Systematic Desensitization for Social Anxiety

As a person who experiences social anxiety myself, I know that the amount of anxiety can be different in different situations. With me, for instance, I have little or no anxiety when it comes to meetings at work, or speaking and performing in front of large groups of people. If you saw me in one of those situations, and then saw me out at a bar, you probably wouldn't recognize me because I freeze up so bad. There are other situations where the amount of anxiety I feel is somewhat in between those two, such as cashing out at a store, or talking to someone on the street.

What does the amount of anxiety have to do with Systematic Desensitization? First we have to know what it is. Systematic desensitization is a method that therapists use to incrementally lessen the amount of fear we have in a specific situation by slowly exposing us to situations in which we feel more anxiety. The good news is, you don't necessarily need a therapist to use systematic desensitization to your advantage. If you are motivated it can help you overcome your anxiety as long as you take the time to do it right.

The first thing you need to do is pay attention to how you feel about various situations. In a given situation, how badly do you experience anxiety. Figure out, on a scale from 0 (no anxiety)to 10 (the worst anxiety), how bad your anxiety is in each situation. Now write out the situations in order from least anxiety to most, along with the number you gave it, in a list on a piece of paper or a document on your computer.

Here are some ideas for situations that you might want to put on your list:

• Calling a friend
• Calling a business (utility company, travel agent, bank, doctors office, etc...)
• Saying "Hi" to someone passing by
• Asking someone passing by a question
• Asking for help in a store
• Talking to the cashier while cashing out at a store
• Carrying on a conversation with a waiter/waitress
• Going for an interview
• Talking to random people in a bar
• Approaching random people at a store to get an opinion
• Giving a presentation in front of a small group of people
• Giving a presentation in front of a large group of people
• Starting a conversation with a beautiful woman or handsome man

Now you are ready to begin to desensitize yourself, but you need to be carefull. If you attempt to move too fast, you could easily make your anxiety worse by getting into a situations where you reinforce your fears. This is why you ranked the situations, you should start with the 1's and slowly move up to the situations where you experience more anxiety. Now you need to get yourself into these low anxiety situations 5 or more times a day. Each time you are in the situation pay attention to your breathing, making sure to take deep, relaxed breaths. Pay attention to your feelings and anxiety levels. Each night, sit down with your list and note how your anxiety has changed.

Once you are comfortable in a situation on your list, move on to something a little bit less comfortable. Just don't over do it, and move to a situation that you arn't ready for. You may notice that as you move through the list your anxiety in the higher anxiety situations on the list may be lessened.

It is possible that at some point on the list the anxiety in all of the situations will suddenly drop quite a bit or be completely gone. This is because of the way our brains work. Our brains use fear to protect us from dangerous situations. This is a function that ensures our survival by keeping us from getting hurt or killed. Unfortunately, our brains interpret emotional pain in the same way that they interpret physical pain, so when we get emotionally hurt our brains cause us to feel fear when we get into the same or similar situations. These associations are known as triggers. In any given situation there can be more than one trigger, which can cause the fear to be greater overall. A situation that you originally ranked as a 7 on your list may have only one trigger where a 9 might have 4 incuding that 7. If you eliminate the association that causes the anxiety in the 7, it will no longer exist in the 9 and your nine will drop down on your list.

With patience and perseverance, doing this should help you minimize your social anxieties. You may also wish to consider using other methods in conjunction with systematic desensitization in order to possibly speed your progress such as:

• Seeing a Therapist
• Seeing a Hypnotist
• Using NLP Techniques
• Using Self-Hypnosis techniques

Good luck and please remember that if you are not careful using this technique, you can reinforce the fears that cause your anxiety. Please remember to progress slowly and carefully so that this does not happen.