Recognizing the Main Symptoms of Social Anxiety

In order to beat your adversary, you must understand it. So the first step is to understand the symptoms of social anxiety before you can beat it. There are the physical symptoms of course, such as blushing, racing pulse and sweating. These are prompted by social situations being interpreted as dangerous giving rise to a flight or fight response.

People who experience social anxiety do so as a result of a genetic predisposition to developin certain personality traits. These traits have a tendency to make you hypersensitive to what other may be thinking about you. These can result in a number of thought patterns that can paralyze you in certain situations. If you experience social anxiety here are some thought patterns you may recognize:

More anxiety about someone noticing your anxiety than about having the anxiety in the first place.

Dread of situations in which you could not easily disappear from the spot light if you needed to.

People thinking you are, "quiet," when that's not the real you.

Being afraid that someone will notice that your voice is shaking, your hand is sweating, your face is blushing, or some other physical sign of anxiety.

Wanting to speak up and show people how interesting and smart you can be, only to find that the thought of speaking up is enough to start your heart pounding or your breath to feel like it's been sucked out of you.

Find out more about the symptoms of social anxiety and how to beat them.