or do you just have a persistent fear that you'll make social mistakes no matter what?
As you identify the negative self-talk in your life, try to practice challenging those thoughts. For example, if you feel self-conscious around your friends, does your nervousness signify that they automatically don't like you? What other alternatives might exist? What would you tell another friend feeling insecure?
Set Small and Realistic Goals
If you want to work on your social anxiety, it's important to identify why this goal is important to you. What do you hope might be different in your life?
Let’s say you dread public speaking and find yourself clamming up and dreading every time you need to give a presentation in school. You eventually want to get to a mental place where you can present in front of the class without feeling like you're on the brink of a panic attack.
Public speaking may be your large goal, and when it comes to overcoming anxiety, it's often a good idea to break down larger goals into smaller, bite-sized ones. If public presentations evoke the most fear, a smaller goal might be to push yourself to raise your hand in class more often or ask the teacher a question after class concludes.
As you accomplish smaller goals, you gain more confidence to accomplish the larger ones. Having that confidence gives you a baseline for taking more risks.
Practice Exposing Yourself to Feared Situations
Social anxiety is all about imagining worst-case scenarios. Your brain is focused on what could happen in the future - even if you don't have much evidence to support that fear.
Sometimes the best way to deal with anxiety is by confronting it directly - over and over again. Your brain needs to habituate to the scary situation to learn that it isn’t as threatening as it seems. Over time, even if you don’t feel 100% comfortable, the anxiety symptoms will feel less intense, and you will no longer feel like you’re petrified with fear.
That said, anxiety exposure can and should be gradual, and it’s important to practice self-compassion and self-care. You need to be rooting for yourself, and you also need to be patient with the process. Change takes time, and it’s normal to experience some setbacks along the way.
Accept That Some Discomfort May Be Inevitable
Anxiety is a normal emotion, and you can't eliminate it entirely. Most people have some social anxiety from time to time, and we all can relate to feeling uncomfortable at a particular social event.
Mindfulness can help, especially if you feel bothered by your physical symptoms. The next time, for example, you notice yourself feeling panicked or tense, try breathing deeply. Focusing on your breath regulates anxiety, and it can decrease muscle tension.
With that in mind, try to round yourself in the present moment. Remember that even the most uncomfortable sensations pass.
Coping skills can also be invaluable as you move through stressful situations. Journaling, talking to friends, listening to music, and doing yoga all represent healthy options for managing anxiety.
Try to Avoid Avoidance
Social anxiety can make it hard to participate in life. Teenagers, in particular, may have trouble attending classes. They might avoid forming relationships or seeking academic opportunities or engaging in extra-curricular activities.
Even though your anxiety might tell you that it's better to limit social interactions, the opposite is actually true. The more you avoid something, the scarier it feels. You keep building up the situation in your head, and it often feels unbearable once you need to confront it.
As mentioned, it's important to engage in regular exposure. We are wired for human connection, and our relationships are a key part of our mental health. This is true for people at all ages!
And remember quantity often beats quality. Sometimes, it's better to have a few friends that you really trust than numerous friends that you don't really feel comfortable with.
Therapy for Social Anxiety in Teens
We all get socially anxious from time to time, and sometimes social anxiety symptoms can improve with the right self-help strategies. But untreated anxiety disorders can take a significant toll on someone's self-esteem, relationships, and academic performance.
At Boreal Therapy Collective, we specialize in helping children and teens overcome social anxiety and related challenges like depression and self-harm.
If you’re ready to start therapy with us, you can book your initial assessment here.
