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The Neuroscience of Social Anxiety Disorder and tools to treat it · Do You F*cking Mind?

0:13
Speaker 1: Hello, beautiful beans, and welcome to the podcast. Episode of today.
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Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about the neuroscience of social anxiety.
0:21
Speaker 1: So this has been a very highly requested one. I've
0:24
Speaker 1: touched on this topic obviously, many many many times in
0:27
Speaker 1: my podcast because I talk about anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder,
0:32
Speaker 1: many different kinds of anxiety disorders I have covered, but
0:35
Speaker 1: I have never done an entire episode on social anxiety disorder. Okay,
0:41
Speaker 1: we're specifically referring to social anxiety disorder. There's a bit
0:45
Speaker 1: of I'm going to explain what exactly the criteria is
0:48
Speaker 1: in the DSM five because there's people that have kind
0:51
Speaker 1: of a bit of discomfort socially, and then there's the
0:53
Speaker 1: full blown actual disorder as well that is probably categorized
0:59
Speaker 1: so that way you'll be able to tell the difference
1:00
Speaker 1: between the two, and the difference between what it means
1:02
Speaker 1: to be shy and introverted versus an actual social anxiety.
1:06
Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about that I did put
1:08
Speaker 1: on my on the do Fucking Mind Instagram page, a
1:11
Speaker 1: little question box for people to ask questions. I'm actually
1:14
Speaker 1: going to be answering those questions first and then going
1:16
Speaker 1: into a deeper dive as to what exactly. Social anxiety
1:20
Speaker 1: disorder SAD also known, and it's annoying because so many
1:23
Speaker 1: disorders share abbreviations with other disorders like social anxiety disorder.
1:27
Speaker 1: SAD also is seasonal effective disorder, which is when you
1:32
Speaker 1: get depressed when there's like not enough sunlight. But yeah,
1:34
Speaker 1: in this we're talking about SAD as far as social anxiety.
1:38
Speaker 1: But anyway, we're going to go through your questions first.
1:41
Speaker 1: Then I'm going to be talking about the dars and
1:43
Speaker 1: five definition. Then I'm going to be talking about what's
1:46
Speaker 1: going on exactly in the brain, what is actually happening
1:48
Speaker 1: in the brain and social anxiety disorder, and then we're
1:50
Speaker 1: going to talk about treatments that are available that are
1:55
Speaker 1: you know, very very very very helpful, and how much
1:59
Speaker 1: it really can be treated and there's a lot of
2:01
Speaker 1: things that you can do for Okay, So firstly, like
2:03
Speaker 1: I said, I want to go over the questions from
2:06
Speaker 1: you guys. The first question that I received was what
2:09
Speaker 1: is the reason behind not being able to formulate words
2:13
Speaker 1: or even think of what to say? So when we
2:16
Speaker 1: talk about anxiety in any kind of anxiety disorder, we're
2:19
Speaker 1: talking about kind of an overactive amygdala, that fear processing
2:23
Speaker 1: center within the brain. I think I've spoken about the
2:26
Speaker 1: amygdala on most episodes in general, but it's also it's
2:30
Speaker 1: not just the amyg delight, it's you know, parts of
2:32
Speaker 1: that limbic system within the brain that is in charge
2:36
Speaker 1: of fear response and conditioned fear and all of that.
2:39
Speaker 1: And one of the fear reactions we've got fight or flights,
2:42
Speaker 1: but then we've also got freeze. So if you're somebody
2:45
Speaker 1: that cannot respond in a social situation, along with all
2:49
Speaker 1: the other symptoms that are going to describe later, and
2:51
Speaker 1: one of the things that happens is that you freeze.
2:53
Speaker 1: That is just what's happening when you when you're unable
2:56
Speaker 1: to override the activity of the amygdala, it is like
2:58
Speaker 1: a survival response. Instead of fleeing or fighting, you are
3:03
Speaker 1: going to freeze, absolutely freeze, And that's what kind of
3:05
Speaker 1: takes over. And until that stimulus that's causing the trigger
3:10
Speaker 1: that's causing this response is removed or until you leave,
3:12
Speaker 1: you're not going to be able to calm down. The
3:15
Speaker 1: next question is why do I feel deathly sick talking
3:18
Speaker 1: to people I don't even know? And another question that
3:23
Speaker 1: also was asked, was is there a reason I get
3:27
Speaker 1: anxious and feel nauseous, faint, and dizzy when I have
3:32
Speaker 1: social anxiety disorder. So again, when we're talking about the
3:36
Speaker 1: fight or flight, when that fight or flight is triggered,
3:38
Speaker 1: we're talking about the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic
3:41
Speaker 1: nervous system. If you listened to my episode last week
3:44
Speaker 1: on regulating a nervous your nervous system, you would have
3:48
Speaker 1: heard me talk about sympathetic nervous system. Is that fight
3:51
Speaker 1: or flight and you've got to get your body ready
3:53
Speaker 1: to kind of perform attack. You're under pressure. But when
3:56
Speaker 1: that happens in extreme scenarios, you're obviously going to get
3:59
Speaker 1: a extreme version of this fight or flight. It's not like, Oh,
4:03
Speaker 1: I'm getting up on a stage and I can do
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Speaker 1: it. It's really extreme. It's very overactive. One of the things
4:08
Speaker 1: that happens when we're really kicking that sympathetic nervous system
4:11
Speaker 1: into gear is that your blood is diverted away from
4:15
Speaker 1: the stomach to your muscles to every part of the
4:18
Speaker 1: body that needs to be ready to act in order
4:21
Speaker 1: to respond to this threat. Okay, that causes that moving
4:26
Speaker 1: that blood flow away from the digestive system and away
4:29
Speaker 1: from the muscles can cause nausea, and it also can
4:32
Speaker 1: cause the butterfly feeling. So you know when you're super
4:34
Speaker 1: nervous or when you're in front of a crush or
4:37
Speaker 1: something and you're like, I don't know how to react.
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Speaker 1: That butterfly feeling is the blood rushing away from your stomach.
4:44
Speaker 1: And then the dizziness is because of this fluctuating blood
4:48
Speaker 1: pressure that happens when we're switching between sympathetic and parasympathetic
4:52
Speaker 1: nervous system. So in some individuals, that fluctuating blood pressure
4:56
Speaker 1: can actually reduce blood flow to certain areas within the brain,
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Speaker 1: and it can and make some people feel faint or dizzy.
5:01
Speaker 1: But this doesn't happen in all individuals. It's just one
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Speaker 1: of the things. Next question, are you born with it
5:07
Speaker 1: or do you learn it? So it's actually a bit complex.
5:11
Speaker 1: It's genetic and it's also nurture, so it's not just
5:14
Speaker 1: completely nature. It's a combination of birth. There isn't one
5:18
Speaker 1: single gene that is responsible or codes for social anxiety
5:23
Speaker 1: disorder or anxiety. It's kind of there's a couple of
5:27
Speaker 1: things going on. So there's a combination of different genes
5:31
Speaker 1: where you could have kind of a genetic predisposition for
5:35
Speaker 1: generalized anxiety or for a social anxiety disorder, or basically
5:39
Speaker 1: a really highly sensitive nervous system. So you might be
5:43
Speaker 1: genetically predisposed to that, but that only accounts for between
5:48
Speaker 1: thirty and fifty percent of why it's then going to
5:51
Speaker 1: kind of show up as a disorder or a characteristic
5:56
Speaker 1: within you. Now, the same as like a highly sensitive
5:59
Speaker 1: nervous an overactive amygdala, if you partner that with direct conditioning.
6:05
Speaker 1: And when I talk about direct conditioning, it's something that's
6:07
Speaker 1: happened in your life. So let's say that you have
6:09
Speaker 1: a genetic predisposition and then on top of that, you've
6:12
Speaker 1: had a really embarrassing moment occur where it was just
6:17
Speaker 1: borderline traumatizing, or you've been bullied or another sort of
6:22
Speaker 1: traumatic social event. If something like that has happened, the
6:25
Speaker 1: combination of the two with this predisposition to have an
6:29
Speaker 1: overactive amigdala or a highly sensitive nervous system, plus that
6:34
Speaker 1: nurture that component that has influenced within your reality after
6:38
Speaker 1: you were born, then this could bring on social anxiety
6:44
Speaker 1: or just generalized anxiety Okay. Another thing that we've seen
6:48
Speaker 1: kind of in the literature is overprotective parenting if the
6:50
Speaker 1: child is way too sheltered, like and we're not talking
6:53
Speaker 1: about protective, we're talking about overprotective, over sheltering where the
6:58
Speaker 1: parent doesn't allow the child wild to ever develop their
7:01
Speaker 1: own coping skills to feel secure within themselves in a
7:04
Speaker 1: social environment. So they're always like, oh my god, right,
7:07
Speaker 1: there was like helicopter, helicopter to an extreme. Then they've
7:11
Speaker 1: seen kind of a link between that kind of parenting
7:13
Speaker 1: and children developing social anxiety, of course, because they've never
7:16
Speaker 1: learned these tools, and then you put them out in
7:18
Speaker 1: the wild as at about adolescents or an adult, and
7:20
Speaker 1: they feel extremely uncomfortable and not equipped to deal with
7:24
Speaker 1: these normal social situations. Next question is what is happening
7:28
Speaker 1: in the brain and why do doctors prescribe antidepressants like
7:33
Speaker 1: SSRIs to treat it. Okay, so I'm going to explain
7:35
Speaker 1: what's happening in the brain in a second. So I'm
7:37
Speaker 1: not going to delve into that right now. But the
7:39
Speaker 1: reason why you'll have a doctor prescribe SSRIs, which is
7:43
Speaker 1: serotonin selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors it's your like go to
7:48
Speaker 1: first line at defense. When we're talking about antidepressants, it's
7:51
Speaker 1: very safe. The I mean, how effective is it. It's
7:54
Speaker 1: actually in question of how really effective it is to
7:58
Speaker 1: treat depression. But it is definitely the safest, it's not addictive,
8:02
Speaker 1: the side effects compared to other antidepressants are relatively low.
8:07
Speaker 1: But why are we prescribing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors when
8:11
Speaker 1: we're talking about generalized anxiety? So serotonin is involved in
8:17
Speaker 1: a lot of mood disorders, so depression and also anxiety,
8:20
Speaker 1: So there's this imbalance in serotonin within the brain. So
8:24
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do is we're trying to increase
8:26
Speaker 1: the availability of serotonin in the sign apps, which is
8:30
Speaker 1: the gap between the two cells, in order for the
8:33
Speaker 1: brain to be able to take in or the receiving
8:36
Speaker 1: cells to be able to take in more serotonin, which
8:38
Speaker 1: is going to regulate your mood, which includes depression and
8:41
Speaker 1: anxiety being one of those mood regulating things that that
8:46
Speaker 1: serotonin takes care of. So these chemical messengers basically very
8:52
Speaker 1: much in a nutshell. Because you guys have heard me
8:53
Speaker 1: describe it. If you're a long time listening, you know
8:55
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about. But what happens is serotonin gets
8:57
Speaker 1: stumped out of one cell the other cell then receive
8:59
Speaker 1: you know, it lands on the other cell. The channels open,
9:02
Speaker 1: you get ions coming in. The ion channels open, there's
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Speaker 1: an influx, and then they close and then the remaining
9:08
Speaker 1: serotonin that's left in that gap gets picked up by
9:10
Speaker 1: these like pumps or these transporter cells and they pump
9:13
Speaker 1: them back into the original cell. So that's what normally
9:15
Speaker 1: happens when someone has low levels of serotonin. This also
9:18
Speaker 1: happens for dopamine. There's many drugs that kind of work
9:21
Speaker 1: in this reuptake inhibition way, but the actual drug antidepressant
9:27
Speaker 1: that you're taking is basically blocking the reuptake of that serotonin.
9:31
Speaker 1: So then what happens is, because the serotonin doesn't get
9:33
Speaker 1: picked up and pumped back into the original cell, it
9:35
Speaker 1: hangs around for a bit longer, and then the channels
9:38
Speaker 1: open again, you get that activity again. Then they close
9:40
Speaker 1: and they open again and you get that So you're
9:42
Speaker 1: getting more opportunity for the serotonin to play its role
9:46
Speaker 1: on that secondary cell, on that other neuron where we're
9:50
Speaker 1: trying to send that message to and therefore serotonin is
9:54
Speaker 1: able to kind of regulate your mood. It's got more
9:59
Speaker 1: of a chance to regular your mood a little bit better. However,
10:02
Speaker 1: it does take a while, so if you're on an SSRI,
10:04
Speaker 1: it can take up two weeks sometimes more for it
10:07
Speaker 1: for its actions to really like kick in. Next question,
10:10
Speaker 1: how am I extroverted and also socially anxious? So there's
10:15
Speaker 1: a combination of the two. Someone also said similar question,
10:19
Speaker 1: how to treat it if I am a confident teacher
10:21
Speaker 1: but then really struggle with social anxiety in staff meetings.
10:25
Speaker 1: So social anxiety disorder is very, very highly situational. That's
10:29
Speaker 1: why it's different to generalized anxiety. If you have anxiety
10:32
Speaker 1: all the time with any potential stressful moment, you're looking
10:37
Speaker 1: more like a generalized anxiety disorder. If we're talking about
10:40
Speaker 1: social anxiety, it's going to be extremely situational. And one
10:44
Speaker 1: thing that's really important to note is being shy and
10:47
Speaker 1: having social anxiety disorder is completely different. There are many
10:50
Speaker 1: extravert and it's kind of a bit of a misconception
10:52
Speaker 1: that if you have social anxiety disorder, you're all so
10:55
Speaker 1: shy and you're an introvert. That's not the case. A
10:58
Speaker 1: lot of people with social anxiety disorder actually very extroverted.
11:01
Speaker 1: But they have social anxiety in particular cases that can
11:04
Speaker 1: be extremely debilitating. And once they've gone through therapy and
11:07
Speaker 1: once they've done all this stuff that I'm going to
11:09
Speaker 1: explain to you what can be done through therapy with
11:11
Speaker 1: the therapist, like properly, they're actually able to be the
11:15
Speaker 1: life of the party again. They're able to return to, like,
11:17
Speaker 1: you know, their true sense of themselves, like the extrovert
11:21
Speaker 1: that they always were. So it's really important to understand
11:25
Speaker 1: that if you're having a moment where you're like, wait
11:27
Speaker 1: a minute, but do I even have social anxiety? Why
11:30
Speaker 1: am I feeling this way? If I like to be extraverted?
11:31
Speaker 1: That is why. So when I talk about it's highly situational.
11:35
Speaker 1: It's not a trait. It's not a personality trait or
11:37
Speaker 1: a character trait. It's a disorder and it's going to
11:39
Speaker 1: flare up depending on the trigger. So there's going to
11:43
Speaker 1: be certain things that trigger some people in certain things
11:46
Speaker 1: that trigger others. So when you're doing something that you're
11:48
Speaker 1: super confident and comfortable in in a comfortable environment, you're
11:51
Speaker 1: likely going to be fine. If you're comfortable around your students,
11:54
Speaker 1: and you're very confident in the work that you do
11:56
Speaker 1: as a teacher, then you're going to probably feel really
11:58
Speaker 1: great around students, and if there were new students coming in.
12:01
Speaker 1: If you're very confident in your work as a teacher,
12:04
Speaker 1: you're likely going to be fine. But when you're fearful
12:07
Speaker 1: of being judged this is one of the big ones.
12:09
Speaker 1: Or when you're under pressure to perform, or if you're
12:12
Speaker 1: also in an unfamiliar environment, these are potential triggers that
12:15
Speaker 1: could set it off. So if you're someone that is
12:17
Speaker 1: worried that maybe your superiors might be judging you and
12:19
Speaker 1: you have to perform in a certain way in a
12:21
Speaker 1: staff meeting, maybe you've got to ask for something, maybe
12:23
Speaker 1: you've got to present something, maybe you've got to explain something.
12:26
Speaker 1: This could be one of the reasons why your social
12:28
Speaker 1: anxiety will flare up there and not in the classroom.
12:32
Speaker 1: Next question, does putting yourself in uncomfortable positions help reduce
12:36
Speaker 1: it in a nutshell? Yes, but I'm going to explain
12:38
Speaker 1: in detail why that is later. Next question, how long
12:41
Speaker 1: does it take to rewire these anxious patterns? So the
12:43
Speaker 1: time for treatment. This is if we're doing actual therapy
12:46
Speaker 1: treatment to see significant improvement. It seems to be within
12:51
Speaker 1: eight to twelve weeks of therapy you see significant improvement.
12:54
Speaker 1: So you're really noticing a difference, You're really being able
12:56
Speaker 1: to get out in the world again and feeling a
12:58
Speaker 1: lot more like you've really got the two to manage it.
13:01
Speaker 1: And then like really great effects where you're not having
13:04
Speaker 1: to consciously think about it that much is from three
13:06
Speaker 1: to six months. There are some people that claim that
13:08
Speaker 1: they've completely quote unquote cured their social anxiety. Other papers
13:13
Speaker 1: say that it's not something that you cure, but it's
13:15
Speaker 1: something that you manage very very well until it no
13:17
Speaker 1: longer negatively affects your life. But would you consider that
13:20
Speaker 1: a cure or would you consider it managing? I don't know,
13:22
Speaker 1: But there are people that say they're able to like
13:24
Speaker 1: return to, you know, or turn to their version of
13:27
Speaker 1: their extraverted selves in all areas, So I would deem
13:30
Speaker 1: that as kind of curing. But when we talk about
13:34
Speaker 1: like the scientific ins and outs of it, there's going
13:37
Speaker 1: to be different versions of what you consider curing. Next question,
13:41
Speaker 1: how does rejection sensitivity dysphoria interact with social anxiety for
13:46
Speaker 1: neurodivergent people, so they're highly highly intertwined. Rejection sensitivity dysphoria
13:52
Speaker 1: and social anxiety disorder are very heavily intertwined. There's many
13:56
Speaker 1: people that have a crossover of the two, given that
13:59
Speaker 1: both have to do with fear of judgment and avoidance behaviors,
14:02
Speaker 1: so you're going to see a bit of a crossover,
14:04
Speaker 1: but they are two different things. I have a whole
14:05
Speaker 1: episode on rejection sensitivity dysphorias. If you're interested, definitely go
14:09
Speaker 1: check that one out. But also, neurodivergent individuals are also
14:15
Speaker 1: susceptible to these conditions because the way they process rejection
14:20
Speaker 1: is going to be different to neurotypical people. Not in
14:23
Speaker 1: every case, but in a lot of cases. That's what
14:25
Speaker 1: we see. So you're going to see that a lot
14:27
Speaker 1: of people with who are neurodivergent, people with ADHD may
14:30
Speaker 1: have higher levels of rejection sensitivity dysphoria than neurotypical people.
14:35
Speaker 1: Next question, how to deal with close friends and partners
14:38
Speaker 1: having social anxiety. This is a really good question. So
14:40
Speaker 1: the first thing is you want to be validating their
14:42
Speaker 1: feelings without enabling avoidance behaviors, so you're not forcing them
14:47
Speaker 1: to do certain things you're saying, I understand that this
14:50
Speaker 1: would be really difficult for you. I understand that this
14:52
Speaker 1: is a major problem for you. I understand that it
14:54
Speaker 1: would be So you're not saying you'll be right, Oh,
14:56
Speaker 1: suck it up. Oh. So by invalidating their feeling is
15:00
Speaker 1: saying things like, you'll be right, don't worry about it,
15:02
Speaker 1: you'll get over it, suck it up, You're just shy,
15:06
Speaker 1: you're just an introvert, it's normal. Those statements don't help
15:10
Speaker 1: at all, and they actually make the person feel completely invalidated.
15:13
Speaker 1: They also make them feel like there's something wrong with them,
15:15
Speaker 1: because if they're just shy and just introverted, then how
15:18
Speaker 1: come others shy and introverted people can kind of get
15:20
Speaker 1: by and not feel like this debilitating, debilitating, crippling feeling.
15:25
Speaker 1: They're going to start to feel like, wow, is something
15:27
Speaker 1: actually wrong with me? If I'm just quote unquite shy
15:32
Speaker 1: and so you're validating this. You're not forcing them, but
15:35
Speaker 1: you're also encouraging them to do small steps. So, for example,
15:40
Speaker 1: let's say your partner has social anxiety and they really
15:42
Speaker 1: don't want to go to this event. Enabling it would
15:45
Speaker 1: say no, no, no, no, no, you really shouldn't go
15:47
Speaker 1: to these events. Your social anxiety is going to be
15:50
Speaker 1: like you're almost like saying absolutely, like, don't do that,
15:53
Speaker 1: because that's not helping them in the long term. It's
15:56
Speaker 1: helping them in that moment not to feel anxious, but
15:58
Speaker 1: if they want to actually move on from this social
16:00
Speaker 1: anxiety and recover, it's not going to help them. But
16:02
Speaker 1: you also don't want to force them to come to
16:04
Speaker 1: the event either. Another thing you shouldn't do is for
16:06
Speaker 1: you not to go to the event. You still have
16:08
Speaker 1: to display very normal behaviors. You still have to say
16:11
Speaker 1: I understand it. If you don't want to go, you know,
16:14
Speaker 1: you make the call and I will support you. I
16:17
Speaker 1: will be going okay, So you still have to do
16:19
Speaker 1: your everyday normal life. One thing you could do is
16:22
Speaker 1: encourage small steps. You could say, why don't you drop
16:25
Speaker 1: me off, or why don't you come with me for
16:26
Speaker 1: the first ten minutes and we're both going to be
16:28
Speaker 1: there and then you can leave. You can come up
16:30
Speaker 1: with a reason why you want to leave so you've
16:31
Speaker 1: got that safety buffer, or you could you know, any
16:34
Speaker 1: kind of small steps to encourage that kind of interaction
16:37
Speaker 1: and you could say it depends what kind of social
16:40
Speaker 1: anxiety they have. But if it's with interacting with any stranger,
16:42
Speaker 1: you could say, why don't you just ask a conversation
16:44
Speaker 1: to this stranger when you're buying a coffee from them
16:47
Speaker 1: or whatever, like little tiny things, and you're just encouraging.
16:50
Speaker 1: You're not forcing them to go to something. You're also
16:52
Speaker 1: not making them feel invalidated by making statements that just
16:56
Speaker 1: are simply not true or that make them feel like
16:58
Speaker 1: it should be easy to over come when it's really not.
17:02
Speaker 1: And then the last question before I go into the
17:06
Speaker 1: whole ins and outs is why do I have it
17:08
Speaker 1: and sometimes I don't? Does it correlate with my monthly cycle? Now,
17:12
Speaker 1: this is going to be very convoluted, so I'm not
17:14
Speaker 1: going to go too crazy into it, but from what
17:17
Speaker 1: I have gathered with my research into this article, this
17:21
Speaker 1: fucking podcast, is if you have anxiety social anxiety disorder,
17:27
Speaker 1: you might notice fluctuations within the month, but it's not
17:29
Speaker 1: going to go away completely and then fully come when
17:33
Speaker 1: you know when you're noticing a fluctuation, it's not going
17:35
Speaker 1: to come and go completely. That's not social anxiety disorder,
17:39
Speaker 1: So that's not going to happen. But what will happen
17:42
Speaker 1: is something called pre menstrual dysphoric disorder where you see
17:46
Speaker 1: severe clinical levels of anxiety and then it entirely resolving
17:52
Speaker 1: later in your cycle. So it's not a social anxiety disorder.
17:55
Speaker 1: So if you feel that that is happening, then look
17:59
Speaker 1: up pm DD. Okay, not social anxiety because basically what
18:05
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say is that it's not going to
18:06
Speaker 1: bring on clinical anxiety disorder and then make it completely disappear.
18:10
Speaker 1: Clinical social anxiety disorder and then make it disappear. That's
18:14
Speaker 1: you're not going to say that. You're more likely going
18:15
Speaker 1: to see PMDD. So if you feel that that's happening,
18:18
Speaker 1: I would look into PMDD and kind of go down
18:22
Speaker 1: that path and see if that makes more sense for you. Also,
18:28
Speaker 1: there is the Social Anxiety Institute website. I've got a
18:32
Speaker 1: bit of information from there, So if you are looking
18:34
Speaker 1: for a good resource social institution, Social Anxiety Institute dot
18:38
Speaker 1: org has some really good resources there. Now, like I said,
18:41
Speaker 1: we don't want it to be confused with being shy
18:43
Speaker 1: or introverted. Being shy is a personal personality trade. It's
18:46
Speaker 1: not a disorder, and it's not viewed as a negative thing.
18:49
Speaker 1: A lot of people who are shy don't view it
18:51
Speaker 1: as a negative thing because it's not okay. They don't
18:54
Speaker 1: feel They might feel discomfort having to be extroverted because
18:58
Speaker 1: it's not within their nature, but it's not debilitating, it's
19:01
Speaker 1: not crippling, it doesn't make them feel this fight or flight,
19:05
Speaker 1: this horrible physical symptoms in their body. They just dislike
19:09
Speaker 1: being super social and being the life of the party.
19:12
Speaker 1: That's just not their vibe, okay. So while they might
19:15
Speaker 1: be discomfort in having to do it, it's not viewed
19:19
Speaker 1: as a disorder. And like I said earlier, many people
19:22
Speaker 1: with anxiety disorders are actually not shy. A lot of
19:24
Speaker 1: them are extroverted and the disorder is actually holding them
19:27
Speaker 1: back from doing what they love or being the person
19:29
Speaker 1: that they wish that they could be. And once they
19:31
Speaker 1: work through it, they're actually able to be social again
19:35
Speaker 1: and be the life of the party and all of that.
19:37
Speaker 1: So the key difference between the two is you want
19:40
Speaker 1: to look at social anxiety as not a normal facet
19:45
Speaker 1: of a personality, or it's not a personal characteristic or
19:48
Speaker 1: a personality trait, whereas shyness is. Now let's look at
19:57
Speaker 1: the DSM five definition for social anxiet disorder so A
20:02
Speaker 1: and so DSM five is the that manual that all
20:06
Speaker 1: psychiatrists and psychologists kind of look at and it gets
20:09
Speaker 1: updated every so often. So the latest one is the
20:13
Speaker 1: DSM five. So it's they differ slightly from the DSM four,
20:16
Speaker 1: especially social anxiety disorder, there's just a very small differences
20:20
Speaker 1: from the last one. So A A persistent fear of
20:24
Speaker 1: one or more social or performance situations in which the
20:27
Speaker 1: person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny
20:31
Speaker 1: by others. The individual fears that he or she will
20:34
Speaker 1: act in a way or show anxiety symptoms that will
20:37
Speaker 1: be embarrassing and humiliating. B. Exposure to the fears situation
20:41
Speaker 1: almost invariably provokes anxiety, which makes which may take the
20:46
Speaker 1: form of a situationally bound or situationally predisposed panic attack.
20:51
Speaker 1: So this you don't have to have all of them.
20:53
Speaker 1: So if you've never had a panic attack, it doesn't
20:55
Speaker 1: mean that you don't have social anxiety. See the person
20:58
Speaker 1: recognizes that this fear is unre or excessive. D the
21:02
Speaker 1: feared situations are avoided or else are endured with intense
21:05
Speaker 1: anxiety and distress. E the avoidance, anxious, anticipation, or distress
21:10
Speaker 1: in the feared social or performance situations interferes significantly with
21:14
Speaker 1: a person's normal routine occupational comma like in Bracket's academic
21:19
Speaker 1: functioning or social activities or relationships, or there is a
21:22
Speaker 1: marked distress about having the phobia, if the fear, anxiety,
21:26
Speaker 1: or avoidance is persistent, typically lasting six months or more,
21:30
Speaker 1: and G the fear of or avoidance is not due
21:33
Speaker 1: to direct physiological effects for substance ej. Drugs or medication,
21:37
Speaker 1: or a general medical condition not better accounted for by
21:40
Speaker 1: another mental disorder. So that's kind of what the definition
21:45
Speaker 1: is for social anxiety disorder. And you don't have to
21:48
Speaker 1: have all of them. I think it's I think it's three,
21:52
Speaker 1: a minimum of three. Maybe it's a minimum of four. Okay,
21:54
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about the key brain regions involved. So
21:58
Speaker 1: we've got the amigdala. I've spoken about that, and in
22:02
Speaker 1: social anxiety disorder, you're seeing that overactive amigdala. When we're
22:08
Speaker 1: talking about social stresses, so public speaking, things like eye contact,
22:12
Speaker 1: interacting with people that you don't know that well, entering
22:15
Speaker 1: a room full of people. It basically treats these situations
22:19
Speaker 1: as a physical threat, so you're going to trigger the
22:23
Speaker 1: release of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, and you're
22:26
Speaker 1: going to like trigger that sympathetic nervous system fight or flight.
22:31
Speaker 1: Then you've got the prefrontal cortex, which is located just
22:34
Speaker 1: behind the forehead, and this is responsible for like logic,
22:38
Speaker 1: self control, rational thinking, all of that. So normally, the
22:41
Speaker 1: prefrontal context is able to communicate with amigdala quite easily,
22:45
Speaker 1: but we're seeing that in social anxiety disorder and in
22:48
Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety disorders, if not all anxiety anxiety disorders,
22:52
Speaker 1: This inhibition is weakened, so you're not able to inhibit
22:55
Speaker 1: the amygdala as much as you would like. So the
22:57
Speaker 1: amygdala has like free reign over the brain in this
23:00
Speaker 1: acute moment, so you're basically unable to talk yourself down
23:06
Speaker 1: from these social fears in the moment that it's happening.
23:09
Speaker 1: And then the insular cortex, so this region processes interception,
23:14
Speaker 1: so this is how you perceive physical sensations in your body.
23:18
Speaker 1: And when this part of the brain is hyperactive, you
23:21
Speaker 1: are hyper aware of what's going on in your body
23:25
Speaker 1: to the extent that you start to focus so much
23:29
Speaker 1: on them that you're thinking, this is unpanicking, it's extreme stress.
23:32
Speaker 1: I'm panicking, and it's really hard to take the focus off.
23:34
Speaker 1: It's different to paying attention to your breath to kind
23:37
Speaker 1: of slow down, because the breath, a slow breath is
23:39
Speaker 1: actually a positive symptom to pay attention to. But it's
23:42
Speaker 1: more when you're like, my heart is racing, my heart
23:43
Speaker 1: is racing, I'm burning up. I'm burning up, I'm burning up,
23:46
Speaker 1: I'm hands are tingling, I'm feeling faint, I'm feeling faint.
23:48
Speaker 1: And so if all your attention is going into all
23:50
Speaker 1: these symptoms, it's going to exacerbate, exacerbate, exacerbate. The media
23:54
Speaker 1: us starts blowing up the insular cortex, and then the
23:56
Speaker 1: prefrontal cortex has that like weakened inhibition to like then
24:00
Speaker 1: inhibitory pathway, and then obviously you have to fucking leave
24:04
Speaker 1: to stop these symptoms from getting worse and worse and worse. Now,
24:07
Speaker 1: the chemical messages, the neurochemicals, the neurotransmitter is involved as serotonin,
24:12
Speaker 1: which like I said, regulates mood and social behavior. And
24:16
Speaker 1: when yeah, when we've got altered release of serotonin or
24:20
Speaker 1: something going on within the serotonin pathways, we're also going
24:23
Speaker 1: to see more fear and anxiety experience by the individual.
24:28
Speaker 1: And then dopamin is as well, so this is the
24:30
Speaker 1: reward processing chemical and also involved in movement as well
24:34
Speaker 1: as many, like so many other things that dopamin does,
24:38
Speaker 1: but it's the disruption of dopamin and social anxiety is
24:41
Speaker 1: thought to kind of disrupt this flow of a normal
24:46
Speaker 1: social interaction like smiling, eye contact, easy speech, feeling kind
24:51
Speaker 1: of elated when you're having a nice, comfortable conversation. Disruptions
24:55
Speaker 1: in dopamin might kind of interrupt that and then you
24:59
Speaker 1: feel instead of feeling good, you're going to feel awkward
25:01
Speaker 1: and you're going to kind of not want to like
25:05
Speaker 1: encourage these social interactions. There's a paper that if you
25:08
Speaker 1: want to check out more than neurological side effect, and
25:10
Speaker 1: it's called Neurobiological Aspects of Social Anxiety Disorder. So if
25:14
Speaker 1: you look that up, the paper should come up on Google,
25:17
Speaker 1: and this talks about what happens with someone with social
25:22
Speaker 1: anxiety disorder. They are more likely to perceive, you know,
25:27
Speaker 1: a neutral face with a negative emotion, so when they're
25:32
Speaker 1: shown different faces someone without social anxiety disorder can perceive
25:35
Speaker 1: a neutral stimulus like a neutral face, a happy face
25:38
Speaker 1: as being fine, and then an angry face is someone
25:41
Speaker 1: being angry. But when someone has social anxiety disorder and
25:44
Speaker 1: they're agonized by being criticized or rejected, they're going to
25:47
Speaker 1: be super sensitive to facial expressions and they might be
25:50
Speaker 1: interpreting a normal face, even as a happy face, as
25:54
Speaker 1: someone disliking them or hostility. So it's this exaggerated response
26:00
Speaker 1: within the amygdala to anger or threatening faces in comparison
26:04
Speaker 1: to healthy, controlled subjects. Now, let's talk about treatment and
26:09
Speaker 1: how treatments can actually alter the brain. So we're talking
26:12
Speaker 1: about what kind of treatments you can do, but also
26:15
Speaker 1: how treatments can alter the brain. So cognitive behavioral therapy
26:19
Speaker 1: and obviously SSRRIS, like I mentioned before, you can take
26:23
Speaker 1: drugs to treat it, which for a lot of individuals
26:25
Speaker 1: can be very helpful. Not for everyone. Drugs don't work
26:27
Speaker 1: on everyone, but for many people they find it very helpful.
26:30
Speaker 1: But one thing that's really important to note if you
26:32
Speaker 1: are taking an SSR RI, it's always important to take
26:35
Speaker 1: it alongside a cognitive behavioral therapy. Same goes for when
26:38
Speaker 1: you're doing it for depression. The most effective results are
26:41
Speaker 1: when you combine the drug with cognitive behavioral therapy. The
26:44
Speaker 1: drug alone without any kind of therapy is not going
26:48
Speaker 1: to be nowhere near as effective as when you combine
26:49
Speaker 1: the two together. So super important, and if you're wanting
26:52
Speaker 1: to get off that drug as well, you want that
26:56
Speaker 1: foundation of your cognitive behavioral therapy to kind of hold
26:58
Speaker 1: you up once the drug is gone. So what happens
27:02
Speaker 1: when we do cognitive behavioral therapy is we get reduced
27:04
Speaker 1: imigial hyperactivity. You start to normalize this alarm system through
27:08
Speaker 1: like repeated therapies so it doesn't overapt to social cure,
27:12
Speaker 1: so you kind of learn to talk it down eventually,
27:14
Speaker 1: and you're strengthening the prefrontal cortex. You're kind of restoring
27:17
Speaker 1: the ability to inhibit and to like create calm when
27:21
Speaker 1: there's a fear response. So yeah, in a nutshell, social
27:24
Speaker 1: anxiety is highly treatable and there's, yeah, a whole bunch
27:30
Speaker 1: of things that you can do. So the first one
27:31
Speaker 1: is exposure therapy also known as gradual confrontation. So you
27:35
Speaker 1: basically ideally you want to be doing this with a therapist.
27:38
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about treating serious clinical disorders. You
27:44
Speaker 1: want to be doing it with a therapist that is
27:46
Speaker 1: the best by far way to do it. So this
27:50
Speaker 1: fear hierarchy. You're working with a therapist and you're going
27:53
Speaker 1: through what your main triggers are, and you're going to
27:56
Speaker 1: be ranking them from the most intimidating fear trigger to
27:58
Speaker 1: the least intimidating fear trigger, and then you're going to
28:02
Speaker 1: kind of start with the lowest one and you're going
28:05
Speaker 1: to work your way up and you're going to be
28:06
Speaker 1: thinking about ways that you could actually tackle this thing
28:10
Speaker 1: without it bringing on crazy anxiety. So you're exposing yourself
28:15
Speaker 1: to the situation that you were fearful of, but in
28:17
Speaker 1: a safe way. And it's a systematic way of like
28:21
Speaker 1: safely confronting these things where you start to realize it's
28:24
Speaker 1: actually okay. So let's say I can't talk to any stranger.
28:27
Speaker 1: A good one is going to someone who's actually working
28:30
Speaker 1: in customer service because you do understand that they're likely
28:33
Speaker 1: not going to react poorly because it's their job to
28:36
Speaker 1: actually work in customer service. So that's a good one.
28:38
Speaker 1: Another one would be going up to a stranger and
28:41
Speaker 1: just complimenting them or going up to somebody who looks
28:45
Speaker 1: like they need help and saying do you need help?
28:47
Speaker 1: So little things like that can actually help start to
28:51
Speaker 1: feel safer. Another one we'd be making phone calls. People
28:53
Speaker 1: really hate to make phone calls. So you could start
28:55
Speaker 1: with a phone call that you know is not going
28:57
Speaker 1: to take too long. Maybe it's just a book an appointment.
29:00
Speaker 1: You start with that. Then you could start with a
29:01
Speaker 1: more difficult phone call where you're asking questions about something.
29:04
Speaker 1: You're calling to inquire about something, which is a lot
29:06
Speaker 1: harder than just booking an appointment, and so things like
29:08
Speaker 1: that as well. So you start, you're listing these things
29:11
Speaker 1: and you start to work through it. And with this
29:13
Speaker 1: exposure therapy, the more you're exposed, the better you're going
29:17
Speaker 1: to feel because you expose yourself and then you realize
29:20
Speaker 1: that you're able to overcome it. Even if this situation
29:22
Speaker 1: isn't totally pleasant. You realize, well, I didn't the worst
29:27
Speaker 1: case scenario didn't happen, Like, I didn't pass out, I
29:29
Speaker 1: didn't die. I was actually okay. I was able to
29:32
Speaker 1: work through it, and even though I didn't love it, it
29:35
Speaker 1: was actually fine. So when we talk about going to
29:38
Speaker 1: a party, you could think Okay, I'm actually just going
29:41
Speaker 1: to rock up for ten minutes. I'm going to rock up,
29:43
Speaker 1: do the rounds, literally walk around. Even if I'm a
29:46
Speaker 1: loner and I don't speak to anyone and no one
29:48
Speaker 1: talks to me, that's cool, and then I leave. Then
29:50
Speaker 1: the next one is I'm going to try and talk
29:52
Speaker 1: to someone, and if no one talks back to me,
29:53
Speaker 1: I'm still going to be like, well I did that,
29:55
Speaker 1: and then I can leave once I've spoken to someone.
29:58
Speaker 1: Maybe when I'm getting a drink, you can to someone
30:00
Speaker 1: at the bar and say heyah, and you know talking
30:03
Speaker 1: to them. Now. Behavioral changes. We want to be changing
30:08
Speaker 1: these safety behaviors that really impact how you feel. Because
30:13
Speaker 1: if you're someone that's like, well, I have been exposing
30:14
Speaker 1: myself to this, but you're always leaning on your crutch
30:18
Speaker 1: to feel like this like safety crutch to feel safe,
30:22
Speaker 1: then you're never going to get better because you've always
30:24
Speaker 1: got this thing that you're leaning on. So really big
30:26
Speaker 1: one is being on your phone to avoid eye contact
30:30
Speaker 1: with people at a social event, to avoid having to
30:32
Speaker 1: talk to someone, and pretending that you're really busy on
30:35
Speaker 1: your phone, pretending that you're like, oh, I've really got
30:37
Speaker 1: a reply to these messages, or of really instead of
30:39
Speaker 1: just standing there. The thought of just standing there is
30:41
Speaker 1: like terrifying, But being on your phone is that like
30:44
Speaker 1: safety behavior? So how can we start to drop these
30:47
Speaker 1: safety behaviors in a way that's not going to feel
30:49
Speaker 1: so scary and in a step by step process. Then
30:53
Speaker 1: another one is shifting focus as well. So when I
30:56
Speaker 1: was talking about when we way too focused on our
30:59
Speaker 1: internal symptoms, it can sometimes exacerbate the problem. So we
31:03
Speaker 1: could start to focus on the external environment. So every
31:07
Speaker 1: time we start, oh my god, my heart rate, I
31:09
Speaker 1: could think about, okay, maybe I'm going to notice how
31:13
Speaker 1: many red things are in the room, or I'm going
31:14
Speaker 1: to notice something about the bar that I'm looking at,
31:17
Speaker 1: or these individuals or something. We start to distract our
31:21
Speaker 1: brain in a healthy way so we're not so fixated
31:25
Speaker 1: on these physical symptoms. Because when we get a nice distraction,
31:27
Speaker 1: before you know, you're not even thinking about your heart
31:29
Speaker 1: beating so fast. And then role playing is also like
31:34
Speaker 1: social skills practice. You can actually role play with your
31:36
Speaker 1: therapist or with someone who's coming on this journey with
31:39
Speaker 1: you and understands where you're at and how you're feeling.
31:42
Speaker 1: That's a really good way as well. You can practice
31:44
Speaker 1: what an interaction could look like if you're going to
31:46
Speaker 1: an event, how you could start up a conversation, and
31:49
Speaker 1: when you have this ability to communicate and know what
31:53
Speaker 1: you're going to say without overly rehearsing it. Of course,
31:55
Speaker 1: just like Oh, I'm just going to practice different ways
31:57
Speaker 1: to start a conversation or to approach someone, or to
31:59
Speaker 1: answer question or to ask a question back. So yeah,
32:03
Speaker 1: doing this kind of role play with your therapist or
32:07
Speaker 1: a friend is actually going to help you practice assertiveness,
32:11
Speaker 1: help you practice feeling just confident, and it's going to
32:14
Speaker 1: help you practice what it looks like to just introduce yourself.
32:17
Speaker 1: Sometimes you can arrive at an event and you might
32:19
Speaker 1: not know someone yet, and you can walk up to
32:22
Speaker 1: maybe the food table or a bar or whatever, or
32:24
Speaker 1: you could say, Hi, I'm Alexis, I'm you know, depending
32:28
Speaker 1: on the event, say it's a birthday, I'm really good
32:31
Speaker 1: friends with you know, Joe the birthday person we met
32:34
Speaker 1: at UNI. Nice to meet you, right, and then they're
32:39
Speaker 1: gonna obviously reply with the same thing, Oh yeah, i'm
32:41
Speaker 1: someone So I actually work with Joe now, and you're cool, cool, cool,
32:45
Speaker 1: So I had it and then boom conversation. Okay, So
32:48
Speaker 1: little things like that. If you go to like a
32:50
Speaker 1: work event, you rock up and you say, oh, hi,
32:52
Speaker 1: I just got here. I actually realized I haven't. There's
32:55
Speaker 1: no one I know here yet. My name's Alexis, I
32:57
Speaker 1: work in this field whatever, So nice to meet you. Normally,
33:00
Speaker 1: when you say so nice to meet you, unless someone
33:02
Speaker 1: is also feeling extremely awkward, they're not going to shut
33:04
Speaker 1: you down. They might be like, oh, that's just met
33:05
Speaker 1: your walk away. And if they do that, you probably
33:09
Speaker 1: you can be quite sympathetic with them because you might realize,
33:11
Speaker 1: oh my god, this person has crazy anxiety as well.
33:14
Speaker 1: Because for the most part, especially at an event where
33:17
Speaker 1: people are going together to socialize, it's very unlikely that
33:20
Speaker 1: someone's just going to be like oh and shut you
33:22
Speaker 1: down unless they are really suffering as well. So it's
33:25
Speaker 1: important to not interpret that as them like wanting to
33:28
Speaker 1: shut you down. And this is what cognitive behavioral therapy
33:31
Speaker 1: and cognitive reappraisal is going to help you do. It's
33:33
Speaker 1: going to help you look at how people do react
33:36
Speaker 1: and give yourself reasons that are not worst case scenarios
33:39
Speaker 1: to maybe why they might not have reacted in the
33:41
Speaker 1: best way, because if someone's going to shut you off
33:43
Speaker 1: and shut you down, it might be because they feel
33:45
Speaker 1: the exact same way you do, and it's not because
33:48
Speaker 1: they are a threat to you and they dislike you
33:51
Speaker 1: because they don't actually know you for the most part.
33:53
Speaker 1: So those are the main things that we're talking about.
33:57
Speaker 1: Cognitive reappraisal, social skills practice. Shifting focus is a huge
34:01
Speaker 1: one for your physical symptoms, dropping the safety behaviors, the
34:04
Speaker 1: gradual practice where you're working your way up the ladder
34:07
Speaker 1: and understanding this fear hierarchy where you're starting with like
34:10
Speaker 1: the easiest one and then you're working way up and
34:12
Speaker 1: up and up. And I have mentioned this before. I'm
34:14
Speaker 1: pretty sure, but there's this guy that that I do follow,
34:17
Speaker 1: I think on Instagram, and he's talking about like getting
34:21
Speaker 1: rejected for one hundred days and seeing what happens, and
34:24
Speaker 1: his aim it was kind of like a to like
34:28
Speaker 1: get better at dealing with rejection, and he was working
34:31
Speaker 1: with a therapist to do this. But his aim was
34:32
Speaker 1: to expose himself to rejection until it no longer hurts
34:37
Speaker 1: so much. So he would go out into the world
34:39
Speaker 1: and just ask people to join them for a drink,
34:41
Speaker 1: or ask people to join them for a game of
34:43
Speaker 1: chess at a bar when there was a chess table there,
34:45
Speaker 1: or ask someone if they could teach them how to fish.
34:47
Speaker 1: He was just fishing at a lake or ask and
34:49
Speaker 1: he was like seventy three days in and it was
34:52
Speaker 1: filming all the interactions and only three times was he rejected.
34:56
Speaker 1: So even when you're trying to be rejected, he was
34:59
Speaker 1: finding that the absolute strangers were, for the most like,
35:02
Speaker 1: for like ninety percent of the time, were really open
35:07
Speaker 1: and warm and lovely. So while there are going to
35:10
Speaker 1: be times in life where people are just not going
35:13
Speaker 1: to be nice a lot of the time because they
35:14
Speaker 1: might just be going through their own shit and a
35:16
Speaker 1: very small solid for the time because they're just a cunt,
35:19
Speaker 1: it's you'll realize that for the most part, people are
35:23
Speaker 1: good and people want to have a nice interaction with
35:26
Speaker 1: other people. We were all in the same boat nine
35:29
Speaker 1: to nine point ninety nine percent of the time. You're
35:31
Speaker 1: going to see that most people in the same boat
35:33
Speaker 1: where they do want to have this positive social interaction.
35:35
Speaker 1: Another thing that I will say is, and this will
35:38
Speaker 1: happen with behavioral therapy, is really be aware of reading
35:41
Speaker 1: the room as well, because you don't want to get
35:43
Speaker 1: yourself into a situation where you're like, I'm forcing this
35:46
Speaker 1: interaction and then the interaction didn't come and then you think,
35:49
Speaker 1: oh my god, I was rejected. An example of this,
35:51
Speaker 1: let's say you're someone who's never goes to social events
35:54
Speaker 1: and whatever. If you see two people having a really
35:56
Speaker 1: deep conversation, inserting yourself in the middle of a really
35:59
Speaker 1: deep conversation is probably going to be met with a
36:01
Speaker 1: little bit of pushback because you might have interrupted something
36:04
Speaker 1: quite intense and where they may be talking about something
36:07
Speaker 1: quite private. So it's also and this your therapist will
36:10
Speaker 1: talk through you with all these things. But it's also
36:13
Speaker 1: this identifying of like, where can I look at a
36:16
Speaker 1: surface level interaction where someone would likely be open. And
36:19
Speaker 1: that's why when someone's waiting to order a drink, or
36:22
Speaker 1: when someone you can see that two people are just
36:24
Speaker 1: meeting and they clearly don't know each other either, that's
36:26
Speaker 1: a nice time to approach and say, hey, guys, you
36:29
Speaker 1: know things like that where people are just arriving and
36:31
Speaker 1: they're kind of mingling, there's a difference and we can
36:34
Speaker 1: tell with body language are they leaning in? Is a
36:35
Speaker 1: really intimate conversation versus this open kind of group introduction
36:39
Speaker 1: to each other. Little things like that, and you'll start
36:42
Speaker 1: getting better and better and better at reading people because
36:44
Speaker 1: initially you've got a rock up being like right exposure therapy,
36:47
Speaker 1: I've got a fucking and then you're like fucking intense
36:51
Speaker 1: and like I kind of I think all of us
36:53
Speaker 1: can empathize that be very intense. So one of the
36:56
Speaker 1: things that is really good to do is start to
36:58
Speaker 1: just observe and read the room. So NEXTI phercize that
37:00
Speaker 1: you could be doing even before putting yourself out there
37:02
Speaker 1: is people watch, you know, go to a cafe alone
37:06
Speaker 1: and just people watch and identify situations, say these I
37:09
Speaker 1: think these people might have just met. These people are
37:11
Speaker 1: clearly best friends having a conversation, These people are just
37:13
Speaker 1: about to meet for an interview, these people are on
37:16
Speaker 1: a first date. And you start getting accustomed to observing
37:20
Speaker 1: human behavior. What's an open conversation, what's a closed off conversation?
37:24
Speaker 1: And you're just sitting there alone, sipping on your coffee,
37:27
Speaker 1: and if you need a behavior that's going to you
37:30
Speaker 1: know how we're talking about these dropping the safety behaviors
37:32
Speaker 1: if you're alone and that triggers your social anxiety at
37:36
Speaker 1: a cafe, for example, then don't be on your phone.
37:39
Speaker 1: Have a book. Okay, that's a much softer safety behavior
37:42
Speaker 1: because the phone you're just getting grossed in it and
37:44
Speaker 1: then it shuts out the world. A book allows you
37:47
Speaker 1: to like put the book down, look up, return to
37:50
Speaker 1: the book. But it also allows for someone to interrupt
37:53
Speaker 1: if they want to start talking to you, which is
37:56
Speaker 1: best case scenario. Okay, guys, that is the podcast episode
38:00
Speaker 1: of today. I really liked putting this stuff together. I
38:04
Speaker 1: really loved answering all your questions. I love it when
38:06
Speaker 1: you guys, like there were so many questions that did
38:08
Speaker 1: come through. I just tried to bunch a lot of
38:10
Speaker 1: them together because a lot of the questions were similar
38:12
Speaker 1: in nature to each other. But I, yeah, I just
38:17
Speaker 1: I really enjoy doing these episodes because it's something that
38:19
Speaker 1: based on how many people were like liking the fact
38:21
Speaker 1: that I was doing this episode, or damning me or
38:23
Speaker 1: writing these messages, I think it's something that a lot
38:25
Speaker 1: of people do experience. You might have listened to this
38:28
Speaker 1: and said, well, I don't really relate to this social
38:31
Speaker 1: anxiety on the DSM five standards, but I can really
38:34
Speaker 1: see how a lot of the treatments for social anxiety
38:36
Speaker 1: disorder would actually help my maybe generalized anxiety, or maybe
38:40
Speaker 1: it's not a clinical disorder as such, but maybe I
38:44
Speaker 1: do feel a little bit uncomfortable in these environments and
38:47
Speaker 1: these tools will also help me. These tools don't just
38:51
Speaker 1: help people with a clinical diagnosis for social anxiety disorder.
38:54
Speaker 1: They're going to help anyone that feels uncomfortable in these settings.
38:58
Speaker 1: And you're going to notice that if you do it consistently,
39:02
Speaker 1: if you're doing it like working with a therapist, and
39:05
Speaker 1: you've got like a plan in place, some people do
39:08
Speaker 1: notice results between like what did I say? It was
39:11
Speaker 1: like eight to twelve weeks. You're starting to notice significant results, Okay.
39:16
Speaker 1: I also do encourage you to speak to the people
39:19
Speaker 1: that are really closest to you, saying this is what
39:21
Speaker 1: I'm working on, this is what I'm going through, and
39:23
Speaker 1: this is the kind of changes that I want to make,
39:24
Speaker 1: so they can come on the journey with you. They
39:26
Speaker 1: can understand when they can encourage you to do certain
39:29
Speaker 1: things and when they need to step back. You keep
39:31
Speaker 1: them up to date. If you live with your partner,
39:33
Speaker 1: if you're talking to your best friend. It's something that
39:35
Speaker 1: you keep them up to date with your therapy, the
39:36
Speaker 1: progress that you've made, the difficult things. That's also really
39:39
Speaker 1: going to help to talk through it with someone that
39:41
Speaker 1: understands where you are at. That is all for the
39:44
Speaker 1: episode of today. I really hope that was helpful and
39:48
Speaker 1: good times. That is all. As always, remember be kind
39:51
Speaker 1: to yourself, be kind to your brain, don't take shit
39:53
Speaker 1: from anyone, and especially don't take shit from yourself. Don't
39:55
Speaker 1: care